Mega Template

INTRODUCTION

LET US CAREFULLY CONSIDER THESE KEY TOPICS FOR STUDY, ANALYSIS, AND DISCUSSION

IN ORDER TO BEST FACILITATE AND GUIDE OUR FOCUS & FLOW.

THESE IDENTIFY THE ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS, CONNECTIONS & CREATIONS.

THEY BECOME THE POSSIBLE FORCES AND FACTORS FOR KEY STAKEHOLDERS.

AND THEY RESULT IN THE TRANSFORMED LIVES OF

INDIVIDUALS, MARRIAGES, FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES.

PURPOSES  

(invisible factors and forces that heavily influence the visible factors and forces)

intentions, aspirations, wants, aims, desires, dreams, seeking, passions, issues, reasons, dynamics, contexts, settings, background, history, genealogy, motivations, commitments, legal requirements, corporate citizenship, community involvement, perceptions, viewpoints, worldviews, outlooks, principles, ethics, hopes, expectations, worldviews, presuppositions, philosophies, biases,

LEADERSHIP

(executive perspective)  

mission, vision, values, priorities, WWWWWH, long term and big picture viewpoint, sustainability, scalability, SWOT, SMART goals, strategies, tactics, priorities, policies, guide corporate culture, shape brand, oversight, accountability, create and use and revise the business plan facets    

MANAGEMENT

(operational perspective)

following executive leadership, planning, organizing, directing, staffing, controlling, coordinating, milestones, objectives, project management, PERT, CPM, tasks, checklists, protocols, procedures, policies, roles, responsibilities  

INFRASTRUCTURE  

(frameworks and things used to move the data, things, ideas and relationships along)

systems, legal, financial, database, communications, buildings, factories, warehouses, vehicles, equipment, tools, furniture

INTERACTIONS  

(relationships with stakeholders including: board, executives, managers, workers, contractors, prospects, customers, clients, advisers, associates, government agencies, etc.)

internal reporting, staff training, marketing, sales, customer service, advertising, public relations, human resources

INPUTS

(what must be acquired and added to the mix)

resources, supplies, means, assets, capital, investments, personnel, savings, credit, property, material, data, information, evidence, expert opinions, wise advice, legal counsel, eye witness testimony,  statistics, polls, surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, market sector analysis, consumer survey results, raw material, parts, marketplace analysis, trends, intuition, hunches, interviews, focus groups,

THROUGHPUTS – WAYS   

(proven ways to engage with data, things, ideas and people)

processes, procedures, protocols, operations, techniques, methods, talents, skills, background, contacts, compare-contrast, summarize, synthesize, observe-interpret-apply, evaluate, discern, analyze, conceptualize, reply, respond, review, critique, recordkeeping, reflect, ponder, study, research, investigate, test, experiment, probe, inquire, inspect, feedback, comment, evaluate, judge, diagnose, release, forgive, let go, accept, love, care, show kindness, empathize, support, encourage, empower, teach, train, correct, direct, guide, help, serve, reconcile, make amends, make restitution, release, redeem, conceptualize, imitate, comprehend, reframe, change perspective, express,

THROUGHPUTS – SYSTEMS   

(proven systems to engage with data, things, ideas and people)

Blooms Taxonomy, personality types, strengths tests, aptitude tests, spiritual gifts inventory, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Six Thinking Hats, Six Human needs by Tony Robbins, Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, Herzberg's Motivators and Hygiene Factors, Pareto Principle (80-20), The Monroe Motivational Sequence (in Scrivener), Seven Slide Solution, Three Point Case, Scientific Method, Nursing Procedure ADPIE (Assess, Diagnose, Plan, Implement, Evaluate), (Whole, Part, Whole), (Be, Do, Have), (Get, Me, Give)

Much more

http://www.occupationalinfo.org/appendxb_1.html

http://research.uc.edu/sciencefair/resources-forms/topic-suggestions/scientific-method-v-engineering-design-procedures.aspx

http://www.nursing-theory.org/theories-and-models/

https://www.td.org/Publications/Newsletters/Links/2004/09/A-Five-Ms-Perspective-on-Leadership-Vs-Management

http://www.businessballs.com/pestanalysisfreetemplate.htm

http://www.businessballs.com/portersfiveforcesdiagram.pdf

http://www.businessballs.com/project.htm

http://www.businessballs.com/erik_erikson_psychosocial_theory.htm#erikson_psychosocial_theory_summary

http://www.slideshare.net/jobitonio/7-ms-of-management

http://coachdanwright.blogspot.com/2014/06/whole-part-whole.html

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/engineering-design-process/engineering-design-compare-scientific-method.shtml

