Hosting a blog on your website also allows you to engage with your audience in a meaningful way. When you create valuable blog content, your readers are more likely to leave comments and engage with your content.
This engagement can help improve your website’s search engine rankings over time. Search engines like Google prioritize websites that have an engaged audience.
]]>Have you been wanting to improve SEO for your website?
SEO is a crucial aspect of any website’s success. There are many different strategies you can use to improve your website’s SEO, and one of the most effective is hosting a blog on your website.
Here we explore how hosting a blog can help improve your website SEO and provide you with the information you need to get started. Keep reading to learn more.
One of the primary ways that hosting a blog can improve your website’s SEO is by providing fresh, relevant content. Search engines like Google prioritize websites that provide regular updates and regular blog posts.
When you host a blog on your website, you have a constant stream of new content that you can use to keep your website fresh and up-to-date. This can help improve your website’s search engine rankings over time.
Another way that hosting a blog can help improve your website’s on-page SEO is by allowing you to target specific keywords. By using relevant keywords in your blog posts, you can help your website rank higher for those keywords in SERPs.
It’s essential to use keywords naturally and strategically in your blog posts. Keyword stuffing can actually hurt your SEO, so be sure to use relevant keywords in your blog posts in a natural way.
Building high-quality backlinks is a crucial aspect of SEO. Backlinks signal to search engines that your website is a valuable resource. By creating valuable, informative blog content, you can attract backlinks from other websites.
Backlinks from reputable websites can help improve your website’s search engine rankings over time.
Social media is a powerful tool that can help improve your website’s SEO. By creating valuable blog content that others find useful and interesting, you can encourage social sharing.
When people share your blog posts on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, it can help increase your website’s visibility and attract more traffic. This can, in turn, improve your search engine rankings.
Establishing authority is a crucial aspect of SEO. When you create valuable, informative blog content that is relevant to your target audience, you can position yourself as an expert in your field. This can help attract more traffic to your website and improve your search engine rankings over time.
By hosting a blog on your website, you have a platform to share your expertise and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
One of the most significant benefits of hosting a blog on your website is that it allows you to create evergreen content. Evergreen content is content that remains relevant and useful over time.
When you create evergreen content, you can continue to attract traffic to your website long after you’ve published the blog post.
Hosting a blog on your website also allows you to engage with your audience in a meaningful way. When you create valuable blog content, your readers are more likely to leave comments and engage with your content.
This engagement can help improve your website’s search engine rankings over time. Search engines like Google prioritize websites that have an engaged audience.
The quality of your web design can have a huge impact on the success of your organization. That’s why it’s so important to include blog posts that help boost your website's SEO.
Please contact us today to learn how we can help take SEO for your organization to the next level.
]]>This article is for new or developing preachers and teachers of God’s word. Whether this is the first sermon you’re writing or you’ve been doing this for a while and want to fine tune your process, I want to share with you a simple checklist for sermon development that I’ve put together from my 20+ years of preaching and teaching.We also released a couple other resources for preachers. Here is my book called, Preaching Forward and we also have a FREE full e-course on Preaching Essentials that focuses on the Call, Character and craft of preaching.
Let me note a couple quick things that speak to the heart and mindset of those who have the privilege of preaching the gospel and then we’ll get into a quick 6-point check list of how to develop your message.
Develop the heart of a shepherd:
For those who have the honor of communicating the truths within God’s word should do so with a full awareness of the importance of this role. The Bible says that God has called some to specifically focus on equipping the saints for the work of service. So, we’re not just out here preaching our own deal, we’re on a mission from Jesus to care for and prepare His people. Jesus said to Peter, “if you love me, feed my sheep”. Jesus intentionally brought us to point of focus that we as preachers are shepherds that see our messages as feeding, caring for and preparing those we’ve been entrusted with. You’re aren’t preaching to an audience, you’re feeding the Church, the sheep.
A few Preaching Mindsets
One of the main things I was taught as a young preacher that I’d encourage you to consider as you are preparing your message and as you take the stage to preach.
