Live Spiritually Better than a Billionaire

How God Measures a Nation's Fruitfulness

2011-12-26T10:04:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1 of

The 2,000 Percent Nation

And He said: “Behold, I make a covenant.

Before all your people I will do marvels

such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation;

and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD.

For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

— Exodus 34:10 (NKJV)

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

‘The stone which the builders rejected

Has become the chief cornerstone.

This was the LORD’s doing,

And it is marvelous in our eyes’?

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you

and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.

And whoever falls on this stone will be broken;

but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”

— Matthew 21:42-44 (NKJV)

Originally, there were no nations. There were only families. God knew that bigger things were to come after His people multiplied in number due to His grace, and He began preparing His followers to form nations.

Here’s an example. When Abram (whose name meant “father is exalted”) doubted at age ninety-nine that he would ever father a child by his almost-as-old wife Sarai (whom God later renamed as Sarah, meaning “princess”), God repeated His promise that Abram would become the father of great numbers of descendants, promised that Abram would also become the father many nations, and renamed Abram as Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” (Genesis 17:4-6, NKJV)

Through Moses, God made it clear to the Israelites and those who accompanied them out of Egypt what was expected from the new nation that He directed them to form in the Promised Land, in keeping with an earlier promise to Abram and later to the renamed Abraham:

Now the LORD had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,

From your family

And from your father’s house,

To a land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation;

I will bless you

And make your name great;

And you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

And I will curse him who curses you;

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

(Genesis 12:1-3, NKJV)

Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments [referring to the ten commandments as repeated in Deuteronomy 5 (NKJV)] of the LORD your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. (Deuteronomy 11:26-28, NKJV)

Here are the ten commandments:

“You shall have no other gods before Me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image — any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

“Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

“Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Deuteronomy 5:7-21, NKJV)

Some may wonder if the Genesis 12 and Deuteronomy promises apply to nations other than Israel. Galatians 3:8-9 (NKJV) indicates that the promises extend to those who are saved by repentance, believe in Jesus, and follow Him:

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.”So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

As the Bible shows, God later revealed more requirements to His followers. For instance, through His Son, Jesus Christ, information, instructions, commissions, and commandments were added that changed what individuals should do for God. Consider Jesus’ explanation of how to be born again and to gain Salvation, a new covenant that’s totally independent of following the ten commandments and making animal and grain sacrifices to atone for sin (through the rules spelled out in the book of Leviticus for the Israelites):

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”

Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” (John 3:3-21, NKJV)

Jesus also increased the requirement for loving others to include self-sacrifice [expressed as agape in Greek], following His precious example during His ministry and especially on the cross at Calvary:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (John 13:34, NKJV)

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” (John 15:12-14, NKJV)

Just before Jesus ascended into heaven following His resurrection from the dead that was witnessed by more than 500 people (1 Corinthians 15:4-8, NKJV), He told His disciples to make more disciples throughout the world, a command that applies to all believers today because people cannot choose to repent and accept Salvation without first knowing about it and how to gain it (Romans 10:14, NKJV):

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, NKJV)

My directions for writing this chapter told me to address five types of measurements for a nation to use in assessing its own fruitfulness for God: spiritual, moral, health, emotional, and physical. In each of the next five sections, I describe measurements for one of these kinds of fruitfulness from God’s perspective, how we might measure such fruitfulness to help guide our human activities, and what some of the benefits are that these measurements can provide us. Let’s start with spiritual fruitfulness measurements.

God’s Spiritual Fruitfulness Measurements

We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you

not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says:

“In an acceptable time I have heard you,

And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

— 2 Corinthians 6:1-2 (NKJV)

God knows how many souls have been saved among those who live in and are visiting a nation. He has a handy reference guide in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Revelation 21:27, NKJV). It’s an obvious measure for Him to be aware of because being saved is the minimum step for entry into heaven and starting to become more like Jesus during life on Earth.

While God certainly knows who has and hasn’t been saved, we often don’t know. Our best Earthly substitute for His perfect awareness is explaining to everyone in a nation how to receive Salvation by sharing Romans 10:8-10 (NKJV) and then asking each person if he or she is saved:

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”(that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

While some people may not answer the question or answer, instead, with a lie, explaining about Salvation and asking if she or he is saved can still provide value by causing unbelievers to examine themselves. When people indicate that they aren’t saved, it becomes natural and easy for Christians to share more about the Gospel and to help people decide if they want to repent their sins, to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, and to follow Him.

In just the last few months, God has shown me how important it is to ask if someone is saved: Some people I thought were saved weren’t. Because of my asking, some of these people examined themselves, repented, and chose to accept Salvation. Praise God for prompting me to ask!

Another important measure of fruitfulness for God is how many Christians in a nation share the Gospel about Salvation by using the correct Bible information. God knows who shares effectively, but we don’t.

In addition, God is surely interested in how often Christians correctly share the Gospel of Salvation and with how many people. Once again, He knows, but we don’t.

For us, surveys among saved and unsaved people could be the basis for reasonably precise national estimates of accurate Gospel sharing. By publishing such estimates, activity levels could be tracked. By increasing awareness of the frequency of these important communications, at least some Christians would become more active in this way … thus increasing their fruitfulness.

While working with my coauthors to prepare Witnessing Made Easy (Jubilee Worship Center Step by Step Press, 2010) and Ways You Can Witness (Salvation Press, 2010), I was astounded to learn that only a small percentage of Christians in the United States have ever discussed Salvation with anyone outside of their own families. It should come as no surprise, as a result, when surveys report that most Americans believe that “all good people go to heaven,” in contradiction to what the Bible clearly says. Because of witnessing inactivity encouraged in part by this false view of Salvation, the number of missed opportunities to serve God by sharing the Gospel of Salvation must be enormous over a lifetime! Consider the significance of such omissions as expressed by Romans 10:14 (NKJV):

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

Since the Holy Spirit saves people and no one can be forced or persuaded by a mere human to accept Salvation, we shouldn’t measure the results of any individual’s witnessing in terms of how many people choose to accept God’s free gift of Salvation. It’s also rare for someone to choose Salvation after conversing with just one person. Sharing the Gospel of Salvation until someone is saved almost always requires ongoing teamwork; and the bigger the team, the more likely an unbeliever is to seriously investigate the opportunity to be saved.

Once saved, people are drawn by the Holy Spirit to change how they lead their lives to become more like Jesus. While any positive works by saved people don’t contribute to their gaining Salvation (a free gift of God’s grace that’s totally undeserved), the works can certainly help confirm in ways evident to us mere humans that Salvation has occurred.

While God knows what’s happening in each saved person’s life, our Earthly information is much less accurate. For us to learn more abut sanctification, those who know saved people well could track their progress in becoming more like Jesus in terms of whatever harmful habits, bad actions, and strong temptations the saved people had previously struggled with. An indirect benefit of such measurements would be to make the saved people’s transformations more noticeable to their unsaved family members and friends, potentially encouraging some more soul searching among unbelievers about seeking Salvation.

Keeping in mind that repenting and accepting Salvation will then begin to affect the behavior of saved people, let’s look next at measurements of moral fruitfulness for a nation.

God’s Moral Fruitfulness Measurements

Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh;

and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are:

adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred,

contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,

envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like;

of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past,

that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness,

goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

— Galatians 5:16-26 (NKJV)

As Galatians 5:16-26 (NKJV) points out, there should be large differences in moral behavior between those who are subject to the lusts of their flesh because they aren’t saved and those who are trying to follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance after being saved. God keeps track of any such bad behavior that isn’t repented of and covered by the precious blood of Jesus Christ so it will be justly punished. For those who are saved, He also credits many types of moral behavior toward heavenly rewards. Upon death, Jesus will present us with these records of our behavior.

Our current Earthly records of immoral and moral behavior in a nation are, by contrast, woefully inadequate. It’s as though we don’t think that reducing immoral behavior and increasing moral behavior are important.

What information do we have now? Nations already collect some information about fleshly behavior in the form of statistics for criminal acts such as murders, violent contentions and outbursts of wrath that are reported to the police, drunk-driving arrests, and certain public acts of hatred. It’s far rarer for a nation to keep careful statistics about the occurrences of acts that exhibit love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

What are some potential benefits of measuring more kinds of fleshly and Holy-Spirit-led acts? Many of the fleshly acts listed in Galatians 5:16-26 can be observed by other people. In addition to offending many of those who see such acts that are contrary to God’s will, other people may be directly harmed by certain of the acts. When we keep track of the total number of such incidents, we can have a better sense of the total harm being done in a nation by immoral acts.

When citizens and visitors recognize that so many of a nation’s problems relate to people not repenting their sins, gaining Salvation, and following Jesus, the amount of Christian witnessing is bound to increase at least as fast as do the calls for governments to enact stricter laws and to provide more prisons, tougher judges, and larger police departments. As a result, more people will be saved, more moral acts will occur, the number of fleshly, harmful acts will decline, and less harm will be done to others.

In recent years, police in some cities have reported great success in reducing certain kinds of crime by focusing their attention wherever most of those crimes occur. Similar statistics about the locations of fleshly acts of immoral behavior could be used by Christians to focus where to do more witnessing. Such information would probably increase witnessing the most in communities where reported crime rates are low, but the frequency of immoral, but legal, behavior is high.