OUTPUTS  

(what the enterprise creates and offers others)

products, modules, services, widgets, ends, blog posts, white papers, infographics, online video lessons, ebooks, ecourses, webinars, wiki, memberships, print booklets, print workbooks, offline seminars – workshops – classes - conferences,

OUTCOMES

(how the products and services influence others both short and long term)

results, impacts, changes, benefits, effects, customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction, transformations, transitions, reputation, image

I Have Decided to Retire

I reached 62 years old on April 23 of this year. That qualifies me to take early retirement with the social security. I have researched that option and placed my online application today. The website said to check back in about 5 days about status.

I have been homeless for nearly 11 months. God has blessed me to sleep in motels, missionary housing and a homeless shelter. Friends and family have given generously to meet my modest living costs. I have had a some small incomes from a few clients.

I am not ready or willing to go seek a job currently. I would rather invest my time and energy into projects that lead to progress in the ministry God has placed on my heart over the last 40 years.

Currently my focus is on converting blog posts into ebooks. Those will gradually earn me some income. And they will teach me how to make many more ebooks during the rest of my life. I have an intention to write 9 major ebooks in the coming years. The ones I am working on now are simple and short contrasted to those 9. They are simple summaries of my practical life lessons and ones that relate to the basics of the Christian faith.

By taking early retirement then I will receive 25 percent fewer dollars per month. And at this season of my life that is acceptable. In order to receive the full amount I would need to wait until I turn 66 years old. Four years from now seems like a super long time when each week I need to be concerned about basic housing.

The estimated amount I will receive will pay for me to continue at the shelter and have a nice margin beyond that. It is not enough to rent an apartment and that is OK for now.

I request your best prayers. Pray for this application be approved quickly and the benefits begin very soon.

THANKS again for your prayers.

Pray for My Publishing

Pray for My Publishing

I apologize that this writing is so wordy. But I do not know how to better communicate the width and depth of the challenges I face.

I need your prayers. I have been struggling to publish online an ebook about prayer. I guess spiritual opposition would not be a surprise. I mean it is not like I am teaching another way to make an omelet or how to better organize your closet.

Soon I will face an important set of challenges. Next week I will be taking a long Word document and then using an online service I will convert it into an ebook. I have attempted to publish like this several times before in the past and I did not succeed. The fault was not the online service but my own mental, emotional and spiritual issues. I got about this far and quit or got distracted.

Let me provide some context to this issue.

God graciously led me to a loving church community in 1975. There Jesus Christ gradually performed my drug rehab over the course of 18 months. There I learned to pray earnestly. I sought God to reveal His will for my life. I had made a mess of my life at 21 years old. As an answer to prayers I clearly felt that the will of God was for me to become a writer. That impression came to me when my mind was still scrambled due to the side effects of the drug abuse. God worked in me to give me back my right mind.

Over the course of these decades I have been writing steadily. There are those who must play their musical instrument. There are those who must draw or paint. For me, I must write nearly every day or I feel out of balance mentally and emotionally. Every week I write many pages. Others have said that they noticed the improvements.

After my drug rehab, God led me to hear the gospel message on a Christian radio station. I came to faith in Christ on January 16, 1977 at 23 years old. Shortly after that I felt the call of God on my life and I responded positively. What followed was another season of intense prayer to seek His guidance. All I wanted then and now is to know the will of God and do it well. Then I felt strongly impressed that it is God’s will that I would become a publisher as well as a writer. That answer to prayers was super clear.

If a person seeks to become a dentist or a nurse, then there are career paths need to be followed to get the training and get the legal approvals. But to become a writer and a publisher the career path is not well defined.

At first I sought to get a job in the publishing industry. But those doors were closed. As I prayed, I felt God reply that I need first to learn about people and the Bible. I have been learning about those for decades.