Focus on Helping People not impressing people.
Focus on bringing people the full truth of God’s word and not your opinion.
Focus on how much God loves those people your preaching to and ask Him to give you the same heart.
Focus on imparting faith into them to follow and fulfill the word.
Always make sure you preach with action in mind. What I mean is, don’t just preach/teach for information, preach and call them to a point of action and decision. The transformation happens when they take action on God’s Word.
The Message development check-list that provides a general roadmap as you put your message together.
1. CHOOSE SCRIPTURE OR TOPIC
Find topics through:
Daily Bible reading and study
Asking the Holy spirit to speak to you
Identify an important topic to your audience
Observing/Capturing from everyday life
Often, God will speak to you as you go through life. Whether as a student, parent, friend, employee, etc.
2. UNLOAD YOUR SPIRIT AND MIND
Before any other research, begin by putting everything you know and all the Holy Spirit brings to mind on that specific topic.
3. RESEARCH TOPIC (LOOK FOR CONTENT IN THESE AREAS)
Scripture references
How is current culture handling this topic
Illustrations or stories
Statistics
Personal life example
Quotes
Is there a physical prop that will really clarify this message
Humor: find a funny story or write your own
Lyrics to a song
Excerpt from a book
Imagine if…
Draw on the power of their imagination
Modern day parables
Movie reference/clip
4. SHAPE THE MESSAGE
Like clay. You start with the clump and then slowly chip away until you have your masterpiece.
This process helps you to reveal and clarify the one goal and action step you are leading them to.
Maintain a logical progression of thought. Which means that each point or thought is clearly leading you to the end goal of your message
Consider how this message will come across from the seat of the listener.
5. FINE TUNE
Don’t settle for the first draft. Print it off, tweak, update, print off again
(Repeat until done)
6. PRAY IT HOT!
Preparation is important, but, then we step back and pray it though until the Holy Spirit has fully moved it from head-knowledge to spirit revelation.
Our goal isn’t to just relay information, but to leave a spiritual deposit into the lives of those we are preaching to.
People encountering Jesus is what transforms them, not our “creative” message; prayer helps us keep Jesus as the focus of our preaching.
Praying this helps and serves you as you prepare for the next time you communicate and minister the good news of God’s word. For additional preaching resources and material like this and other books and e-courses, check out preachingforward.com.
- Samuel Deuth
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Watch the full conversation here:
]]>The first extreme reaction that I have witnessed amongst Christians would be – feeling ashamed. I have met countless Christians who are too ashamed to admit they’re anxious and are so guilt-ridden that they deny that they’re struggling with anxiety, and they hide it. This is toxic because God cannot possibly heal the areas of our lives that we hide from Him and others. Also, the first step towards healing is being honest with yourself and admitting there’s an issue. Let me remind you that there is no condemnation in Christ and Satan will use guilt to keep you silent and stuck. There’s no need to be ashamed.
]]>I have found that there are two extreme responses to anxiety with Christian circles, and if you don’t know by now – extremes don’t work.
Extremes are easy, but not effective.
There’s a ditch on either side of this narrow road towards peace, and before we jump into this journey, let’s try to find balance.
The first extreme reaction that I have witnessed amongst Christians would be – feeling ashamed. I have met countless Christians who are too ashamed to admit they’re anxious and are so guilt-ridden that they deny that they’re struggling with anxiety, and they hide it. This is toxic because God cannot possibly heal the areas of our lives that we hide from Him and others.
Also, the first step towards healing is being honest with yourself and admitting there’s an issue.
Let me remind you that there is no condemnation in Christ and Satan will use guilt to keep you silent and stuck. There’s no need to be ashamed.
The second extreme response I have witnessed amongst believers would be – acceptance. I have met countless Christians who simply accept anxiety as if it’s normal. Maybe that’s you. Maybe you aren’t fighting for your peace because you have surrendered to anxiety.