Studies of crime statistics have also shown that unlawful acts are mostly performed by the small percentage of the whole population who are career criminals and who may break laws thousands of times. If we knew which unbelievers were doing the most lustful acts of the flesh who were not serving jail or prison time for a crime, witnessing activities could be concentrated on being sure that these specific unbelievers received the most information about how much God loves them, that their many sins have already been forgiven and atoned for, and that God wants a relationship with them after they accept Salvation. Such targeted witnessing could greatly contribute to decreasing a nation’s immoral behavior.

Now, let’s consider what can be learned from measuring and tracking moral acts. While some might believe that the number and frequency of moral acts would perfectly correlate with where Christians live, work, and travel, the facts may be quite different from such beliefs. Some people who gain Salvation work much harder and more effectively at following Jesus than do other Christians. In addition, some people have been Christians longer than others, which may have helped them to develop greater desires and abilities to act righteously. Further, many Christians behave one way in certain public circumstances and differently in other private ones. Finally, unsaved people may act morally, too.

Survey information could regularly capture how often moral acts of various kinds are encountered in various nations. Such information could become as influential as crime statistics are for influencing which nations attract the most legal immigrants, long-term visitors, and vacationing tourists. Nations that were performing poorly in the frequency of moral acts would probably find it desirable to encourage more of such behavior. Increasing moral behavior could become an important focus of public policy in most nations, regardless of what the predominant local religious beliefs were.

Capturing information about the number of moral acts for smaller geographical areas within a nation could also influence where people choose to live, to work, to invest, and to shop. Consequently, prices paid for homes, businesses, and other property could be raised or lowered compared to other areas. Such measurements would also probably increase concentrations of people who like to perform and to benefit from moral acts. As a result, children who grow up in such areas might experience fewer temptations and develop better personal habits.

In addition, some people who want to spread the light of God’s goodness into areas of moral darkness might have an easier time picking places where their own moral acts would provide the greatest contrast with the typical lack of moral behavior. As a result, activities of churches and Christian nonprofit organizations might be more effectively directed to where their examples could do the most good among those seeking a better way to live.

For both fleshly and Spirit-led acts, survey information based on asking about recent experiences of individuals in observing others will be the most accurate and lowest-cost sources of measurements. Experience with household crime surveys has long demonstrated that such surveys are more accurate than crime statistics for picking up incidences of criminal behavior. Since we have so little information about moral acts, a greater improvement in measurement accuracy is bound to be observed for capturing the frequency of fleshly acts that aren’t criminal.

Many fleshly acts have negative health consequences in addition to whatever spiritual and moral harm they create. Let’s look next at measuring health fruitfulness.

God’s Health Fruitfulness Measurements

Or do you not know that your body is

the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,

whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

For you were bought at a price;

therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

— 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NKJV)

Surely God is measuring our health fruitfulness by how physically able we are to accomplish what He has called us to do and for how many years we have such physical capabilities. Since our callings vary, what is fruitful health for a high-profile athlete who is to be a Christian role model may be quite different than fruitful health for someone who is primarily called to write about what the Bible says.

One of the great ironies about “wealthy” nations is that many aspects of health decline for some people when their incomes increase. That’s true in part because some choose to spend more money on harmful food while also becoming less physically active (such as by riding more often in vehicles rather than walking, running, or riding a bicycle). Surely such self-directed health declines are not part of how God intended our temples of the Holy Spirit to be maintained for accomplishing His purposes.

By contrast, many people think about health primarily in terms of longevity, how long they and others live. While that’s certainly one health measure, it’s one that can be very misleading. Since many children in lesser developed nations die from preventable diseases and treatable conditions, looking just at how long people live who don’t succumb to such childhood problems misses a big part of God’s purpose. He undoubtedly wanted most of the deceased children to live longer so they could have served Him as adults.

In addition, what good is longevity for serving God if people are so weighed down by ill health that they cannot be very active in any aspect of their lives? And it certainly can be a great trial to be in ill health, pulling some people toward indulging their flesh in ways they might otherwise avoid.

Many nonbelievers wonder why God “sends” so many people poor health. Such wondering can be mistaken. God doesn’t intend for most people to have poor health. Before sin entered the Garden of Eden, God intended that Adam and Eve would live forever in their natural bodies. Even after the fall, the Bible reveals that people formerly lived much longer than today and were able to do more at advanced ages than most elderly people can now accomplish.

Many physicians and scientists argue that most ill health is brought about by poor lifestyle decisions. Consider what happens to many people who regularly consume lots of alcohol, use illegal drugs, and practice dangerous activities (such as sharing intravenous needles and smoking). Since being overweight leads to many serious diseases, the lesson about avoiding poor lifestyle decisions includes those who eat too much or too many harmful foods (such as those high in refined sugar and trans-fatty acids).

In nations where governments are ineffective in providing enough low-cost potable water, immunizations, and antibiotics, much avoidable suffering occurs. Some of the same nations fail to share basic information about hygienic practices and how to avoid the transmission of communicable diseases. As a result, everyday behaviors can lead to avoidable illnesses and premature death. In places plagued by malaria, many people don’t know how much using mosquito nets for sleeping can help reduce new infections.

In places where there are few Christians or limited knowledge of faith-based healing, there may also be many people who are plagued with infirmities that could be overcome through prayer and faith. In such instances, God’s potential to heal may be mostly ignored. Remember how many times Jesus is described by the Bible as healing all those who asked for His touch.

As with the other types of fruitfulness, God is well aware of how healthy each of His children is. In that knowledge, He is way ahead of us.

Medicine today often places more attention on treating illnesses than on sustaining and improving basic health. Consequently, most people will tell you that they are perfectly healthy with no problems just before having a serious heart attack or stroke, becoming a diabetic, experiencing a detached retina, or having a fall that fractures a calcium-deficient hip.

One of the wonders of God’s creation is how effective our bodies are at healing themselves. For example, when left untreated, most severe incidents of back pain disappear within two weeks. With better lifestyle choices, accepting God’s free gift of Salvation, prayer, and faith, many aspects of health are bound to improve.

Surveys today report that some people are more concerned about how long they can lead “healthy,” active lives rather than how long they will live. Increased interest in being active is encouraging for increasing fruitfulness.

If we begin to measure all the behaviors that we understand can affect health, both for good and for harm, we have a better starting point for letting a nation know how its culture, practices, and habits could be beneficially adjusted. If, in addition, many individuals can receive tailored information about the consequences of what they are doing for adding to or reducing the risk of ill health, more people will change what they do for the better.

As a personal example, I have a hard time keeping the level of triglycerides (fatty acids) in my blood as low as research suggests is desirable. My physicians share that information with me after each physical. In response, I have tried a lot of things involving diet and exercise, but nothing worked well enough. After reading that oatmeal was good for lowering cholesterol (with which I have a minor problem), I decided to start having oatmeal daily for lunch. To my happy surprise, my triglyceride level dropped to acceptable levels for the first time in decades. My cholesterol and many other blood measures also improved. Even better news is that I love to eat oatmeal. Praise God!

Without such measurements, I consider it unlikely that I would have become such a lunchtime devotee of oatmeal. And there any many other people who could benefit from making a similar change, but won’t, unless health measurements and good information about what to do point them in the right direction.

Medications taken and treatments received are also useful health measures to consider. There have been rapid expansions in people taking prescription pharmaceuticals for decades just to “maintain” them at a certain level of ill health. It would also be good to measure how various activities can contribute to avoiding such long-term use of medications. There are very few molecules that don’t present their own long-term health challenges, such as through uncontrollable side effects and especially in causing irreversible liver damage.

Increasingly, people are also using pharmaceuticals to manage their moods, suggesting that there are widespread problems with emotional health. Let’s shift to considering measurements of emotional fruitfulness.

God’s Emotional Fruitfulness Measurements

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk

as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind,

having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God,

because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;

who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness,

to work all uncleanness with greediness.

— Ephesians 4:17-19 (NKJV)

Emotional distress and depression incapacitate many more people in most economically advanced nations from being fruitful than do injuries and chronic illnesses combined. While a focused person who is ill may still serve the Lord in some ways, someone who is overcome by negative emotions or emotional distress may be as inactive for God as someone who is totally paralyzed.

In addition to knowing who is saved and who is not, God can certainly tell who is emotionally on an even keel and who is not. The Bible tells us in one of my favorite Bible verses: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4, NKJV).

While God has told us that we will have troubles, He has also promised to be with us through our troubles (Matthew 28:20 and Psalm 23, NKJV). In addition, when we love God, He will work for our good … often turning what seems to be a trouble into a blessing:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28, NKJV)

What, then, is emotional fruitfulness from God’s perspective? It’s actually pretty simple. He wants our rejoicing to be so uplifting that it not only stirs us to action for Him according to our calling, it also raises the emotions of others who need encouragement, including unbelievers, to draw closer to Him and to do His will, such as by witnessing to unsaved people:

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. (Proverbs 17:22, NKJV)

As to Earthly tools for measuring emotional fruitfulness, asking questions through surveys is again our best method. We should ask about unbelievers drawing closer to God and the Godly actions Christians take as well, as the encouragement received from others that contributed.

So far in this chapter, we have focused on people and their actions as they relate to saving souls, drawing forth moral actions, decreasing immoral actions, improving physical health, and inspiring Godly actions through having and sharing uplifting emotions. You may be wondering about what it means for there to be more physical fruitfulness. We look next at that dimension of fruitfulness.

God’s Physical Fruitfulness Measurements

When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying,

“This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late.

Send the multitudes away,

that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.”

But Jesus said to them,

“They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”

He said, “Bring them here to Me.”

Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass.

And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven,

He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples;

and the disciples gave to the multitudes.