Along the way I kept practicing writing. Most of my writing for years was to request prayers. It has been a wonderful way for me to learn how to be open, honest and unpretentious. I recall during the 1980s I used electric typewriters and photocopy machines. The amount of prayers I could request was limited to the amount of money I had for copies and postage. So you can imagine my delight when email came along. I did not have to spend so much time, energy and money to mail out 7 to 12 letters every few weeks. Gradually my requests for prayer included Bible teachings or words of encouragement and exhortation as short articles.

I recall when my brother told me about blogs for the first time. My reaction was, “Who would want to use that?” Well it turns out that I have been using them steadily ever since. I have many blogs that are basically collections of useful links with my comments. I also have many blogs that archive my emails and lessons.

Besides blogs I also have many websites and some online videos. And I consider all of these as forms of publishing.

Nearly all my material online is Christian centered. I seek to inspire, instruct and equip others.

All along the way I have been mostly self-taught. I did take some courses at this community college to learn the basics when the Internet was brand new in the mid-1990s.

I continued to pray and request prayers. Little by little God revealed His vision and game plan for ministry. This changed in minor ways over the years. But at the core it always involved sharing resources with Christians so they could find and fulfill their ministry. It included ways to weave together the various digital technologies to make a way for people online to collaboratively create educational modules. Besides Christian education materials there will also be practical lessons about agriculture, animal husbandry and literacy to serve those in developing countries.

The Lord led me to invest many hundreds of hours over the years to learn about Internet marketing. This will prove useful for the ministry. And it could have proven useful for me to earn an income online. But that is when I discovered that I have had some a deep seated fear of success as well as a fear of failure.

I fear success because it is possible that I might compromise my Christian values and go back to the drugs, alcohol and promiscuity that dominated my life before rebirth. I fear failure because after becoming successful and ministering to many I could relapse. That would be shameful and painful. I would hurt many that had trusted me. These dual fears are in me because when I was a very young and impressionable believer a few ministers were caught in blatant sins and lost their ministry. I was hurt then and I do not want to hurt others.

It seems that my subconscious has come up with a clever strategy. If I never succeed then I will never face those temptations to relapse and I will not fall from success to disappoint others like I was. There is some crazy logic there. It is a major factor in why I have remained so poor for so long after researching so much, planning so much, requested prayers so much and attempting to launch the ministry so many times.

An important part of the vision for ministry is for future ministers to learn how to earn a passive income online through harnessing digital media to teach. There are several online teachers that have guided thousands of people to find their online niche. Then they were able to leave their boring corporate jobs to work from home while earning much more than before. There are all kinds of options for delivering the content including: blogs, videos, online courses, webinars and ebooks.

Today there are bi-vocational pastors that work a job part time and pastor part time. What the Internet allows is the opportunity to gradually grow a following online of customers that could pay the cost of living for future church planters and missionaries. I had told this to many seminary students when I was there but none made it happen. Then I realized that I need to lead my by example. I need to learn how this is done through trial and error. That will both give me credibility and many valuable insights.

What the online teachers say is to choose a subject that you are passionate about and that you will be willing to continue doing without any outside motivation. The passion will connect with others at a deep level and it will keep you going.

My cash flow has been very thin for a long while. God has made a way for my modest bills to be paid as I have lived at the homeless shelter for ten months. Frankly I have gotten tired of barely making it from week to week. I have prayed about getting a job, but I have not had the motivation to do that.

While considering my current condition I recalled the possibility of earning income by publishing online.

What I had been motivated to do during these ten months has been to write prayers. And I have written some psalms. I have gladly shared copies with friends for free. Yet I came to recognize that there are those who might value them and could pay me a small amount for a collection of them.

So I have recently turned my attention toward gathering these materials into an ebook format. This involved going back to the archives of the prayers and psalms that I had shared already. There was far more material there than I had expected. I have been gradually going through each one to edit and polish it. I have been arranging these using an excellent software for writers named Scrivner.

When I started down this path about a week ago I expected to have been done by now. But the volume of material in the archives was 3 times as much as I expected. That means much more work for me and more blessings for my readers. I request your prayers that God will anoint me in this season of editing.

Also I will be including some images from the public domain to spice up the publication. I had done that before with a few of my other online publications. Pray for God to guide me as I seek and find the suitable images. Then I will need to crop them and insert them into the manuscript.