Jesus is recorded saying in John 10:10 that, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Jesus promises that believers have access to abundant and full life. Is living with anxiety abundant life? Jesus also says that the thief comes to steal and destroy. Has Satan stolen and destroyed your peace? If Satan has stolen your peace and your life doesn’t meet the standard abundant and full, then we have a battle to fight. Maybe you stumbled upon this 7-Day Devotional Plan because God wants you to stop waving the white flag of surrender and wants you to get back in the ring and fight again.
Let’s dive in!
Let’s start in the beginning. The opening words of the Bible declare that:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
God creates the heavens and the earth and from what we can observe in the text – the earth is formless and empty. In Hebrew that term is “tohu wa-bohu” which is very fun to say. Those words translate into English as “wasteland, that which is laid waste, desert; emptiness, vanity; nothing.”
Simply put, the opening words of the Bible declare that creation was a chaotic and untamed mess and that the Spirit of the Lord God was brooding over the surface of this chaotic watery depth. Pretty epic visual if you ask me.
Creation is a barren and formless unintelligible chaotic wasteland and God actually does something that is quite profound and often goes overlooked. God doesn’t bring peace to the chaos. God brings order to the chaos. God begins ordering the creation and moves the earth from chaos into organization.
God begins to separate, pull apart, and bring structure to the chaos. Listen to this description: 6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it.
God separated.
Listen to this next description: 9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.”
God gathered.
The beginning of creation reveals a God who knows how to rearrange, organize, unclutter, clean, uncomplicated, simplify, and structure life.
God doesn’t bring peace to chaos, God brings order to chaos.
Notice how the days of creation are ordered and organized. In the beginning of creation God is busy forming and then He fills what He’s formed. Do you see that when you read the creation account?
Every living being that God created had an environment carved out for it first. God didn’t mistakenly create whales before carving out the oceans nor did God spontaneously create eagles with no place to put them. The opening words of Genesis aren’t just telling us about the creation but the Creator.
Our God doesn’t merely bring peace to chaos, He brings order to chaos and that order facilitates peace.
This bit of information should be very intriguing to anyone struggling in the chaos of anxiety or any other disorienting mental health issue. God has the ability and the expertise to step into chaos and bring order. God can hover over the surface of your chaotic environment and begin ordering, separating, gathering, rearranging, organizing, uncluttering, cleaning, uncomplicating, simplifying, and structuring your life. God certainly can bring order to your chaos. The question isn’t whether God has the ability to bring order into your life. That matter has been settled. The question is whether you will let Him bring order into your chaos.
When God steps in to bring order to the chaos of your life you may not like the process. However, I promise that you will love the result so much that you will risk your life to defend it.
A lot of us just want God to “bipitty boppity boo” peace into our lives. I’m sorry to disappoint you. Our God doesn’t merely bring peace to chaos, He brings order to chaos and that order facilitates peace and that’s what this book is all about.
If you are ready to surrender and allow God to bring order to your chaos then I promise you that by Day 30 of this journey you’ll be walking in a level of freedom that you could have only dreamed possible.
Questions to Consider?
- Have you neglected or refused God’s order in your life?
- If the Church is an earthly representative of God’s order, have you refused God’s order by refusing His Church’s order in your life?
- Are you surprised that God brings order in the midst of chaos and not peace?
- What order is God currently trying to bring into your life?
- What is your current chaos?
- What did you learn from reading the creation account in Genesis?
This blog is from Manny Arango's new book "Calm in the Chaos" and can be purchased here! Buy it now!
We've also created a complete sermon series so you can walk your entire church through the book. Download complete sermon series for FREE!
]]>This book is your game-plan. It’s organized into the same 3-step process that going viral online requires. The Plan. The Post. The Share. As you read this book, you’ll learn that while the process is the exact same, the method to a life that goes viral and actually lasts looks drastically different.
]]>
I’ll never forget the first time it happened to me.
