Category: Christianity

Sharpen Your Ax

Sharpen Your Ax

Expand Your Skills to Succeed

If you want to succeed in life, your education cannot end when you graduate. All leaders are learners, and you need to continue learning the rest of your life. Because the moment you stop growing, your contribution to your company stops growing also.

Ecclesiastes 10:10 says, “If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success.” (NIV) It’s important to work smarter, to sharpen your ax. You waste less time when you do this.

How do you sharpen your ax? By filling your head with learning – read a book, listen to a seminar, take a class, attend church. If you keep learning, then God can continue to expand your horizons.

“Do yourself a favor and learn all you can; then remember what you learn and you will prosper.” (Proverbs 19:8 TEV) The solution to most of life’s problems is training. So learn all you can.

That’s why I encourage my congregation to take notes during my sermons. Did you know that if you don’t, then within 72 hours you’ll forget 95 percent of what you hear? So you may look real spiritual, but you’re not real bright.

Learn all you can and remember what you learn and watch how God blesses your work.

RW, Daily Devotion

Am I gifted for this?

God doesn’t recruit you without a calling. God calls everybody to use the gifts and the passion that they have, but not everyone picks up the phone.

The only way you’re going to hear is if you listen. You’ve got be quiet, you’ve got to get alone and spend time with God.

When Mordecai sends Esther word that the Jews are going to be annihilated, he essentially says, “Don’t think that you can just ignore this disturbing trend. Yeah, I know it’s been tough, but this is your destiny. God put you here. It’s no accident that you are a Jewish girl and now the queen of Persia.’

It’s important to read on and see Esther’s response to Mordecai in Esther 4:15, “Go, gather together all the Jews and fast for me. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law” (NIV).

Esther knows confronting the king is likely to mean certain death. She’s going to have to use her gifts of beauty, brains, and personality to persuade him. But before she goes to see him, she sets aside three days to fast and pray before God.

When you are seeking God’s call on your life, follow Esther’s example. First, get all the support you can. Second, you need extended time alone with God. I want to encourage you to schedule a retreat with God. Whether it’s an overnight, a weekend, or longer if you can, you won’t hear God’s call on your life if you don’t get alone with him.

RW

  • Prayer for the City which is suffering from a lonely battle for peace and freedom and righteousness.

Small group discussion: ground rules

Does your small group have ground rules?
All relationships have ground rules. Small groups are no exception.

Even if you have not formally established the ground rules for your group, members likely perceive a set of guidelines. Unfortunately, conflict can result when different people have different ideas about what conduct is expected in any group, including a Bible study. In general, small groups and other church groups are more fruitful when rules are not unspoken.

So what are the basic ground rules that you should have for your small group? This will vary between different groups, but the following five are a good baseline.

1. What happens in small group stays in small group.
People often share extremely personal information in small groups. This is generally a good thing, as it builds bonds and helps leaders in the discipleship of their community. However, this can go awry if people share this confidential information. Even if the information is not used for gossip, it still can make members reticent to talk about their challenges and other personal information. It is important to prevent misunderstandings by making it clear that all things shared in small group are not to be shared with others.

2. Everyone gets a turn.
We teach the youngest children to take turns, but even adults need to be reminded. It is important that no one in your small group community dominate conversation and also that every share their thoughts. If you have members who are more comfortable sharing when not in face to face discussions, consider getting a program such as StudyChurch. This allows more introverted members to contribute in ways they find more comfortable and also lets people who came unprepared get a chance to review material before weighing in.

3. Don’t take disagreements personally.
The most fruitful small groups often involve lively debate. However, this requires disagreement. Group members should be prepared to disagree in a polite and constructive way. The flip side of this is that they should be open to hearing people disagree with them. Doing this in a polite way is not just a great way to learn about different interpretations of God’s Word, but practice for success in real life as well.

4. Respect each others’ time.
There is a reason people are angered when others are late; if it happens often, it implies that the latecomer does not respect other people’s time. Similarly, forcing group to stay late shows a lack of respect for time. People in the modern world have a variety of commitments, so respect their time by always beginning and ending on time.

5. Do unto others.
The Golden Rule is one of the most important rules for all interaction. It’s important that members use common courtesy and show respect for each other. Everyone should feel respected and heard in a community of their brothers and sisters in Christ.