So they all ate and were filled,

and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained.

Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men,

besides women and children.

— Matthew 14:15-21 (NKJV)

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life,

what you will eat or what you will drink;

nor about your body, what you will put on.

Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds of the air,

for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns;

yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they?

Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

So why do you worry about clothing?

Consider the lilies of the field,

how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you

that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is,

and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,

will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying,

‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

For after all these things the Gentiles seek.

For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,

and all these things shall be added to you.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,

for tomorrow will worry about its own things.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

— Matthew 6:25-34 (NKJV)

We are spiritual beings who inhabit physical bodies. God knows that our physical lives need to be sustained and nourished for us to be able to serve Him as spiritual beings. He will gladly provide for us after we gain Salvation, and seek to serve Him first and act righteously. Praise God for His provision. As the feeding of the five thousand men (plus more women and children) shows, God has more than enough power to provide whatever is good for us.

In particular, God wants us to have the physical resources we need to be active in following our callings. His desire is for us to have Bibles and Bible study materials, teachers to help us learn about Him, enough of the right foods, clean water to drink and to wash in, comfortable places to rest at night, supportive surroundings, ways to exercise that we enjoy, and whatever information and tools are needed to accomplish our callings.

We have only to look around us to see and read about other places to realize that many people don’t have all their physical needs met. Unfortunately, many people aren’t saved and even among the saved some people aren’t yet putting God’s kingdom first by engaging in their callings from Him as their top priority.

Let’s look at the problems that are created by such disconnection and disobedience. When aspects of our physical needs aren’t met, we can be as limited as by paralysis or by a debilitating disease. In addition, lacking certain nutritional needs (such as essential vitamins and minerals) can cause disease, reduce our ability to act, and shorten life.

In many cases, our physical needs may be unmet simply due to our own poor choices. The person who watches so much television that no walks occur nor any exercise taken will suffer from lack of activity just as much as someone who is physically unable to walk or to exercise.

If Christians are active in witnessing and mentoring new believers, many of the unmet physical needs will melt away as God provides for His people who are following Him. Nevertheless, Christians and nonbelievers can also help to provide for those who aren’t following Him. Such human-based provision can be another way to show His love and to encourage more to gain Salvation and to follow their callings.

Surveys again are what we can use to measure how we are doing in accessing physical resources and to locate opportunities to improve our physical fruitfulness. Designing such surveys will be quite simple in some ways, such as by asking about water quality and availability.

Difficulties present themselves when it comes to defining physical needs for engaging in an individual’s specific calling. As an initial challenge, unsaved people may have little sense of what God is calling them to do in serving Him. In some cases, the best we may be able to do is to ask about the physical needs for doing what an unsaved person likes to do or regularly does that isn’t harmful.

Measuring potential for an individual’s physical fruitfulness is an important activity. There’s a great need for Christians to develop skill in helping believers to find their callings, to define what physical support is required and what physical resources are needed for greatest fruitfulness, and to identify the best ways to gain the needed physical resources.

Here’s an example. Most people will be more effective witnesses for Christ after receiving some practical training and then being mentored by a fellow believer in applying what has been learned. While witnessing, most people find that they can interest people more by sharing a written testimony that’s relevant to the hearer. If the witness is often unavailable for follow-up conversations, it will be good to have a witnessing partner who is almost always available. Such witnessing will also make a bigger impression if there are lots of Christian radio stations in the area so that unbelievers can easily acquire more information while scanning for something good to listen to. While I could add more dimensions of physical resources to this example, notice that the list of physical needs for greatest effectiveness is pretty lengthy.

Naturally, God can draw on supernatural resources to supply any lack in physical resources for fulfilling a calling, such as by causing an unsaved person to have an experience that draws her or him closer to wanting God in his or her life … or by directly providing the need from someone else through the Holy Spirit’s direction.

Notice that the missing physical elements in this example may already exist but just may not be readily available to the person who needs to learn how to be a better witness. Becoming aware of what’s missing can be enough in some cases for a committed believer to fill in any physical lacks for fulfilling a calling. In other cases, developing skill in creating and implementing 2,000 percent solutions and combining complementary breakthroughs will usually be more than sufficient to supply anything that’s physically lacking.

The essential elements for physical fruitfulness are probably most limited by individuals being ignorant about what their unmet physical needs are. God has bountifully provided for what we need, but we aren’t always attuned enough to fruitfulness to start stocking up on what we need.

After a nation has become highly fruitful for Him, virtually everyone will know what physical resources he or she needs and how to obtain them. Until that self-awareness universally exists, a few Christians and some organizations are going to be required to take the lead in filling in for ignorance.

Fruitfulness Measures Summarized

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you

that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain,

that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.

— John 15:16 (NKJV)

Before leaving this chapter, let me summarize how God considers these five types of fruitfulness for Him while examining a nation:

1. Spiritual

a. Number of saved people

b. How many saved people correctly apply the Bible while sharing the Gospel

c. How often saved people correctly share the Gospel

2. Moral

a. Number of moral acts inspired by the Holy Spirit that are occurring as described in Galatians 5:16-26 (NKJV)

b. Number of immoral acts inspired by the lusts of the flesh that are occurring as described in Galatians 5:16-26 (NKJV)

3. Health

a. Number of people whose health enables them to fulfill His callings for them

b. How long these people have had sufficient good health to fulfill their callings

4. Emotional

a. Number of people who are emotionally able to fulfill His callings for them

b. Number of people who are able to lift the spirits of others so that they fulfill their callings if they are already believers, or seek Him if they are not believers

c. Number of actions taken to fulfill His callings and to seek Him as a result of receiving emotional encouragement from Christians

5. Physical

a. Number of people who have enough resources to sustain a healthy, active life

b. Number of Christians who have the resources they need to draw closer to God and to fulfill their callings for Him

As a reminder of what to do, let me also summarize how we humans should be measuring these same types of fruitfulness through national polls and surveys conducted with samples of randomly selected people:

1. Spiritual

a. Explain to all people in a nation what it means to be saved and ask if they have repented of their sins, believed in their hearts that Jesus rose from the dead, and dedicated their lives aloud to following Jesus as Lord and Savior

b. Ask saved people how their lives and behaviors have changed since accepting Salvation

c. Ask family members who know saved people well what changes they have observed in increased good behavior and decreased bad behavior as defined by Galatians 5:16-26 (NKJV)

d. Ask nonfamily members who know saved people well what changes they have observed in increased good behavior and decreased bad behavior as defined by Galatians 5:16-26 (NKJV)

e. Routinely ask national samples of saved people how and how often they have shared the Gospel message with unsaved people in their own families

f. Routinely ask national samples of saved people how and how often they have shared the Gospel message with unsaved people who are not in their own families

g. Routinely ask national samples of unsaved people how and how often someone has shared the Gospel message with them

2. Moral

a. Routinely ask randomly selected national samples of people how often they have observed or experienced a list of moral acts (as defined in Galatians 5:16-26, NKJV) done by others in the prior week

b. Routinely ask randomly selected national samples of people how often they have observed or experienced a list of immoral acts (as defined in Galatians 5:16-26, NKJV) done by others in the prior week

c. Routinely ask randomly selected local samples of people how often they have observed or experienced a list of moral acts (as defined in Galatians 5:16-26, NKJV) done by others in the prior week

d. Routinely ask randomly selected local samples of people how often they have observed or experienced a list of immoral acts (as defined in Galatians 5:16-26, NKJV) done by others in the prior week

3. Health

a. Annual physical examinations supplemented by laboratory tests to measure factors that accurately describe the current and future level of full functioning, longevity, and the ability to perform each person’s calling from God

b. Written information about what the measurements mean and how to improve the underlying circumstances that lead to the measured results

c. National usage information about medications and therapies employed to ameliorate unhealthy medical conditions that limit full functioning, longevity, and the ability to perform each person’s calling from God

4. Emotional

a. Routinely ask a randomly selected national sample about saved people’s emotional ability to fulfill their personal callings from God to serve Him

b. Routinely ask a national sample of nonbelievers about the frequency of receiving emotional encouragement that led them to draw closer to God

c. Routinely ask a national sample of believers about the frequency of receiving emotional encouragement from Christians that led them to take actions to fulfill their callings from God

5. Physical

a. Routinely ask each person about the availability of whatever they need to sustain a healthy, productive life

b. Routinely ask each person about the personal habits that encourage or endanger physical fruitfulness

c. Routinely ask Christians about the availability of whatever they need to draw closer to God and to fulfill their callings for Him

A Fruitfulness Call to Pray About During Lent

2011-03-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

WESTON, Mass., March 8, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- A new Bible-based, Christian nonfiction book, Help Wanted -- One Million Breakthrough Tutors, Arise written by Donald Mitchell, describes twelve ways that Christians can become more fruitful for the Lord, Jesus Christ, by helping others learn how to make Godly breakthroughs in obedience to and for Him. The book has been released for Lenten reading as Christians prepare to celebrate Jesus' victory over sin and death on Easter.

Help Wanted assists Christians to provide fruitfulness tutoring concerning Godly breakthroughs for those engaged in witnessing, congregational ministries, Christian nonprofit organizations, universities, secular teaching, youth organizations, foundations, social enterprises, governments, for-profit companies, independent professionals who advise organizations, and those involved in other activities. For those who are called to turn such Godly work into a part- or full-time profession, there's plenty of practical advice.