It was something I had been expecting, and yet, it caught me totally off guard. I had planned for this to happen. I had hoped this would happen. Shoot…I had even dreamed that this would happen. I had felt this rush before, though at first it wasn’t me experiencing it. I was just sitting in the car when my friend took the hit. That’s all I needed to be hooked. It didn’t even have to happen to me and I could still experience the rush… that’s how addicting this was. But when I was the one experiencing it - that hit different. “Dude. Check your twitter.” “What?” “You’re not going to believe this bro. Get on Instagram too. NOW.”
I opened up my twitter account. That’s when I experienced my first hit. I had gained thousands of followers in less than an hour. I had so many notifications that I couldn’t refresh my account fast enough to keep up. My mentions were coming in from all over the world. I literally thought my iPhone was going to break. I closed the twitter app and opened up my Instagram. Another hit. My follower count had jumped from around 8,000 to almost 15,000. Hearts were dancing all over my page. People, who just minutes before didn’t even know I existed, were now reading everything I had ever posted. My DM’s became flooded. Friends were texting me screenshots of their friend’s friends who were sharing my post.
I felt seen. I felt heard. I felt hooked. That night I became addicted to a very real drug.
That drug is called: Going viral.
What is going viral anyway? Maybe you live under a rock or perhaps your parents decided to shield you from the technological world. Instead of giving you an iPhone for your 14th birthday they gave you a telescope or a flute. If that’s the case, I am so sorry. But shout out to all of my flute players, you’re killing it.
The Webster’s dictionary definition of going Viral: A person or piece of content that is circulated or shared widely on the internet. Something that reaches an exponential amount of people or has exponential impact.
Most people don’t join social media with the sole intent being to go viral however; some join social media with the simple intention of connectivity. It’s fun, lighthearted and rarely time consuming. That is, at first. It only takes a small amount of time for them to experience a social media “high”. A post gets more interaction than their others, they see a viral piece of content that they relate to or maybe someone just comments something super nice and suddenly they feel like a pocket full of sunshine. After receiving the dopamine hits that come from being seen and liked online, many of those same people who joined for connectivity are now staying for much more. They look at other online content creators who get thousands, tens of thousands or even millions of “likes” on their photos or videos and they want to experience that same thing; they want to chase that high.
Not only does going viral FEEL good…it improves your quality of life. At least we think.
In the year 2020, companies around the world have shifted their entire marketing campaigns. Instead of paying tens of thousands of dollars on ad videos, these companies are reaching out to content creators with large platforms to pay them directly for an advertisement on their video or piece of content. Being a social media “influencer” has become a quite viable career option. In fact, today, it is just as common for a kid under the age of 12 to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up as it is for them to say a doctor or baseball player. Going viral feels good. It makes you popular. It makes you rich. It makes you known. So much so, that it causes us to change our goals in order to pursue it.
That’s where my story comes in. Social media is kind of my thing. I’m in my mid twenties. I haven't grown up with a cell phone in my hand since birth but I’m not asking anyone what “viral” means either. I’d like to think I’m cool (my wife is going to snort when she reads that line). I remember when I logged on to social media for the first time. At 12 years old my parents let me get a Myspace. There’s a good chance you might not even know what that is, so for all you Gen-Zers, it was like a Facebook page except you could customize every thing about your profile page from top to bottom. Pretty incredible right? I had a 1969 corvette background, a profile picture that wasn’t even me (it was a picture of a professional baseball player I found on google images) and when you landed on my page the beginning of a Blink 182 song began to play. I was much cooler online than I was in person and that’s a scary thought. I was thriving.
A passion for social media began to rise inside of 12 year old me. By the time I got to college I decided I wanted to study it. I loved making youtube videos. I loved taking photos of my friends and I on top of mountain tops (making us look way more adventurous then we actually were). I loved tweeting live during football games from my couch. I loved how I was seemingly seconds away from saying something or posting something that could potentially impact thousands of people. And I LOVED seeing my likes and my followers go up. What started out as a creative outlet for me, quickly became about “growing” my platform online. I even started to get paid by brands and companies for the content that I posted. Which, as a broke college student, allowed me to pay for my steady diet of Chick-Fil-A sandwiches. I became addicted to the thrill of growing my online brand.