Then comes the technical hurtle. I will upload that manuscript to LeanPub. The servers there will convert it into formats so it can be read on smart phones, tablets, readers and computers. I can set the price for my ebook and offer discount coupons. The service only charges 10 percent and that is far less than other services.

I will create a basic website with a simple web address. From there I will link to this ebook and future ebooks. I have enough materials on my blogs to create 3 more ebooks by just gathering and editing..

I might create a Facebook page to promote these too.

Then I can use business cards, flyers and evites to spread the word about the options.

I must take great care to come from a place of seeking to serve others and not seeking success. When I have thoughts and feelings of greed then my creativity shuts down.

By faith I believe this could gradually grow a passive income steam for me. It is called passive income because after it is online then the automated systems do all the promoting and sales. The income gets sent to the bank account without needing to do anything.

Getting over this set of challenges is important for me. During the coming years I hope to publish many more ebooks. I already have the outlines and rough drafts for them. Plus when I will make writing and publishing online a healthy habit then it will eventually grow and income to pay all my bills. It will give me the credibility and insights I will use to lead others to do the same.  

Lord willing sometime next week I will complete the ebook and begin to promote it to friends. I will give them the coupon code to get it for free. Then I will ask for their prayers and feedback. I will use their comments and edits to make improvements before I promote it to the public. That is how I can get around my other internal obstacle of perfectionism.

THANKS for all your prayers.

There is no way I could have gotten this far except that many have prayed for me over the decades. And there is no way I will reach those in the future unless I continue to request prayers.

God will answer prayers in His time and in His ways. He will get all the glory.

Why I Do Not Seek a Job

Why I Do Not Seek a Job

This article was begun on January 1, 2015. This New Year’s Day I have been thinking backward and forward about my life. I like to reflect in this way and write at this interval and my birthday, April 23^rd.

Currently I am living at a homeless shelter in Dallas Texas. I have been here for 6 months. I had found myself suddenly homeless after serving 2 years as the house manager of a sober house and before that I worked 12 years at the help desk in the student computer lab of a seminary.

I have had various jobs during my 61 years and I will mention those later.

During my stay here many friends and relatives have repeatedly recommended that I just get a job. I have told them in person and on the phone why I have not done that. This is a way to both share what I told them as well as provide a much larger context.

It started as a small child when I closely bonded with my grandfather. My parents took me and my younger brother to stay with my mother’s father for 1 to 3 nights at a time. He was retired by the time I came into his life. He was always working on projects in his garage, attic and garden. And he invited me to help him even from a very young age. He taught me how to use various hand tools and power tools. It seemed to me that life was a continual adventure with lots or problems to solve.

My mother said he had owned more than 20 businesses in his life. These included general stores, rabbit farm, aluminum siding company and various others. He would invest his money in oil and gas wells as well as real estate and stocks. Also he worked as a commission sales man for a long while. So he was a wheeler dealer that made things happen. He lived in a modest house in a quiet neighborhood. He seemed content and satisfied with life.

That was the beginning of my wanting to become an entrepreneur.

I told my high school guidance counselor in that I wanted to go into business for myself. His job was to help recommend majors and colleges. But back in the 1960s there were no majors suited to meet my desire. These days Stanford and a few other universities have this entrepreneurial degree path.

I grew up in Houston Texas. I was told that those who started the successful oil and gas companies there had a similar background. They got an engineering degree, then an MBA and then went to work for a big company for some years. They wrote a business plan and got bank financing. So that was the path I headed down but it did not work for me.

I attended Georgia Tech in Atlanta Georgia. While I had made good grades in high school, my grades in college were terrible. I was on and off academic probation. That means I almost flunked out a few times. While at high school I sat close to the front and paid close attention. Everything on the test was said 3 times in class. I did not study for test but passed with Bs. At college they had lots of reading of textbooks and others books. The items on the tests came from the readings and I did not have the self-discipline to keep up with that kind of teaching.

To complicate matters I had romantic relationships with 3 wonderful women over my 3 years there. But each one ended sadly and depression followed. The last one of those was an engagement.

I became a member of a social fraternity where I consumed too much beer on weekends.

The social fraternity did provide a setting to experience leadership and I enjoyed that. I proposed and followed through on innovative projects that gave my entrepreneur spirit a way to express itself.