Donald Mitchell, author of 2,000 Percent Living and coauthor of Witnessing Made Easy and Ways You Can Witness observed, "Such tutoring allows Christians to become more visible to those who aren't yet saved by shining the Lord's precious light upon His world, and blesses those who are called to tutor as well as those who are served. In sharing this call from the One who I believe to be the Holy Spirit, I'm reminded of and encouraged by what this call could mean for Christians today when I read Moses' proclamation just before the Israelites crossed the Jordan, 'May the LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are, and bless you as He has promised you!'" (Deuteronomy 1:11 -- NKJV)

The book can be purchased in paperback from many online sites, including Amazon.com.

Mitchell sponsored a global contest in 2006 and 2007 to locate more fruitful ways to witness that are the basis for the books that he has coauthored about witnessing. He also heads the 400 Year Project to accelerate improvements in all human endeavors, from spiritual to material, as described in his book, Adventures of an Optimist. He repented his sins and accepted Jesus' free gift of Salvation in 1959, and attends Calvary Chapel in the City, Boston, Massachusetts, where he serves as a deacon.

Twelve Award-Winning Christian Authors Ask for Your Prayers and Witnessing to Help Save One Million Souls in 2011

2010-12-07T08:23:00.000-08:00

WESTON, Massachusetts/ December 6, 2010/Christian Newswire/ -- During 2010, authors of the new Bible-based Christian books, 2,000 Percent Living, [http://2000percentliving.blogspot.com/] ways to be hundreds of times more fruitful for God, Witnessing Made Easy, [http://www.step-by-step.org/witness.html and http://www.jubileeworshipcenter.com/apps/news-detail.aspx?type=1&newsid=66] how an average-sized church can help hundreds of thousands be saved, and Ways You Can Witness, [http://www.scripturenow.com/] for broadening church witnessing, believe their witnessing and witnessing training helped 500,000 people to repent and to follow Jesus. For 2011, the authors have just set a goal to help over 1,000,000 unbelievers gain Salvation. They ask for prayers of all believers to gain supernatural support to make their efforts successful.

By employing these methods, the Holy Spirit can lead Christian churches to make great gains for the Kingdom of God. These methods won a global contest to find more fruitful ways to serve God. The methods will be featured in Help Wanted, to be published in January.

Jesus said, “But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” – Matthew 13:23 (NKJV) and “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” – Matthew 28:19 (NKJV)

Donald Mitchell, author of 2,000 Percent Living and Help Wanted, coauthor of the witnessing books, and founder of the 400 Year Project (to accelerate improvements in all human endeavors, from spiritual to material, as described in Adventures of an Optimist) observed, “During the Christmas season, it’s easy to focus on giving and receiving physical gifts rather than serving the Lord. My coauthors and I are making our personal goals for witnessing fruitfulness public to seek prayers from and to encourage Christians to learn about these methods and accomplish more in helping nonbelievers gain Salvation. In this way, more eternal Christmas gifts will be given and received in His glorious name.”

To help meet this goal, over seven million tracts and other witnessing materials have been recently distributed through Step by Step Ministries [ http://www.step-by-step.org/], headed by Jim and Carla Barbarossa, coauthors of Witnessing Made Easy.

Breakthrough Servant Blueprint

2010-09-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

This blog entry and the ones that follow are excerpts from
Appendix B of my new book, 2,000 Percent Living.

“Who then is a faithful and wise servant,
whom his master made ruler over his household,
to give them food in due season?
Blessed is that servant whom his master,
when he comes, will find so doing.
Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him
ruler over all his goods.
But if that evil servant says in his heart,
‘My master is delaying his coming,’
and begins to beat his fellow servants,
and to eat and drink with the drunkards,
the master of that servant will come on a day
when he is not looking for him
and at an hour that he is not aware of,
and will cut him in two and
appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
— Matthew 24:45-51 (NKJV)

Christians benefit by engaging in work on righteous
breakthroughs for Him by becoming more focused on the
Lord, one of God’s great gifts for helping us avoid this
world’s temptations to sin. We see added encouragement
to develop righteous breakthroughs from the parable in
Matthew 24:45-51 where Jesus describes a faithful
servant as someone who serves righteously whether or
not the master is present. This parable presents a
personal challenge because most people have little formal
authority over directing that a righteous breakthrough
be sought and applied in their working lives. When we are
not in charge of an organization or a task, how can we
serve as faithful servant believers in developing the
righteous breakthroughs that serve His purposes?

In this blueprint, you will learn about how you can stand
on the solid rock of your dependence on the Lord to be a
faithful, righteous servant for Him and His people as
described in the parable by helping make righteous
breakthroughs. In doing so, apply the Golden Rule as
defined by our Lord:

“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also
to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
(Matthew 7:12, NKJV)

In performing your various life roles, look at what needs
to be done from the perspective of all those who will be
affected and act according to the rule. Let’s look at some
helpful steps for following Him in this way.

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell All Rights Reserved.

Step One: Understand the Importance of Learning about Breakthrough Leaders and Stakeholders Who Will Be Affected by Breakthroughs

2010-09-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

Many shall be purified, made white, and refined,
but the wicked shall do wickedly;
and none of the wicked shall understand,
but the wise shall understand.
— Daniel 12:10 (NKJV)

The breakthrough servant can only succeed by
successfully influencing both breakthrough leaders and
stakeholders. Before trying to have any influence, the
breakthrough servant must understand that the need to
carefully gather and appreciate the right information
about the backgrounds, experiences, philosophies,
circumstances, preferences, and observations of all
concerned is especially critical. Otherwise, breakthrough
servants, even with the best of intentions, may err by
encouraging the wrong changes or by failing to act
while breakthrough leaders are about to provide the
wrong benefits to stakeholders. Let’s look at how such
mistakes can happen.

It’s easy for anyone to provide benefits for others that
aren’t at all welcome due to misunderstanding what’s
desired and appropriate. Applying the Golden Rule
correctly requires us to put ourselves into the minds and
circumstances of those we are seeking to help, rather
than providing what we would find desirable if we were
the recipients. Learning how to employ the Golden Rule
properly is one of the ways that the Lord helps us grow
in wisdom, which is a great blessing that we receive from
Him.

Let’s look at some examples of how the backgrounds,
experiences, philosophies, circumstances, preferences,
and observations of others vary in ways that need to be
taken into account. Imagine that you have uncommon
tastes: Let’s say that you love to see people who have
dyed their hair bright orange and green; you adore
eating chocolate-covered grasshoppers; you delight in
seeing people wearing horizontally striped and polka
dotted outfits; and you take great pleasure in smelling the
odor of skunks. Next, imagine that you assume that
everyone else has the same tastes and faithfully seek to
make what you like more available to them. As a result,
others might not thank you for your efforts … unless
they happen to share your preferences. If you first
establish an interest group of people with those same
uncommon interests, all will be well. Otherwise, you may
repel more people than you attract.

Now imagine that you have very common tastes: You
love to see people smile; you enjoy eating chocolate; you
delight in seeing people wear outfits that complement their
skin, hair, and eye colors in subtly coordinated ways; and
you take great pleasure in smelling the fragrance of
gardenias. If you assume that others have the same taste
that you do in those aspects of life, you’ll often, but not
always, be right. When you act on that assumption, many
people will thank you for your efforts, but some will not,
such as those who are allergic to chocolate and gardenias
and people who are color-blind. Individual circumstances
also vary a lot, greatly affecting the felt needs of those in
quite similar situations. Let me share with you two true
stories that I recently heard Franklin Graham (the
American evangelist son of Billy Graham) tell that
perfectly make this point about how individual
circumstances can powerfully affect perceived needs.

In the first instance, a little girl was shivering in a refugee
camp in Bosnia during the last war there. The
temperature was below zero Fahrenheit, and she was
dressed in thin clothes huddled with her family in a
small tent. Unexpectedly, she received a shoe box filled
with Christmas gifts sent by donors from outside of
Bosnia. As she opened the package, she was delighted to
find a woolen cap that fit just right over her head and
ears. Digging deeper into the package, she found warm
gloves that she quickly slipped over her shaking hands.
It had been months since she had bathed or been able to
wash her clothes. The clean smell of the gifts uplifted her
soul. Ten years later, she recounted her joy from those
gifts as the little girl, now grown, handed over a shoe box
she had filled with gifts to Franklin Graham to be sent to
another needy youngster as part of Operation Christmas
Child.

At about the same time as the girl received her shoe box
filled with gifts, an aid worker with a similar shoe box in
another Bosnian refugee camp approached a small orphan
boy whose parents had been murdered by the Serbs. The
small boy refused the gifts. Through tears, he told that he
only wanted to receive new parents. The aid worker
patiently encouraged the child to at least look into the
package. Eventually, he did but he was still disconsolate.
The aid worker noticed that the package carried the
names and address of the donors. The aid worker asked
the boy if he would like to send a letter to thank them.
With the aid worker’s help, he eventually did and told in
the letter about his desire for parents. His letter was
received with great joy by the donors, a childless couple
who were looking to adopt. Six months later, the couple
arrived at the refugee camp to adopt the boy and to take
him home with them.

Further, priorities can also differ among people with
similar tastes and circumstances. Let me give you an
example. Imagine that two youngsters who love soccer
come from similar homes and circumstances and play
on the same soccer team. The two children are each
given two free tickets to attend a local match of top-
flight soccer teams. Who will the youngsters invite to
join them? One youngster may want to invite the
youngster’s soccer coach as a way of showing
appreciation for the coach’s help with learning and
playing soccer. The other youngster may instead want
to invite an uncle who is great fun to be around. In such
a situation, a donor would err in presenting the tickets
to a parent and asking the parent to take the
youngster. Should the donor make that mistake,
neither youngster would be able to attend the match
with the person of his or her choice.