And the fastest way to do that was, of course: going viral.
Many times, all it takes is one time going viral. One video, photo or piece of content getting the right amount of shares and likes could change a person’s life forever. If a post breaks through once, it could often lead to massive amounts of new followers and a permanent place in the social media hierarchy. One piece of viral content increases the chances of future success dramatically.
Going viral made you last. At least, I thought it did.
I started to study people who were building their online following. I wanted to know how they broke through from “everyday social media posters” to the famous influencers that they now were. I learned quickly that social media is not discriminatory. The people going viral never look the same. You have black people, white people and every color in-between. There are young and there are old. A 9-year-old can go viral playing with Play-Doh and a 90-year-old can go viral talking about world events from the couch with her husband. Anybody, anywhere, at any time could go viral. As long as they do one thing: beat the algorithm.
A social media algorithm is a system. It’s a set of rules that filters posts in a user’s feed based off of the post’s potential relevancy to other users. Think of it like a filter put in place that attempts to figure out if content is good or not. The algorithm tries to distinguish good content from bad content by measuring engagement through watch time, likes and several other factors. The better the content scores on this unwritten social media “test” - the more people will see the content. If the content does extremely well….it might just go viral.
Sure the pretty girl who posts tons of content of only her face has a higher chance of beating the algorithm due to the amount of clueless single boys lining up in her DM’s thinking they can be her “Mr. Right”. Sure Justin Bieber’s video of his dog might go viral because he’s Justin Bieber and people like dogs.
But going viral…is something anybody can do.
There are literally thousands and thousands of people who go viral every single day. Not because they are the best looking, not because they are already famous, not even because they paid a social media platform to boost their post to more people. They go viral because they figured out (knowingly or unknowingly) how to get their content to pass the filter put in place by social media companies. They learned to beat the algorithm. That last line is going to be important in where we are going. I’ll write it again. They go viral because they figured out (knowingly or unknowingly) how to beat the unwritten set of rules called the algorithm. They go viral because they beat the rules.
On January 22nd of 2020, I sat in a coffee shop across from one of my mentors. It was cold outside. I remember it was so cold that I ordered a hot coffee instead of a cold one (iced coffee fam where you at!?). We spent the first few minutes of our conversation catching up on the highlights of the month. We shared goals, wins and even reflected on some losses. Every time I met with this man we would spend the first few minutes catching up and then progress to my little black notebook that I would have sitting on the black mahogany coffee table. Inside that little black book I would have 4-5 questions jotted down to ask my mentor about. The questions could be related to anything. Marriage, pastoral leadership, friendships, sermon writing - even social media.
On January 22nd, however, I only had one thing written down in my notebook. “Why?”Not too long before our coffee meeting, a well known leader, entrepreneur and family man in our area had called it quits on life. It was devastating. This was a man with all of the accolades you could imagine. He was popular, he had money, he had a beautiful family - by all accounts, he was extremely successful by the world’s standards.
He was even viral online. But further than that: his LIFE was viral.
But it still didn’t last. He walked away from it all. “Why?” It didn’t make sense to me. My mind kept racing back to the perfect picture his life had been just weeks before. He had what I was chasing. His instagram feed aesthetic was 10/10 online and his life seemed to be also. He had what I wanted. How could it not be enough? I opened up to my mentor about what was bothering me. I told him I couldn't stop thinking about the man and couldn't wrap my head around what had happened. How could someone be that known, that successful and that viral and it still not be enough. My mentor took a long, deep breath and looked out the window. He told me he was heartbroken too. Then He said words that I will never forget. “What good is going viral if your life doesn’t last?” That line hit me like a ton of bricks.