During high school I was a leader in a Boy Scout group that was involved in sailing. We needed to raise funds to clean up a sail boat that had been donated to our troop. The need was about 400 dollars. I came up with the idea to sell Christmas trees. We ended with a net profit of about 1100 dollars that year and in future years they expanded operations to raise 2000 and 3000 dollars. That allowed our unit to buy several small Dolphin sail boats and a trailer for them.

Also while with those scouts I got tired of just sailing in the Galveston Bay. With my innovative idea and leadership we went to the Bahamas to sail. I went there as a leader for 3 years. And long after I had left the scout unit continued to go there.

Like my grandfather I was seeing life as an adventure with lots of problems to solve.

My father has advised me many times just to go to work for a large corporation. He said to do my job well and I will be noticed. Then I will be advanced. Then all will be well with big paycheck plus benefits. That does seem reasonable. Millions of others have gone down that path. During the decades I have worked for many companies. I did my job well. Sometimes I was offered advancement but I declined. I had noticed how they had mistreated those 1 and 2 levels above my entry level job. They paid them a salary instead of a wage and then wore them out with extra work but no overtime. They did not appreciate their contributions but were always pushing hard and getting upset over little things. I have worked in fast food, retail, machine shop, airport limousine, health care, printing, building maintenance, grounds maintenance, residential house painting and other industries. I have been repeatedly disappointed in the poor quality of training for new employees and lack of ongoing training. The company depends on the workers to provide value for the customers but does not invest in them.

I used these dead end jobs as a way to pay my bills so that I could invest my time in ministry related projects. I went to public and collegiate libraries as much as possible to find a quiet place to study. From the libraries I checked out many materials that were related to my current interests. I especially studied books and videos on marketing, psychology, management, biographies, documentaries, church history, world religions and creativity. Then when the Internet offered a high speed connection to my residence I went to the libraries much less. Instead I was online most of my waking hours.

The job I had on staff at the seminary for 12 years was a huge blessing because after I had done my chores and helped the students I was free to work on my projects. During those years I did extensive online research and I have thousands of links bookmarked. Many of those links I put into orderly collections and published them on blogs and websites. I have dozens of blogs and most of them are topical like that. Here is just a sampling http://www.valuableresourceshub.webs.com/ and http://www.freewebs.com/jsohub/blogs.htm Also I published many online articles here http://simplelessons.webs.com/portfolio.htm.  Those online resources proved useful when I talked with a missionary, international student or church planter. When I learned of their need for resources then I just emailed them the link to the blog or article. They used it later. I find that repeatedly how God uses me is to equip leaders for their ministry. Most people are amazed at how many websites I know about that suit their need. By contrast I know zero about sports statistics, celebrity gossip or political debates. They do not interest me.

I have had a deep desire to know my purpose in life and to fulfill it. That has been strongly with me since I was 13 years old. Then I was an agnostic. So I did not have God or the Bible as a frame of reference.

I came to faith in Christ at age 23 in 1977. That was after dropping out of college for the first time. Then I drifted into a New Age Cult that made more sense to me than the church services I had attended. While in the cult I abused drugs. I scrambled my mind with drug overdoses. God answered the prayers of my mother and her friends so that I was delivered me from the drugs and cult. Jesus placed me in a church based rehab program. There I was surrounded by loving people, prayers, worship, group counseling, Holy Communion and others that were on a journey of major transformation.

During my drug rehab I came to recognize that I had made a wreck of my life. I came to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ could redeem my life. This was a season of intense prayer and Bible study. I was listening to the Christian radio station constantly. My rebirth was January 16 and my water baptism was January 30, 1977. Shortly after that I felt the strong call of God on my life to go into ministry.

I talked with my pastor and he recommended Houston Baptist University that was near the church. Many of his members that sought to go into ministry had attended and graduated there. This set the stage for the 2^nd and 3^rd time I dropped out of college. Technically all 3 times I did not quit classes but I just did not enroll again due to a major shift in my life.

I was reborn in January 1977. At that time I had a ravenous appetite for the Word of God. I had never read it before. I deeply desired to fully serve the Lord in being faithful to fulfill my calling. Soon after I began attending college classes I fell in love with a wonderful woman. We had an intense romance and were soon engaged. Her uncle had been going around the country planting churches. My dream was to marry her, complete my education and learn how to plant churches by assisting her uncle. But then a man came and seduced my fiancée. She broke up with me and married him. I was absolutely devastated. I lost my hope for marriage and vision for ministry. I could hardly function because I was so depressed. A friend invited me to stay in his guest bedroom for many weeks as I recovered.