Experience, as well, plays a role in creating
preferences. A new leader with limited experience may
be eager to bring in a totally new team of people to
work on making a breakthrough. Such a person will
often discount the knowledge and experience of those
who have been working in the activity. In the process
of developing a breakthrough, that leader will probably
make a lot of mistakes that could have been avoided by
keeping more people involved who are knowledgeable
about the activity and its stakeholders. As a result, the
new team might make performance worse rather than
better. Certainly, the breakthrough will be delayed and
may be less effective than it could otherwise have been.

A well-experienced leader who has specialized in one
activity may be skeptical that breakthroughs are
possible, particularly if this leader has never seen one
in the activity. This leader may also be skeptical that
anyone who doesn’t know the situation well could
possibly make any helpful suggestions or improvements.
The leader may not even try to make a breakthrough. If
the leader does try, the efforts may not work well
because thinking about possibilities is too limited.
Backgrounds matter in determining what a leader will
do. Many ideas about how to make changes are learned
at a young age. Let me share some observations I’ve
made. For instance, someone with technical training
gained in French schools may be inclined by that
background to look for breakthroughs built on superb
engineering analyses of what’s possible. That same
person may tend to be dismissive of ideas or potential
contributions by those who don’t have technical training
and aren’t well-grounded in logic.

Someone who majored in lease financing in an American
business school will probably first look for breakthroughs
by considering innovations in ways to finance leases for
the organization and its stakeholders. If the best
breakthrough opportunities lay instead in adding more
benefits for customers, such potential will probably lay
fallow under this leader.

I won’t drag out the point about subjectivity of leaders
and stakeholders any further. Just remember that
there’s no substitute for finding out what people really
want before you try to help them to lead or to gain a
benefit.

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell All Rights Reserved.

Step Two: Learn the Backgrounds, Experiences, Philosophies, Circumstances, Preferences, and Observations of Those Who Will Lead Breakthroughs

2010-09-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

A wise man will hear and increase learning,
And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,
To understand a proverb and an enigma,
The words of the wise and their riddles.
Proverbs 1:5-6 (NKJV)

Many people may feel discouraged about becoming
breakthrough servants because of the gap between what
they know now and what they need to learn about
breakthrough leaders and stakeholders. Such
discouragement may be increased if one of the
weaknesses of their organization is fragmenting
information on a need-to-know basis. In some
organizations, the preference for secrecy might make you
think that lives are at stake. More typically, information
scarcities are made worse by:

• desires to increase influence versus rivals in the
organization.
• not understanding the huge benefits of knowing more.
• lack of curiosity about what else is going on.
• ignorance about how to learn more.

The less formal authority an individual has, the less likely
are those with more authority to encourage or to support
the individual’s efforts to learn more. What should a
breakthrough servant do?

Many approaches can help, some of which are outlined in
this section. Choose the approaches that best fit your
situation. In any case, begin by praying for guidance.
There is probably an attractive route for quickly gaining
the information that the Holy Spirit can show you. It will
almost always be the right next step after praying to
learn more about the leaders who will have to develop
and implement the breakthroughs. As I point out in the
Breakthrough Leadership Blueprint, leaders usually don’t
know enough about each other to work well together. I
suggest that you assume that leaders are ignorant about
each other until you receive overwhelming contrary
evidence.

As a step toward finding out more about leaders, start
by identifying some important task that the overall
organizational leader wants to do that would clearly
benefit from having all leaders learn more about each
other. Your supervisor probably knows what
important tasks are being planned or are about to be
implemented. You can safely assume that if the task isn’t
important enough to draw your supervisor’s attention, the
task probably isn’t important enough to persuade anyone
to want to learn more about the organization’s leaders.

Here are some of the circumstances to look for in
identifying an important task that can justify learning
more about the leaders:

• Concern that some leaders will resist doing the task
• Doubt that the leaders have the needed skill to do the
task
• Disagreement among the leaders about how to do the
task
• A need for more openness in order to implement the
task
• A history of unsuccessful efforts to do the task

Once you have identified a task presenting several of
these circumstances that the organizational leader
champions, find out more about how your supervisor sees
the task in terms of her or his responsibilities and career.
In most organizations, ambitious people see helping high-
priority tasks favored by the organizational leader as
opportunities to shine and to advance their careers.
Those who care about the organization’s success will also
be determined to do what they can to help. If your
supervisor indicates that he or she wants to help push
the task forward, ask your supervisor if she or he would
like you to prepare some thoughts about what might be
done to be more successful in performing the task.

Pray about what to say, and take at least a week (but no
more than two weeks) to get back to your supervisor with
your ideas. Then, share your thoughts informally in a one-
on-one meeting. Part of your purpose is to encourage your
supervisor to propose that leaders who will be involved in
performing the task learn more about each other. Chances
are that your supervisor hasn’t thought of this possibility
before. It may be that the supervisor doesn’t have any
idea how well the leaders know one another.

If your supervisor strongly disagrees that the leaders need
to get to know more about each other, you should drop the
subject for the moment. If your supervisor isn’t sure,
suggest that he or she informally check with her or his
supervisor to see what the supervisor thinks. Offer to
prepare a memo or paper that raises the issue so that
your supervisor can address the subject more easily with
her or his supervisor. If your supervisor agrees that
more information is needed, ask what you can do to
provide support in raising the issue with his or her
supervisor. Ideally, it would be good to present to your
supervisor’s supervisor with your supervisor present to
support you. In any of these communications, feel free
to share the Breakthrough Leadership Blueprint. Add to
that information anything that you can think of that
supports the need for gaining more information. If those
approaches don’t work, encourage your supervisor to
experiment with helping those who work for him or her
to know one another better. Describe the potential
benefits. Suggest that your supervisor involve someone
from the human resources department, a part of the
organization that will typically encourage and assist such
an initiative. After the experimentation, suggest to your
supervisor that he or she report the results to her or his
supervisor. Perhaps the supervisor’s supervisor will want
to try the same. The human resources department may
also decide to recommend that others duplicate the
initiative. Eventually, the organizational leader will learn
about one of these experiments and will probably
recognize the potential benefit from applying the approach
with her or his direct reports.

If none of those approaches are viable, ask for permission
to run an experiment in learning more about one another
just involving those who are your counterparts in other
parts of the organization. Because implementing the
experiment crosses organizational boundaries, such a
request will eventually reach high into the organization
and will often be granted. Again, a success will quickly
spread interest in doing more. If their subordinates are
becoming better acquainted across the organization,
leaders will eventually realize that they should do the
same thing. Someone will propose the idea to the
organizational leader, and that suggestion will probably
trigger such a desirable information-gathering activity.

In any encouragement to have leaders become better
acquainted, be sure to point out the benefits of having
those who report to the leaders also become better
acquainted with their leaders. If that encouragement is
acted on, you should be able create a forum where you
will gain information about the other organizational
leaders by asking those who are in your part of the
organization.

If none of these other activities work, get to know whoever
writes the company newspaper or newsletter that is sent
out to all employees. Honestly tell the writer what you
like about the publication and share your interest in
knowing more about other people in the organization.
Suggest how great it would be for you and others if
profiles were written about the organization’s leaders.
The writer will know that most leaders enjoy being
interviewed and written about, and he or she will probably
follow through. If the writer indicates that there’s no
time to do all that, offer to help by conducting the
interviews and drafting all of the articles.

A lot of information about leaders can also be gathered
from sources that aren’t within your organization. Check
the Internet for any speeches, articles, and videos that
include your organization’s leaders. If you learn of other
organizations the leaders have worked for, it may be that
you can use mutual friends or acquaintances to learn
about what the leaders did and acted like in those
previous roles. If you find out what schools the leaders
attended, you may also be able to read profiles in alumni
publications. In doing any of this research, be sure that
your activity is very low profile and undetected, or your
research can be viewed defensively by the person who is
being studied.

You can also learn more about the leaders from internal
sources. Start by reading any press releases your
organization has made about the person. There’s usually
one that describes a leader’s background at the time of
hiring or promotion.

In addition, you may know people who work with the
leaders. Buy those people breakfast or a cup of coffee
after work. While chatting, ask about what it is like to work
with the various leaders and why the leaders operate in the
ways that they do. Inevitably, some personal background
and perspectives will come out.

At some point, you will have done all you can to learn more
about the organization’s leaders. Congratulations on what
you’ve accomplished! Now, turn your attention to learning
about stakeholders. Once again, start by praying for
guidance from the Holy Spirit. Because of the wide scope
of this task, exhaust internal resources before you
consider external ones. Starting internally will speed
learning while reducing the amount of work involved.

Much of what you want to learn about stakeholders will
need to be interpreted in terms of what customers and
end users (or beneficiaries) perceive, think, do, and feel.
In addition, many organizations have market research
activities that collect and analyze information about
customers and end users (or beneficiaries). Such
information is usually not kept too secret because many
people involved in marketing, sales, and developing new
offerings need to know that information. Further, many
salespeople are perfectly happy to describe in detail the
customers and end users (or beneficiaries) that they
come into contact with. If any of your normal
assignments involve anything to do with marketing,
sales, and developing new offerings, you should be able
to simply ask to see what you need. If you don’t have
such an assignment, volunteer to work on one.