These are just the basic ground rules, so feel free to add others that are specific to the needs of your community. Setting ground rules will make your small groups go much more smoothly. Members will understand what is expected of them and how they can make the experience better both for themselves and others around.

Community Influencers = Social Asset

Love your neighbor? Want to practice love and support your community?  Join us in our community micro influencer movement.

A Community Influencer is a social asset who can influence the community by creating social value for the community, and in this particular case, bridging the gap of “digital divide” for less privileged groups in our community.

The digital divide is a term that refers to the gap or any uneven distribution in the access to, use of, or impact of information and technologies, between any distinct less-privileged groups, demographics or regions.

As we all notice, we are on the brink of the unprecedented digital revolution in the New Digital Economy in the 21st century. The rapid advance of technology significantly impacts how we live and learn, and the local community we belong to and increases the digital divide gap.

 

 

Biggest Trends Affecting Small Businesses and Local Economy

 

 

 

New Digital Economy is a major shift from a manufacturing and commodity based economy to the one that uses innovation and digital technology as the driving force of economic growth.

 

 

 

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The biggest trends

The biggest trends influencing small businesses and nonprofits in our community are digital transformation and online searches, such as mobile search, location-based search, and organic search results, the non-ad search results, lead 20 times more impacts

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Impacts of organic search

The organic search results significantly impact our local businesses, nonprofits or community projects, generating more leads and attention, but require experienced engineering resources and budget for the search engine optimization.

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Are you ready?

Many small businesses and nonprofits do not have the resource to keep up with the pace of technologies and digital transformation trends with the online presence and context

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Lack of online context

80% of small businesses cannot invest in content marketing and keywords analytics to keep up with the search engines and how to digitalise their presence on the web

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Small business online

36% of small businesses do not have a website to show their presence on the web.

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Micro-Influencers

85% of online users build their impression and make a decision based on the ratings and reviews of micro-influencers.

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The First Impression

48% of online users set their first impressions within 3 seconds based on the website and context found by onside search

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Declines of small businesses

The GDP share of small businesses has declined from 50.5% in 1998 to 44.6% in 2010.

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Bridge the gap

We believe bridging the gap of the digital divide of small businesses and nonprofits in our community can help the decline as you may have heard how the Amazon effect impacts small businesses in our economy.

How You Can Change This Trend?

 

 

Community micro influencers can contribute to change this trend by helping small businesses and nonprofits by bridging the gap of this digital divide.

Here’s what CMI can do and how it works.

 

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Join

First, join us by creating your account here.

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Confirm

You will receive an email confirming your registration. If you have not receive the email, you can contact us here with your contact information and your interest in becoming a CMI. We create an account for you.

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Make your list

Once you complete the registration process, prepare a brief list of small churches, nonprofits, people, small businesses and projects in your community you want to support, including name, address, brief description, category, keywords and the images or photos

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How it works

The platform aggregates the content, listings, location, map, category, keywords and search tags into structured data, continuously updating information by communicating with major search engines

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Act

List the content here (visit https://ckalist.org and click add listing), the secure, collaborative social platform, as a community listing. Now the information your provide becomes a searchable digital content in the cloud

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Invite

Invite your friends and community fans to join as CMIs and add their comments, reviews and ratings so that the community can see how many community fans and supporters of the listing you create.

85% of online users build their opinion and trust based on the reviews and ratings

 

 

You will be amazed how easy it is to become a social asset and make an influence for the community, helping them to bridge the gap of digital divide. The key is collaboration, doing this TOGETHER.

In a few days after adding the content, you can find the list, such as typing ckalist churches or ckalist best churches from Google search. The data you added becomes a digital database that is ready to find from Google search engine.

 

Search-Driven Economy by the Numbers

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of online experience begins with an online search and keywords

%

businesses have no online presence or marketing context for search engines

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of websites do not invest in content marketing to generate online leads

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of location-based mobile searches result in offline purchases