During that recovery I prayed earnestly and often. My faith and trust in God were gradually restored. During that time it was new for local churches to offer mother’s day out programs. I had been seeking God for His will for my life during that recovery. I felt God was calling me to get the education to become the founder of a Christian day care center. I had heard that children are very effectively influenced for the Christian faith during those formative years. I went to the college and talked with a counselor. I learned that the State of Texas had just that year introduced certification for pre-school teachers. I returned to the classroom the next year. By the way I was making good grades because the testing was easier.

Then I was shocked to learn that the professors were teaching a very liberal view of Christianity. One professor that was the head of the Christianity department was teaching me Old Testament and New Testament Overview classes. He stated early in the term that the Bible is full of myths, fairy tales and legends. There are some good moral lessons that you can take or leave. A professor that was the head of the Psychology Department said in class that what she recommends for marriages that are on the rocks is for one of the partners to have an affair to spice things up. I raised my hand and asked “What about thou shalt not commit adultery?” She ignored my question. I went to talk with her in the hallway later. She said I used to believe like you but then I out grew it. This school was part of the Southern Baptist Convention. I reported these incidents to the Academic Dean. He said they knew about it. But the leadership was committed to become a high ranking liberal arts school.

All that time I had been listening to Christian radio Bible teachers. They and my pastor said that the Bible is the Word of God. We are to learn it and apply it. The scriptures are the basis of our faith related to rebirth, the Christian life and our hope of a heavenly home in eternity with Jesus Christ.

I guess that the other church members who were seeking to enter ministry did not know better or had a solid foundation for their faith. I was clearly aware that I was clueless about matters related to the Bible and Christianity. I recognized that I was vulnerable to how I would minister in the future based on how I was trained during this season.

This caused another major crisis of my faith. If I continued in that school then I would be shaped by their views of the Bible and Jesus Christ. The more closely I listened to their teachings the less impressed I was contrasted to the conservative Bible teachers on the radio. So I came to God and said “You delivered me from alcohol abuse, drug abuse and a cult. You called me to the ministry. So you are going to need to train me for my calling.” That was the start of my lifelong learning using the libraries and Internet.

Many times I earnestly and humbly submitted my life to Christ for decades. I looked to my Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, to guide me. I have asked God for His wisdom and requested others to pray for God to grant me His wisdom.

In the deepest part of my heart I have had a knowing that God put me here for a unique purpose. God has put into my soul a unique combination of talents that are related to my calling. My ongoing challenge is to discover and develop those talents for His glory. Along this pathway I have been self-taught in various computer skills. I have learned how to publish online articles, blogs, videos and sermons.

It was a difficult journey lasting years to teach myself the basics of the Christian faith. I have since come to recognize that most long time church members do not know the basics that make up the foundation of our faith. Hearing various sermons, Sunday school lessons, radio teachers and reading some books usually leaves a very weak foundation. Along this journey I committed to God that if I ever figure out the basics then I will teach them to others. This relates to my new direction for 2015 that I will describe later.

This article is already longer and more complex than I expected. So let me briefly mention a few points that I will write about later.

I have had 3 near-death experiences. Those reminded me of my mortality and motivated me to recommit to follow Jesus daily no matter the cost.

I was also engaged to be married 3 times but I was never married. For decades I have been single, celibate and content. I have had zero interest in dating. Marriage has zero appeal for me. All I want to do is seek first the kingdom of God, follow Jesus Christ daily and be a faithful doer of the Word of God. That boils down to doing what it takes to fulfill my calling.

I have been seeking God for a vision for my life and ministry. During these past decades I have had many visions for ministry. They were different in terms of the target audience to be served and how that happened. But it always had the common factors of using the latest kind of media to educate people. The education was so that the learner could become knowledgeable, equipped and supported to express their God given talents in ways that served the kingdom of God and earned income. Someday I will write an article that briefly describes these visions for ministry since 1970s.

These visions for ministry are rooted in my 3 main passions of education, missions and media. My complete commitment is to trust and obey the Lord Jesus Christ. I seek to know and do the will of God as revealed in the Word of God and as prompted by the Holy Spirit. I desire to abide in the True Vine, Jesus Christ to bear much fruit for His glory.