While a lot of survey-based customer and end user
(or beneficiary) information is pretty abstract and dry,
you may also find that videos were created of some
visits and round table discussions that include these
people. Try to see these videos. You will learn more
rapidly if you hear their thoughts and ideas expressed
in their own words and with their own gestures. Many
organizations also invite key partners, distributors, and
suppliers to visit, and you may also find video and
audio recordings of many of the speeches and
discussions that occurred during these visits. As you
watch and listen to what they have to say, consider how
accurately they perceive the customers and end users
(or beneficiaries). Try to understand why their vantage
points might be incomplete or inaccurate. Whatever else
you cannot explain about any misperceptions is probably
related to individual backgrounds and opinions. You can
supplement this information by speaking with those in
your organization who normally work with partners and
suppliers. If you have any assignments that would
benefit by your visiting partners or suppliers, be sure to
do so. While visiting, you will quickly get a sense of the
perspectives and personalities of those people and
organizations.

Employees are obviously more accessible to you than
any other stakeholder group. Most will be happy to speak
with you. If you have a friend who works in your human
resources department, you may also be able to learn
about or read surveys of employee perspectives and
attitudes that can help you. The organization’s employee
newsletter will often contain information about
individuals throughout the organization. From those
profiles, you may learn the names of people who would
be well worth interviewing because of their unique
perspectives. For instance, if someone recently led a
reorganization of the organization’s reporting structure,
that person can tell you a great deal about the
knowledge, attitudes, and actions that the leaders hope
to affect through the reorganization. If such surveys
haven’t been conducted, you may be able to persuade
someone in the human resources department to do so.

Employees’ families are a group about which a little is
known by each part of the organization, but often the
total picture is blurry except in the smallest
organizations. Human resources people can again provide
helpful information if any surveys have been done or if
you can encourage them to conduct such surveys. If no
surveys are available or can be commissioned, attend
employee activities to which families are invited. While
there, converse with family members to find out more
about their circumstances and how the company affects
their lives.

If your organization is a large one, it probably has a
department that works in governmental and local
relations. People in that department often have a
detailed understanding of how your organization affects
the communities in which it operates. Interactions with
the communities your organization serves and in which
it operates are usually pretty visible. You can search
online for references in local publications that describe
your organization. In such articles, critics and advocates
will probably be quoted. Lawsuits are also disclosed
publicly, which can reveal some problem areas. In
addition, you would do well to speak with local
government officials, business leaders, and heads of
local nonprofit organizations (with your organization’s
permission) to find out how they see the effects of your
organization that you haven’t been able to gain from
any other sources. It’s always valuable to find out as
much information as you can from any organized,
continuing critics of your organization: They have
often done more research than your organization has
into its effects on communities and society in general.

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved.

Step Three: Identify the Hidden Consensus among Stakeholders

2010-09-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

Then the whole assembly agreed to keep the feast another
seven days, and they kept it another seven days with
gladness.
— 2 Chronicles 30:23 (NKJV)

Breakthroughs are much more likely when you begin by
identifying some benefit that everyone strongly favors. As
a breakthrough servant, you need to rely more on the
hidden consensus among all stakeholders than does a
breakthrough leader so that powerful tides of favorable
opinion can substitute for your lack of formal power.
From your work in Step Two of the Breakthrough
Servant Blueprint, you will have gained a lot of
understanding about your organization’s leaders and
stakeholders. In some cases, nothing more will need to
be done because the hidden consensus isn’t hard to
determine. For instance, an organization that serves a
humanitarian purpose such as educating those who
cannot read will probably have a hidden consensus
related to either helping more people learn to read or
making the process easier for them. If a few such
hypotheses can be easily developed, you may be able to
test and to confirm your conclusion by simply talking to
a lot of people about what they think the organization
should be doing more of or differently than it does now.
With a strong enough consensus, you will only need to
find it.

You won’t also have to document it to convince others.
More typically, the hidden consensus is harder to
determine. In fact, some stakeholders may be so ignorant
of the circumstances and opportunities that they haven’t
even thought about many of the possibilities. As a result,
these stakeholders may report what they want for the
organization something that they prefer less strongly than
something that they haven’t considered. If you are pretty
sure that some of the more appealing possibilities are
hidden from many stakeholders, you will have to conduct
your search for the hidden consensus in such a way that
you also inform people about the possibilities, without
promising that they can cause those possibilities to
occur.

For a large organization, you could spend years looking for
the hidden consensus among stakeholders on your own. Or
you could find out and document the answers you need in
a short period of time by drawing on the organization’s
resources. Although you need to be prepared to do the
former and work on your own to gather at least some of
the answers, it will usually be possible and more desirable
to be involved in an official organizational activity that
brightly illuminates the hidden consensus.

How might you persuade the organization to look for the
hidden consensus among its stakeholders? Start by
examining what you’ve learned about the organization’s
leaders. Do they have a hidden consensus that you can
identify? If they do, that underlying agreement can be a
lever to test whether the leaders’ hidden consensus is
shared by the organization’s stakeholders.

Here’s how such testing might be encouraged and
authorized. Let’s imagine that the hidden consensus
among the organizational leaders is that a new
technology is needed that would enhance the experience
of employing the organization’s offerings. Let’s also
imagine that many stakeholders don’t know enough
about the potential of that new technology to assess
whether that change is a good idea. One thing we
can be sure of is that no new technology is going to be
developed inexpensively. In such cases, it’s usually not
hard to gain support for the idea of testing the appeal of
using the new technology before going to the time, effort,
and expense of developing it. In that way, risk is
reduced and costs typically are, too. Because the hidden
consensus is shared among all the leaders, you will
probably find that all you need to do is propose that
stakeholder testing of the idea be done to identify
issues that need to be addressed in order to get great
results at less cost than what is expected. Volunteer to
work on the project as a way to ensure that you will
obtain the information you most want to learn.

As this example demonstrates, acting on any hidden
consensus of the leadership group will mean deploying
resources. Because the leaders will be highly interested
in getting good results from something they all favor,
they will be more open than usual to checking out the
best way to go about making the changes. Build on that
interest to show how checking for the hidden stakeholder
consensus can be a great way to improve the likelihood of
success. If in the process you discover that stakeholders
don’t agree with the leaders’ hidden consensus, leaders
will probably be most interested in understanding that
point after carefully checking to be sure that the
answer is an accurate one.

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved

Step Four: Use the Hidden Consensus to Build Interest in Developing Breakthrough Knowledge and Skills

2010-09-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
— Jude 1:2 (NKJV)

If you approve of some action, you are also likely to favor
obtaining more results and faster benefits from the action,
and using fewer resources to accomplish the action. The
more expensive, difficult, risky, or time-consuming the
action is, the more interest many leaders and stakeholders
will have in gaining breakthrough knowledge, skills,
methods, and accomplishments.

Despite this interest, most people are naturally skeptical
when you start talking about making exponential
improvements. Breakthrough servants anticipate
skepticism about such large gains and prepare
convincing proofs for the organization’s leaders before
proposing breakthrough methods. Once breakthrough
servants have convinced the leaders, they can rely on the
leaders to decide how to share and to lead in persuading
stakeholders. Here are some possible sources of such
proofs:

• Breakthrough examples of what other organizations
have done
• Breakthrough accomplishments by your organization
• Your organization’s successes with 2,000 percent
solutions
• Your organization’s stalls and stallbusters
• Descriptions of how to engage in breakthrough
processes
• Ideal best practice lessons that are applicable to your
organization’s intended actions

Normally, it’s hard to interest leaders in talking about
potential innovations in all but the smallest and most
innovation-oriented organizations. However, any time
that highly regarded, risky, or expensive actions are
being considered or begun, information related to
enhancing those actions quickly spurts from the bottom
to the top of an organization much like Old Faithful
geyser in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park shoots
hot water and steam impressively many feet into the air.
After you obtain convincing proof, you usually just need
to alert your supervisor to that information and let
nature take its course. At most, simply ask your
supervisor later if he or she has passed along the
information yet to her or his supervisor and followed
up.

Let me describe some ways to obtain the six sources of
proof that I listed. Let’s start with breakthrough
examples of what other organizations have done. Some
organizations will usually have been more effective than
others in engaging in similar or the same tasks as your
organization is planning to do. Making leaders aware that
fast progress isn’t automatic usually triggers an interest
in finding better methods. If the activities were not done
recently, you can probably find people who used to work
for that organization to tell you about what their
experiences were including what worked well and what
didn’t. In some cases, the experiences may be
documented in recordings or transcripts of speeches,
annual reports, articles, and books. The more sources
you find that document successes, problems, and missed
opportunities, the more persuasive your breakthrough
examples will be.

If the breakthroughs occurred more recently, you will
probably have to rely on your stakeholders who are
familiar with the other organization as well for
information. Suppliers are often the best source,
especially those who provide equipment or software,
because they are often called on to assist in implementing
a new activity. There will probably be relatively little
information that stakeholders can ethically provide that
isn’t confidential, but on general subjects (such as how
long the task took) they can probably share information
without violating any trust or confidences. If in doubt
about the appropriateness of answering your inquiry,
just ask the knowledgeable person to check with the
other organization for approval before telling you
anything.

Breakthroughs accomplished in your own organization
often have near-legendary status internally. As a result
of many people wanting to claim credit for such successes,
you will find that a lot of inaccurate perceptions will have
grown up around what led to the success and how it was
accomplished. Dig down and find the real data, and you
will be able to sift through any misinformation. In my
experience, a good number of the breakthroughs that
any organization has been celebrating for a long time will
turn out not to have been breakthroughs at all but,
rather, misperceptions of what occurred. In fact, you
might even find that some of the “breakthroughs” were
actually failures, but someone powerful recast them to
protect reputations.