If I was honest with myself - I had been trying to go viral. Online and offline, I desired more. I wanted more success, more followers, more money, more popularity, more people to look at my life and say “that’s #goals”. But this path…this quest to going viral…would it really last? How could I really last? The algorithm of life and the algorithm of social media really aren't all that different. The blueprints are strikingly similar. The harder you work, the more money you make, the more popular you are, the more power you have and the greater you make your name…the more viral you go. These standards of success become our goals, and our goals, often influence the life we end up living.
This formula for going viral has been the same for the last 2000 years.
Think of the biggest names in today’s society. Names like: Lebron James, Oprah Winfrey, Justin Bieber and Carrie Underwood. They have figured out how to beat this algorithm. Their methods of getting to the top may be slightly different, but for the most part, they followed this set of rules and did so better than the other people around them, and now they have what other’s do not: they are seen, they are known, and their names are going to last. At least, this is what we are told. But what if we are wrong? What if the algorithm the world tells us we should follow is just a big lie?
Take for example Caesar, for example: the ruler of ancient Rome some 2000 years ago. He was the definition of a big-timer. They named a salad after him for crying out loud (a good one too)! He’s the definition of going viral in life. He had power. His face was on money. That’s how you KNOW you’ve made it. That honor is reserved for presidents and the monopoly man, all of which, are legends. Caesar’s influence was so strong because he beat the algorithm. And yet, Caesar was constantly striving for more power, more land, and more authority. It was never enough. He murdered thousands. He plundered homes of thousands more. How could someone so viral be so…unfulfilled? So unsatisfied? I started thinking about other people just like Caesar. Powerful people. Successful people. Viral people. They all had two things in common:
Think about it. At BEST, their lives have become a sentence in a history book. At worst, they were left out of the history book all together and we’ve forgotten their name and what they accomplished completely. They beat the algorithm but death beat them. But there is one man whose name has lasted much longer than the monopoly man’s, any president’s or even Caesar’s. This man did not seem to have a shot at going viral. He was born to a poor family, He had no military background, He spent his first 30 years in a small fishing village using hand tools to build kitchen tables and Lazy Boy sofas. He did not hold any political office. He did not pursue power or fame. In fact, this man did not try to become more: He spent His life trying to become less.
This man’s name was Jesus and He lived by a different set of rules. His standard was…upside down. In fact - His goals were so drastically different that people often thought He was crazy. He openly challenged the algorithm that others were chasing after. Many times, He did the complete opposite of what someone trying to go viral would do. And yet, He became the most viral person our world has ever seen. Caesar went for it. Jesus did too. Just in a different way. One became a page in a history book and a $2 salad you add on to your entree. The other…He’s still going viral.
Today, people are walking the streets talking about their savior. Not the man who once owned 75 percent of the rotating world. They aren’t talking about the guy who ran for president, or the guy whose face was on money, or the guy whose kingdom they said would last forever. But when you walk the streets of India; when you go to Africa, Queens, Toronto, Great Britain, Iceland, Los Angeles or wherever else you want to travel and you say the name “Jesus”, people still recognize His name as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords more than 2,000 years later. Not because He grew wealth, status or political power, but because he laid down his life for the world.
He beat death so you could go viral, too. Not viral the way the world thinks about going viral — but a kind of viral that means so much more. He beat death so that you could go viral in the Kingdom of God. He beat death so that you could have life. The first time I went viral I felt the rush of thousands of people crowding into my follower count on Instagram. Now that I’m going viral a different way, the Jesus way, I get to feel the rush of thousands of people crowding into heaven. It’s no longer about how “liked” I am. It’s about how loved I am. The rush of my kingdom being built simply cannot compare to the fulfillment thats comes from HIS Kingdom being built. You can’t take your following with you when you die. You can’t take your success with you when you die. You can’t take your kingdom with you when you die. So what good is going viral if your life doesn’t last?
You can be famous on Earth but unknown in Heaven. Jesus wants you to be famous in Heaven so you can be effective on Earth.
