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Four Reasons Every Christian Should Set Up a Blog Site

 

I believe that every Christian with a heart to serve God should consider setting up a blog site, I think there are (at least) 4 good reasons for this.  Before I go there, I want to emphasize that I am not saying that everyone should become a blogger.  Becoming a blogger is a separate issue, is not for everyone and is a topic for a separate post.

The online world is a relatively new phenomenon, Facebook has shown the public the power of connecting online.  Facebook has been a revolution for connectedness and communication.  Most social platforms however, limit and control how we can interact with the world, they are businesses and must do this to survive. They take advantage of our activities online to sell to marketers.  Facebook controls what we see, they control who sees our posts, they can turn the lights out or change the rules at any time, they have a right to do this because it is their network.  Who knows who has (or will have) access to our conversations on Facebook.

I’m not suggesting that we all get off Facebook or twitter I am suggesting that we own our online presence, we should control it, we should build it how we want it.  Every Christian with a heart to serve God should set up a blog site for the following reasons.

  1. A blog site provides a place on the web to call home that we own. Having a place on the web that is not subject to Facebook or other controlling and intrusive sites is and could become very important. Owning our own site gives us an online presence which enables us to share our message (or potential future messages) online.  Some of these we may not want to spray on Facebook, they may not be for a general audience, we may want to password protect them or just send links to select people.
  2. A blog site gives a place for other people to find out who we are and what our passions are. Look at it as a creative resume, as proof of our professionalism and experience.
  3. A blog site enables us to share our gifts or to share what God is giving us to share with the body of Christ and with the world. This is one of our responsibilities as children of God. When God gives us words of wisdom, words of knowledge or songs or teachings, etc.  we should be willing and eager to share these with others.  For the body of Christ, building a platform in the form of a blog is one great way to share “Christ in you”.
  4. A blog site can evolve into a business or enable opportunities in the future, start building now.

If you’d like help to get started down this path learn more by clicking here or leave a comment below.

What questions or reservations do you have about building your own blog site?

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Evaluating Your Ideas

Some people do the bulk of their creativity through the generation of ideas. The language of ideas is what they know and how they create.   Ideas constantly, they are not always good at execution but ideas come to their mind all the time. Some have called this idea-diarrhea, Stu McLaren referred to this recently at the platform conference and I realize that I’ve “suffered” from this condition.  Coming up with idea after idea before I’ve had a chance to significantly execute on any one of them.

Ideas may come easy, but to take the next step of execution we must learn to put our ideas through an evaluation process to screen out the bad ones, or at least the ones to not spend time on.

Every idea-person can learn to evaluate their ideas with the following three evaluating questions.

  1. Is the idea some thing that I can execute on? if the idea is not something I can make happen then I must learn to drop it or sell it, ideas are sold in the form of patents or trademarks, if you can’t do that then drop the idea or sit on it until you can execute. Write it down and wait on a day when perhaps you can execute.
  2. Is the idea based on your knowledge or on your ignorance? Many ideas occur because of the large body of knowledge that we have, knowledge often stimulates ideas.  But many other ideas are based on ignorance. We often have ideas due to things that we don’t fully understand. Ignorance-based ideas can be powerful, missing knowledge that would normally kill and idea prematurely in the mind of a person more knowledgeable, can stay alive and develop to the point of a great idea. I’ve seen this in action more than once, people who normally are not knowledgeable around a topic can innovate better than the expert.  In this situation others who understand more have already processed and often dismissed an idea long ago.
  3. Does the idea need further development? the answer to this question is almost always yes, sharing ideas is usually what gives them legs. Most ideas at the start are vague concepts that the person has little understanding around. Discussion of ideas and research either kills them or strengthens them.  It helps to have multiple people help with this process of idea evaluation.  After the initial idea phase, partnership with an execution person is often just the thing that your idea needs.

Use of these 3 idea-evaluating questions can help your idea and get it into the execution phase.

How many ideas and projects do you have sitting around waiting to be completed?

Sign up for email updates below, people have asked about my creative language test, if you are interested in this online test (similar to a personality test) it will be launched this week.