The challenge in checking out the real data is finding out
who has what information. Here’s an example: Although
the breakthrough may concern customers, it may be that
the effects can only be seen today by looking at historical
financial information kept in a small part of the
organization. In some cases, there isn’t any complete
historical financial information. In those instances, it’s
often necessary to estimate the experience by assembling
bits and pieces of financial histories from different records
and making reasonable assumptions. If you are fortunate,
your organization has achieved some breakthroughs using
the 2,000 percent solution process that are not yet widely
known and appreciated. That’s not unusual. Whenever I
contact large companies about 2,000 percent solutions in
seeking to find new examples, people at the top tell me
that they don’t know of any such solutions. I hear this
reaction even from organizations where I have worked
with someone to create a successful 2,000 percent
solution. If you do have such an example, by all means
use it to demonstrate the potential of what your
organization can accomplish. If you don’t have such an
example to share, telling people that they can make
exponential improvements with the same time, effort,
and resources can sound like either wishful thinking or
invoking black magic. Introducing people to the
processes involved in locating and implementing
breakthroughs provides helpful knowledge about how a
different approach might lead to new and more effective
methods for accomplishing critical tasks.

Rather than first jumping into describing the eight-step
process, I suggest that you instead explore personal and
organizational stalls and stallbusters with those you need
to inform. A revealing part of such a discussion can be
showing how many high-priority internal tasks have
faltered through many different initiatives and projects.
Rather than drawing out some information to make these
points during meetings with the leadership team, it works
better to do the research in advance and to confirm what
you learn with those who should know and with any data
sources that are reliable.

When you start explaining the eight-step process, I
particularly encourage you to spend enough time so that
your leadership team understands a great many ways that
individuals and organizations accomplish near-perfect
results every day. Feel free to draw on the Ideal Practice
Blueprint to help you.

If your group is willing to spend significant time learning
about the process, there’s no better way to begin such
learning than by having them work together to create a
2,000 percent solution. If you do the appropriate future
and ideal best practice research work and thinking in
advance for the task, you’ll find that any group can
develop a perfectly good 2,000 percent solution in a
month or so after meeting for just a few hours each
week. If you don’t feel confident about doing this, first
develop a 2,000 percent solution in a similar area so
that you will be able to draw on that information and
experience as you work with the leadership group.

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved.

Step Five: Document and Suggest 2,000 Percent Solution Projects and Goals

2010-09-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

For You are my rock and my fortress;
Therefore, for Your name’s sake,
Lead me and guide me.
— Psalm 31:3 (NKJV)

Even the most enthusiastic, best informed, and most
well-intentioned leaders may struggle in selecting the best
projects for creating and implementing 2,000 percent
solutions. They are most likely to latch onto one of the first
improvements that are proposed or occur to them. In
many cases, leaders will not be able to come up with a
good quantitative measurement of what they want to
improve. Organizations are neither going to benefit
equally from all 2,000 percent solutions they could create
nor are organizations equally well prepared to work on a
wide variety of such solutions. Leaders will be greatly
helped by the faithful breakthrough servant who does
advance homework to identify the most valuable, easiest
to accomplish projects and the appropriate goals for those
projects. As wonderful as having such information is,
there’s a lot of work involved. Let’s look at some helpful
suggestions to supplement what is described in Part Two
of The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook.

Start by imagining every potential improvement you can
that could be supportive of the organization’s hidden
consensus among its stakeholders. In spelling out those
potential improvements, the breakthrough servant
should be sure to look at the benefits in terms of all
stakeholders as well as their short- and long-term
implications.

During this first step, it’s perfectly appropriate to make
some wild guesses about what the improvements might
be and their magnitudes. Test your ideas with people who
are knowledgeable about potential benefits from improved
performance and can consider them in terms of the
likelihood of such benefits being gained and how large the
benefits might be. If you receive greatly differing opinions,
ask the people who disagree to explain to one another how
they arrived at their conclusions. In such a case, it will often
be possible to develop an improved answer that combines
the best insights of all the knowledgeable people who have
given an opinion.

From what you learn, boil down the list of potential
improvements to the ten or so that seem to offer the best
combination of the benefits being likely to occur and to be
enjoyed in substantial quantities. Next, consider what the
key accomplishments are to make the breakthroughs on
the list possible. Although some other accomplishments
beyond those on your list can prove to be more important
for advancing the hidden consensus, in the beginning of
identifying the best breakthrough solutions to pursue, it’s
helpful just to see where knowledgeable people anticipate
that accomplishments will lead to important benefits being
created and how large those will be. After you have a list of
key accomplishments that are required to gain the desired
benefits, compare that list to what your organization has
been most effective in accomplishing. See where there are
close matches and large mismatches. For the mismatches,
do some research to see if other organizations or
individuals are in a good position to provide the missing
skill, knowledge, or experience needed to achieve those
accomplishments. Check on the potential availability of the
helping organizations and individuals and, for the available
ones, investigate the costliness and difficulty of working
with them. Now focus on the key accomplishments that
would be easiest to do, either based on your organization’s
resources or by relying on outside help that you can afford
and expect to succeed in working with. Take those
accomplishments and consider what other benefits could
be produced from them that expand well beyond your
original concept of improvements that would advance
performance in serving the hidden consensus.

Next, winnow your list of the easiest-to-do key
accomplishments down to just those that create the
largest total benefits, both for and beyond the hidden
consensus. You don’t have to be precise in your
measurements. Be satisfied with finding the differences
that can be measured reasonably accurately by orders
of magnitude. From that perspective, just a few key
accomplishments will probably be much more valuable
than the others.

After doing that, think about how the remaining key
accomplishments could be expanded, redefined,
extended, or reduced in scope to provide still more
benefits or benefits for more stakeholders. Let me give
you an example of what might be possible. For the
purposes of the illustration, I will assume that a high-
potential key accomplishment is developing a certain
type of new product that will attract a new class of
customers and deliver valuable benefits to existing and
new customers. For the purposes of this paragraph, the
breakthrough servant would then reconsider the new
product to determine what other valuable benefits could
be delivered by redefining what type of new product is
developed.

Here’s a specific example of the illustration. Kentucky
Fried Chicken (KFC) wanted to develop a non-fried chicken
product beginning in the 1960s to attract customers who
wanted nothing to do with fried chicken but liked chicken.
Having seen how popular rotisserie-cooked chickens were
in KFC restaurants in Australia and in supermarkets
around the world, decades of research went into
developing that sort of product. The efforts didn’t lead to
the desired results.

In recent years, the company took a new direction by
redefining what type of new product to develop: The
result was Kentucky Grilled Chicken, a product that
combines spices with a grilled flavor and appearance that
rotisserie chickens don’t have. The new recipe and
cooking style quickly became popular with KFC
customers, provided health benefits compared to fried
chicken, and expanded the chain’s sales and profitability.

Had KFC defined its new product requirements more
carefully in the 1960s, this product could have been
available and selling well many decades earlier. The
opportunity was missed due to the definition of the
desired benefits being thought of too narrowly,
seeking to help the company make more sales, rather
than extending to providing benefits that customers
wanted, which included not only healthier food but also
a new and appealing flavor.

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved

Step Six: Develop Detailed Operating Plans for Performing the Selected 2,000 Percent Solution Projects

2010-09-04T10:52:00.000-07:00

So they said to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare?”
— Luke 22:9 (NKJV)

Because the selected projects will carry the fondest desires
of so many people, enthusiasm for completing the tasks can
easily outrun the ability to organize and to do the work.
Preparation can help, and that’s another place where the
breakthrough servant can contribute. I favor such
preparation being structured as a separate 2,000 percent
solution project to be completed before the final decisions
are made about which 2,000 percent solution projects and
goals are to be pursued. The purpose of this project should
be to accomplish the to-be-selected 2,000 percent solution
projects twenty times faster than would otherwise occur.

That kind of speed-up may sound like a stretch to you, but
I’ve seen more organizations than I care to remember
vainly attempt to make the same breakthroughs for many
decades, as in the KFC example. If normal speed for your
organization is forty years, than twenty times faster is still
two years. Now, that doesn’t seem so fast, does it? In fact,
with proper preparation you should be able to do better
than two years in some of the 2,000 percent solution
projects.

If the normal speed for your organization is forty days, you
could focus instead on having the various 2,000 percent
solution projects accomplish a bigger multiple of benefits
during the same elapsed time. For instance, you could
consider how breakthrough projects might be designed to
create more complementary improvements to multiply
benefits for stakeholders. When your goal is to increase
speed of making the breakthroughs, establishing
complementary, multiplied benefits is also a worthy focus
to address.

Having worked with many well-intentioned, talented, but
inexperienced, 2,000 percent solution problem solvers,
I’ve noticed that progress in creating breakthrough
solutions is almost always stalled by the following
difficulties:

• Freeing up enough time to work effectively on the
projects
• Identifying what the personal and organizational stalls
are
• Designing and putting into place stallbusters to enable
these breakthrough-creating activities
• Locating the future best practices
• Defining the ideal best practices
• Selecting the right people and resources to successfully
implement the solutions

Let me briefly share some ways that these stalls can be
avoided through prior preparation. Let’s start with freeing
up enough time. Most people who are assigned to the project
are already fully loaded (at least in their own minds). They
cannot imagine where anything else can be fit in.