What if I told you there was a different way for you to live your life?
What if I told you there was a Kingdom you could build that goes with you when you die?
What if I told you that you were actually created to go viral?
What if I told you there was a way that you could go viral and last?
You were destined for more than the world’s idea of greatness. But in order to see it happen, you have to change what you're chasing. You might have to change your goals. You might have to change your habits and you might even have to change your definition of going viral.
The algorithm of life is fool’s gold: though you might spend your whole life searching for it, it doesn’t work and it definitely doesn’t last. The way Jesus lived is different. If you choose to follow this way, your life will find more meaning and more purpose than you possibly could have imagined. You were meant for something more than a follower count. You were meant to follow. It’s time to go viral.
If you want to go viral the way Jesus intends you to as His follower, you’ll have to do so intentionally. You won’t stumble into a relationship, purpose, and calling as good as Jesus wants you to without making it your desire and intention. We’re talking about living in the kingdom of God on earth…You can’t go viral by accident. What you need is a game-plan.
This book is your game-plan. It’s organized into the same 3-step process that going viral online requires. The Plan. The Post. The Share. As you read this book, you’ll learn that while the process is the exact same, the method to a life that goes viral and actually lasts looks drastically different.
Here’s where we are going:
This section is the foundation to our following the ways of Jesus. These are the things that we absolutely must get right or we stand no chance of making it…let alone going viral. “The Plan” is pivotal. It consists of our convictions, our theology, and our relationship with a real and living God. Allow your heart to receive this plan and you’ll be ready for what’s ahead.
This section is about when reality interferes with our plan. How do we stick to the game plan when distractions and temptations are coming at us from all directions? What does following Jesus actually look like on a day-to-day basis? “The Post” is dedicated to taking action outside of your comfortable places and into the unknown: this section is where we learn to follow Jesus through the hardest parts of life.
It’s impossible to go viral if your life isn’t shared. “The Share” shows you how to make an impact much larger than you could possibly imagine. This section builds on your plan and your post and gives a blueprint for sharing what’s taken place inside of you with the world. The share is the part of the book dedicated to crowding Heaven.
You have the game plan. Let’s go viral.
Purchase "Viral Jesus" on amazon, and make sure and download the Free Sermon Series so you can walk your entire church through this book.
]]>Generation Z is the world’s current generation of teens and young adults. There are differing estimates as to when Millennials left off and Gen Z began, but most researchers place the birth years between 1995-2012, making the oldest Gen Zer about age 25 and the youngest about age 8. Research on this cohort of young people shows that they are not just Millennials 2.0. Each generation is shaped by unique circumstances and influences that help form their generational hallmarks.
For Gen Z those influences certainly include growing up on the internet and social media and living in a world that is constantly accelerated and changed by digital platforms.
Gen Z has also witnessed some of the world’s milestone events during their formative years:
Research helps us examine the world these young people are growing up in and the effects they say it is having on them. In this report, we share some of OneHope’s research on today’s teens alongside other studies and statistics that help shed insight on Generation Z in the United States.
Three in four Gen Z’ers in the United States indicate they have friends from different backgrounds, races, and beliefs.
This is not surprising considering diversity within North America has increased with every passing generation. Today’s teens are the most diverse the world has ever seen. Almost half (48%) of Generation Z in the United States are non-caucasian, Almost half (48%) of Generation Z in the United States are non-caucasian, compared to only 18% of Baby Boomers when they were children and teens. Racial diversity is not the only thing increasing.
According to a 5-year study of people in the United States, the number of young people who identify as LGBT is steadily increasing while older generations are remaining the same.
Another study revealed that as many as 1 in 3 U.S. Gen Z’ers say they are LGBT. “People question [their gender] because it’s popular to question,” said a teen in a focus group OneHope conducted in 2019. Another teen said, “It’s almost worshipped. If you are transgender or struggling with this, it’s cool."
]]>New to ministry? Seasoned pastor? Not sure where to start? Writing a sermon can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Follow this step by step guide to writing your next sermon.