The Bible is my source for truth and guide book for my life. In the Scriptures I find that the Great Commission is the guiding light. God has commanded me to go make disciples for the Lord Jesus Christ. In order to make a disciple that person must become biblically literate. And they need to apply what the Word says. Knowing what is right to do and actually doing it is where the challenge of discipleship happens. It is the media that can support the disciple of Christ to learn, apply and receive support.

I have literally hundreds of pages of notes about my plans and preparations for ministry. I have dozens of mind maps. Every week God inspires me to add more to this. It is huge and complex. It is global in scale.

I have a deep sense that I will personally give an account to the Lord Jesus Christ as to what I did with the calling He gave to me.

During these decades I have been the member of churches in the Houston and Dallas areas. These included church plants of a few dozen members to megachurches of several thousand members. They included these denominations: Episcopalian, Lutheran, Assembly of God, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Quaker, independent Charismatic and independent fundamentalist. I found that each group had odd ideas about the other groups that were not true. None of them had a clue of the history of their denomination or church history in general. And there was ignorance about even the basics of world religions.

Each Christian denomination has an origin story that was typically a reaction to the imbalances or extremes of other churches at that time. The reaction led them to emphasize a few Bible verses or biblical concepts. Yet along the way they neglected or ignored many important parts of the Bible.

The great tragedy of our time is that those who are born again do not begin to appreciate how amazing that salvation is. They have not been taught of the riches of God just in the miracle of rebirth. They seem to be in a rush to learn all kinds of advanced things while skipping over the basics.

There are several major world religions including Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Roman Catholicism. Also there are major cults like Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses. The difference between those and biblical Christianity boils down to the grace of the loving God expressed in sending His only Son. Simple faith in Christ is the only means of biblical salvation. Other religions and cults do not have a loving God, faith alone as the means of salvation or eternal security.

We are in an age when agnostics and atheists are more out spoken. They are having a greater impact on college campus and in popular media. Yet church members lack the knowledge of basic apologetics to understand that biblical Christianity is reasonable and right. I have shared these links that have helped other learn much from Christian organizations that specialize in this field http://valuableresourceshub.webs.com/apologeticsetc.htm  

It is during the college years that young adults are asking the tough questions about life. They are wrestling with all kinds of matters at the same time. Unfortunately the local church spends very little time or energy to serve these people during this critical time. And statistically as much as 75 percent that were active in their church during high school drift away from the faith during college. Studies have shown that one of the main reasons is that they were not given meaningful ministry. The ministry God has laid on my heart will involve many hundred college students online as volunteers.

Here is a blog post where I describe how I hope to work with college students to create online educational modules for subsistence farmers, orphans and rural pastors in remote villages of developing countries. http://osccrowdfundingplatform.blogspot.com/2015/01/let-us-get-ball-rolling.html

As a major milestone toward that long term vision I am focused this year on collaboratively creating a wiki that addresses the essentials of biblical Christianity including how to address the holistic needs of a person committed to becoming a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The bottom line is that my mind, heart and files are overflowing with ideas about how to minister. When I  have had full time and part time jobs before I could more easily pay my bills. But I also had little time or energy left to work on the ministry. I slid into depression that sometimes became despair. That led to suicidal thoughts and death wishes. When I called Suicide and Crisis Hotline it always got back to the source of my dark feelings was that I was not making progress toward fulfilling my calling.

Most of the people I know are married with children. They have said directly and indirectly that they live for the sake of their spouse, children and grandchildren. That is totally understandable and natural. Yet please take note that I have never been married. I do not have children. My ONLY desire is to fulfill the ministry that God has put on my heart and in my mind.

So when I have had those dead end jobs in the past I could pay my basic bills yet I had to often wrestle with thought like I do not want to live or I want to not live. My life had zero meaning. There was zero purpose to put up with the tedious rat race of daily existence.

All my ordinary time was spent on barely surviving. Note that I have never had more than 700 dollars more than my immediate bills. That was only a very few times before I bought a clunker of a car.

I will end here. But you will never know the agony of dealing with those dark thoughts and emotions for many years. Sometimes it was dozens of times an hour night and day. At least while staying at the shelter I have all day to work on the ministry. And I am working on 2 projects that could allow me to afford to move to a better residence.