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Goals Met at the 2014 Platform Conference

platform logo

I was fortunate enough to attend the Platform conference in beautiful Colorado Springs in early November put on by Michael Hyatt and Ken Davis.  I won the ticket to this conference at the SCORRE conference in May.  This conference was hosted by the Broadmoor Resort and Hotel, I started this post sitting in my 5 star room before the Tuesday morning session, this is the nicest hotel I’ve stayed in, to be honest I didn’t want to leave my room because of the room itself.  As the sun rose on the mountains I felt spoiled.

Colorado Springs was amazing, I’ve never been to Colorado before and now I realize that I’ve never actually seen a mountain before this trip, I am an east coast guy, mountains are amazing.

Here is a photo I shot from my balcony just as I wrote this as the sun came up.

mountain sunrise from balcony

mountain sunrise from balcony

In the Broadmoor there is a hall of fame on the wall in the foyer of the hotel showing photos of famous people who’ve stayed there including the past two presidents.

I had three goals for this 2-day conference that were fully met, I think that meeting these goals can only happen at events like these, the caliber of the speakers and attendees was amazing.  Going in my 3 goals were:

  1. Meet two people who I can share my platform with and help to launch products with down the road.
  2. Join a mastermind group or feel comfortable starting one.
  3. Get 2 ideas on how to make income quickly.

All three of these goals were met by Monday as well as much more I hadn’t expected:

  • I met people like Pat Flynn and Stu McLaren two of the most helpful podcasters and entrepreneurs out there.
  • I learned how to turn casual followers  into raving fans from Pat Flynn
  • I learned how to design a stress-free and profitable business from Stu McLaren.
  • I learned how to use Facebook marketing from Amy Porterfield
  • I learned how to get out there and start my business with Casey Graham
  • I learned the 3 lies we believe that hold us back by Crystal Payne author of the moneysavingmom.com blog.
  • I learned why it so hard for us to sell our products with Ray Edwards
  • I learned why podcasting is still in its infant stage and why it is such an attractive option for my message from Cliff Ravenscraft.
  • I learned how to take all of my communications up a notch with Ken Davis 
  • I learned why its so important to build my Platform from Michael Hyatt.

I absolutely plan to attend this conference again in the future if I can afford it.

There are three platform terms that everyone with a message should understand if they want to get a message out clearly.

  1. A platform is essentially a tool we use to get our message out.  Our message can be a ministry, it can be products or services to sell, or it can be advice or tips to help or entertain people.  A platform can be a literal stage, it can be a mega horn, a media company like CNN, a Facebook group, a pulpit, a Twitter profile, an account on someone else’s blog or, the best case scenario, our own self-hosted (owned) website.
  2. Self-hosted means you own it, you pay for the domain name and the hosting, this means you own your real-estate on the web.
    • If you use Facebook or Twitter or the other social sites realize that these are someone elses Platform, you have no control over who sees your information, you have no control over the marketing that is shown to your followers, marketing that you could be benefiting from.  No control over who sees your content, your message, your data.  The data of your followers is used for marketing and possibly easy and convenient spying by creeps or by “big-brother”.  Because of this these are not good platforms for your message.  They are simply good tools to bring people to your platform, Michael Hyatt calls these embassies for our platforms.   Social media can and sometimes should be used but only to bring people back to our platforms.
  3. Your message: do you have opinions about things that you share? are you quite active on Facebook or Twitter sharing your opinion or your wisdom? if so you likely need to build your own platform.  Do you have a business or a hobby or ambitions to start one? Do you like to inspire and instruct others? Do you feel called to a certain ministry? If so you may have a some sort of platform already but probably are only reaching a fraction of the people you could be if you had an online platform.

You have a message!

Create a tool to expose your message to the world, the technology available for this is better than its ever been.

Creating a self-hosted blog site is by far the best outlet for your message and your creativity.  Whether you use it to make a living, expand a ministry, share your opinion and wisdom or just keep in touch with friends and family with privacy. Get Building Your Platform Today!

I want to help people to get their message out and be more creative. Especially messages that help and instruct people.Reach out to me if you want help with this, start by singing up for my email updates here:

What would you use an online platform for?

 

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