Empowering Small Businesses with Online Search Presence

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US Small Business GDP share

  • Small and medium-sized enterprises represent over 90 percent of the worldwide business population, 60~70% of employment and 55% of GDP in developed economies, according to the World Trade Organization.
  • In the United States, the small business created $5.9 Trillion, 43.5% of the $13.6 Trillion, according to the Small Business report published by US SBA in December 2018.
  • According to the report, small business GDP share has gradually declined from 48% in 1998 (adjusted from the previously published figure of 50.5% in 1998) to 43.5% in 2014. The wholesale and retail sector has declined more from 52.9% in 1998 to 42.1% in 2014.
  • The declining small business GDP share is attributable to the markedly faster growth of large businesses, according to the report.
  • Large business GDP grew 9.2%, almost double the small business growth rate, while small business GDP grew 4.8%.
  • In the New Digital Economy driven by innovation and technologies, the digital gap to adapt for the speed of digital transformation significantly impacts small businesses, influences people’s shopping experience, and escalates the importance of online search, digital marketing and digital business strategies, as seen in the rapid growth and influence of Google and Amazon.
  • Biggest trends affecting local businesses are mobile search, local search, online leads and ratings and reviews of micro-influencers.
  • Small businesses must adapt to this digitalization trend and find their niche to survive or to sustain their businesses.

 

[chart id="30015"]

Web Presence & Brand Images

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do not recommend a business with a Poorly designed & outdated website of the company

%

of the judgements on a company's credibility are made on the company's website

10 Things Every Christian Should Know

3 FUNDAMENTALS

EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD KNOW

Teacher, which is the great commandment?

One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing  Him.
Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?

Love Your God

You shall Love the Lord your God, with All Your Hearts,
and with All Your Soul, and with All Your Minds.

This is the great and foremost commandment.
– The 1st Greatest Commandment –

Love Your Neighbors

The second is, “You shall Love Your Neighbor as Yourself.”

On these two commandments depend on the whole Laws and the Prophets.
– 2nd Greatest Commandment –

Go and Make Disciples

Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying,
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

Therefore Go and Make Disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
and Teaching them to Obey everything I have commanded to you.

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
– The Great Commission –

Great Commission
Great Commandment
Purpose of Life, Calling & Life Application As A Christian

10 SUBJECTS

EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD KNOW

Setting The Biblical Basis for Healthy Christian Living.

01

Bible 

How has God made himself known through the Bible?  What does the Bible teach about the Bible?

02

God

The Study of God. Who he is and what he has done and will do.

 

03

Jesus Christ

The Study of the Son of God

 

04

The Holy Spirit

The study of the Holy Spirit

05

Angels 

The study of other spiritual beings: Angels, demons, and Satan.

06

Human

The study of humans: the bearers of God’s image.

 

 

07

Sins

The study of sin

08

Salvation

The study of salvation: God’s solution to the problem of sin.

09

The Church 

The study of the church: The body of Christ.

10

The Future

The Study of “Last Thing”: The Day of the Lord.

11

Wrap Up 

Great Commandment
Work & Worship. The Life Application.

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Wrap Up

Great Commission
Purpose of Life, My Calling and Life Application

Show it by your good life

Show it by your good life

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom” (James 3:13 NIV).

Have you noticed how common sense isn’t so common? A lot of smart people are not too wise. They may be educated, but they don’t have wisdom. They may have all kinds of degrees, but they’re a washout with relationships.

James 3:13 says that wisdom is a lifestyle: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom” (NIV).

Wisdom has nothing to do with your intelligence. It has everything to do with your relationships and your character. It’s not a matter of what you say with your lips but what you live with your life—not a matter of your words but of your works and not so much your diplomas but your disposition.

How can you know if you’re wise in the ways you relate to people? The Bible lists the characteristics of wise people in James 3:17: “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (NIV).

“Pure” means uncorrupted and authentic. In 1 John 3:3 this word is used to refer to Christ’s character. It means you have integrity. If you’re wise, you’re not going to lie to others, cheat them, manipulate them, or be deceitful.

All relationships are built on trust and respect. If you’re not honest, who’s going to trust you? Who’s going to respect you? You must have integrity in your life.

“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely” (Proverbs 10:9 NIV). They’re not afraid of being found out because they don’t say one thing to one group and another thing to another group. Someone said, “No one has a good enough memory to be a habitual liar.” Eventually that person is going to slip up. But if you’ve got integrity, you can walk securely and confidently in your relationships because you know you’re not putting people on.

Wise people do not compromise their integrity, because they know that having integrity is the only way to maintain healthy relationships.

Talk About It

  • Do you consider yourself a wise person? Why or why not?
  • What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?
  • Why is it important to have integrity in the small ways you relate to people and not just in your closest relationships?