1 | DIAGNOSE YOUR PATIENT
Give a message that is personal to your audience.
Find out what your audience is struggling with: anxiety, lack of faith, etc.
Have conversations with the people you are going to preach to
Ask the pastor or leaders about your audience
2 | PRAY
Ask God to give you a scripture that would speak to the problem.
Pray for a new perspective from the scripture you will choose
Ask for a specific solution to their specific problem
3 | IDENTIFY THE PRESCRIPTION
Find the prescription for your patient’s problem.
Identify a passage of scripture that directly deals with your audience’s issue
4 | OBSERVE THE TEXT
Write down your observations from the passage.
Write down 50 observations
Out of those observations take three that speak to you most, they will become your main three points
Sprinkle the other observations into your sermon
Get everything out of the passage
Find a fresh perspective
5 | WRITE A THESIS STATEMENT
Write a sentence summarizing your message’s main idea.
Make sure that your ideas are organized
Be sure that your main three points line up with your thesis statement
Replace any points that don’t summarize your main idea
Your sermon should only communicate one message, not multiple
6 | CREATE AN INTRODUCTION & CONCLUSION
Connect your message to an intro and alter call.
Start with a funny story or moment that ties into your message
End with a call-to-action that helps the audience apply what they have learned to their own life
Manny Arango
PS,
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It can be a challenge to get a team together, but it can be argued that it’s even harder to keep a team together. Sometimes teams don’t reach their goals not because the vision and strategy are deficient, but because the health of the team is. What started as a clear fresh vision has now become blurry and stale. Where meetings used to buzz with excitement now the room feels like no one really wants to be there.
“New” always has a level of excitement and momentum that it carries alone, but when new becomes “same old,” it becomes a challenge to maintain a healthy team dynamic.
Maybe you were able to get people bought into the vision and strategy because things were new but you don’t sense that same liveliness anymore.
Teams will jump from new thing to new thing to new thing trying to recapture that momentum but they’re really undercutting progress because at some point you have to just lock in and work the process while keeping the team healthy and full of excitement.
While not exhaustive, here are 5 things to implement in your team to keep them healthy!
Tahe Governor, @tahegovernor, Young Adults Pastor, Bethany Church
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Believe it or not, you’ve probably got somebody with at least decent photography skills in your group right now. You may even already have someone in mind. Either way, take a minute to write out a job description for this volunteer role. Cast vision. Let your team and your group know about the role to fill and start taking applications.
Great leaders do not wait to be in charge before they start leading. By cultivating and leveraging influence, great leaders learn to lead before ever landing in any position of authority.
In order to begin to lead when you’re not in charge, you must debunk the myth that authority is a prerequisite for influence. If having authority doesn’t necessarily mean you have any influence, it must be possible to have influence before ever having authority. If this is true, it really changes everything about leadership.
1 | AUTHORITY AND LEADERSHIP AREN’T SYNONYMOUS.
Just because you don’t control the direction doesn't mean you can’t drive it
Stop waiting for permission to lead - The truth is if you’re not leading because you don’t feel like you’re in charge, it’s no one’s fault but your own. Stop waiting for permission and start solving problems
“Leaders don’t sit back and point fingers. Leaders take the authority we’ve been given and use it wisely to build influence and make things better.
You can’t be an effective leader and have a victim mindset. Victim mindset: "Nothing is ever going to change," "I don’t have enough resources to make anything better," "I don’t know what I'm really supposed to be doing."
2 | INFLUENCE HAS ALWAYS BEEN, AND WILL ALWAYS BE, THE CURRENCY OF LEADERSHIP
3 | LEADERSHIP IS INFLUENCE
Influence is gained through loving, serving, and honoring those around us. Influence always outpaces authority. We don’t need authority or a title to lead where we are. Great leaders, no matter their position or level of authority, lead by influence not be leveraging authority.
Chandler Boyce, Executive Director of Free Church Media
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