Despite this self-perception, most people can quickly free
up twenty-five hours a week for an important activity while
still meeting all their existing work responsibilities. They
can make this shift by eliminating time-wasting activities,
delegating as much as possible to others, teaching others to
do tasks so they can be delegated as well, combining
activities so that more than one thing can be done at the
same time (such as listening to a recorded book related to
work responsibilities while commuting or traveling), and
reorganizing the day so that important tasks are done
when the person is most productive.

The breakthrough servant can help everyone prepare for
the process by circulating information about how to get
more done while spending less time working while the
2,000 percent solution projects are being identified and
assigned. If everyone has already streamlined their
schedules before starting 2,000 percent solution projects,
those projects will receive a lot more timely and effective
attention. Lesson Four provides helpful directions that
can be adapted for this purpose to free up working hours.

People have a lot more trouble seeing their own stalls
than organizational ones. If they have been in an
organization for a long time, however, even organizational
stalls start to become invisible to them. By involving
colleagues, stakeholders, and family members to share
observations about areas of stalled progress, it will be
easier to trigger recognition of what the sources of such
delays are. As Lesson Seven describes, you can also gain a
lot of valuable insights by answering the questions posed
in The 2,000 Percent Solution and The 2,000 Percent
Solution Workbook.

Some people have trouble developing stallbusters,
especially those who have been keenly aware of long-
standing stalls. The people who are confused about how to
overcome the delays may need assistance from experts in
creating stallbusters for breakthrough projects. A wise
breakthrough servant will assume that he or she may not
know anyone internally or externally who is good in these
stallbusting activities. Acting on that assumption, the
breakthrough servant should look for examples of
individuals who and organizations that have overcome long-
standing and difficult stalls. Having found those examples,
interview people who were involved to see which ones are
most expert at identifying helpful stallbusters and how to
implement them. Find out which ones might be available
to assist those in your organization who will be working on
creating breakthroughs.

Many organizations are unaccustomed to thinking about
best practices and are ignorant of what they are. That’s a
difficult starting point for identifying what the future best
practices will be. The breakthrough servant should draw
on Lesson Six to launch studies that will either identify
relevant future best practices or provide useful
groundwork for others to complete that identification
.
Identifying the ideal best practices that your organization
should be seeking is often the most valuable information
that a breakthrough servant can help with in assisting the
organization to make 2,000 percent solutions. A good
place to begin is by using the Ideal Practice Blueprint and
expanding on those insights by following the other
recommendations in Lesson Six.

Selecting the right people and resources to implement the
solutions is a place where senior organizational leaders
often make serious mistakes. In all but the smallest
organizations, senior leaders rarely know who the most
talented people are in implementing various aspects of
new initiatives. In addition, senior leaders often lack the
educational backgrounds and experience needed to
understand what implementation resources can speed
and improve installing the solutions.

Until there’s some clarity about what the solutions are
going to be, it won’t be totally apparent what capabilities
and resources are needed. In those circumstances (which
are the norm), it’s helpful to develop an inventory of
talents, skills, experience, and resources and to describe
how best to use those capabilities.

With these three blueprints, you can expect to make
great accomplishments if you focus your attention and
apply what you have just read. I pray that you will. The
results will bring many blessings to you and others in
becoming more fruitful for the Lord.

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell All Rights Reserved.

New Course Available for Those Who Want to Start a Succcessful New Christian Business, Either Part Time or Full Time

2010-08-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

Good Evening, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this evening?

I know that I certainly am!

I pray that you are having a blessed day and that this will be your best year ever.

After having worked with thousands of entrepreneurs who have started businesses in the last 35 years, I recently felt called to write a book about how to do so in a more effective and satisfying way. What most people try to do is all wrong, and it's a shame to have so many people struggle so unnecessarily.

I especially want to encourage those who are Christians and want to devote themselves to serving the Lord through their new business to take this course.

Every hour that you spend on this course will save you 50 hours of work later on and over $1,000. So it's your choice whether to spend the time and money on the course or to spend the time and money on making avoidable mistakes later.

Here are some of the subjects you will cover with me:

1. Free up lots of time to work on your new business while you keep your day job.
2. Attract customers 20 times faster and more easily that your competitors do.
3. Use 96 percent less investment money to permit faster growth and higher profitability.
4. Which technical details about starting a new business are important for you to handle and which ones you should ask someone else to do for you.
5. Avoid making costly mistakes because of what you don't know that you don't know.
6. How to test your ideas inexpensively without putting yourself at risk.
7. The best sources of free information that can make you more successful.
8. The habits you need to develop to be most successful.
9. How to attract top talent at little cost.
10. How to keep your new business from consuming all your time and attention

I will begin writing the book in October and and hope to complete it before the end of Spring 2011.

It occurred to me that some people might appreciate having an opportunity to access these lessons early, to ask questions about how to use the information, and to get a head start on anyone else who intends to the the knowledge in the same ways.

The book's readers will benefit by my listening carefully to questions and addressing those key concerns more clearly in the book.

So it's an opportunity for everyone to benefit.

After thinking and praying about this calling over the last few weeks, I decided to offer a 52-week online course that will feature a weekly teaching and telephone conversation. I can conveniently accommodate up to 100 people on a telephone call and still offer an opportunity to ask questions and to get answers. So I decided to limit the group to that number.

We will begin on October 1 with the teleconferences but those who join the course before then will begin receiving lessons right away so they will have more time to work on these tasks.

As the book passes through editing, people who are taking the course will receive advanced copies.

I'm assuming that most people can obtain Skype or some other Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol telephone service so it won't be too expensive to call into the United States to join the conference calls. All lessons will be on the calls, so if you don't want to call in this won't be a good opportunity for you.

The fee for this course is $500 (United States Dollars) payable in advance. Normally I charge $20 a session for such courses, but I wanted to provide a good value so I reduced the price by more than half for you.

To join the group, simply send me your name, your e-mail address, your telephone number, and your payment to:

Donald W. Mitchell
P.O. Box 302
Weston, MA 02493
United States of America

If you would prefer to pay by check debit or credit card online, send me an e-mail to askdonmitchell@yahoo.com and I will tell you how you can pay through those methods by using PayPal.com/.

If you would prefer to receive only written materials, I can instead offer individual subscriptions and online access for questions and answers to the advanced work of The Billionaire Entrepreneurs' Master Mind that address how to create large enterprises quickly and with few resources. If this opportunity interests you, please let me know and I will provide the details. People who want this option may start the course as soon as they register.

Please let me know how I can help you.

I will be glad to answer any questions you have.

May God bless you, your family, and all you do in the name of Jesus!

With best regards, much appreciation, and all good wishes,

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman
The Billionaire Entrepreneurs' Master Mind

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved

Pray for Those Who Need to Learn How to Witness without Fear to Listen to My Interview on July 21 and 22

2010-07-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

Good Afternoon, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this afternoon?

I know that I am!

I would like to ask for your help. Please pray that those who don't know that they are called by Jesus to witness their faith, those who are afraid to witness, and those who want to learn better and more joyful ways to do so will listen to my interview today and tomorrow (July 21 and 22) on http://www.thechristianauthorsshow.com/.

May God bless you, your family, and all you do in the name of Jesus!

With best regards, much appreciation, and all good wishes,

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman
The 400 Year Project

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell

Read Extensive Excerpts from 2,000 Percent Solution Living for Free

2010-02-20T14:25:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this afternoon?

I know that I am!

I have more exciting news for you about The 400 Year Project (the program designed to accelerate the rate of world-wide improvements by 20 times).

Although I am still revising the text of 2,000 Percent Solution Living, I have loaded onto the Internet extensive excerpts from the latest draft to help you. You can read this material for free at:

http://authonomy.com/ReadBook.aspx?bookid=17631#chapter

If you have suggestions for improving the book, I would be glad to hear from you with comments on authonomy.com or here.

May God bless you, your family, and all you do in the name of Jesus!

With best regards, much appreciation, and all good wishes,

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman
The 400 Year Project

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell

Eight Award-Winning Witnessing Methods from a Christmas Gift for God Contest Described in Two New Books for Free Online Reading

2010-01-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

Good afternoon, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this afternoon?

I hope so. I know that I am!

I wanted to share with you my latest press release about the two exciting new books I've coauthored about Christian witnessing so that you can be sure to read and apply these books.

WESTON, Mass., Jan. 25 /Christian Newswire/ -- Management expert Donald W. Mitchell announces that eight global contest winners describe their award-winning practices to encourage and conduct exponential increases in witnessing in two new books: Witnessing Made Easy and Ways You Can Witness.

Mitchell commented, "With these methods in use by 10,000 churches, the Great Commission could be engaged in more actively and better than ever by witnessing Christians so that many more lost people might choose to accept Salvation. Praise God!"

The Great Commission Jesus gave was to: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." -- Matthew 28:19-20 (NKJV)

To encourage widespread awareness of and use of these practices for those who want to be obedient to the Great Commission, the coauthors of the two books have made them available for free to read online.

Witnessing Made Easy (which describes how appointing in-congregation evangelists who teach and encourage witnessing during five minutes of every church activity and service can involve more people in witnessing, more actively, and in more effective ways) can be found at: www.jubileeworshipcenter.com and www.step-by-step.org

Ways You Can Witness (which describes how setting weekly personal witnessing goals, using low-cost radio aimed at lost people, relying on back-up witnessing services, asking for more help with witnessing, serving those with pressing physical and emotional needs, and seeking out secret sinners) can be found at: www.scripturenow.com

Mitchell noted, "I'm very pleased that these solutions range from individual actions, to activities that congregations can pursue, to programs for Christian organizations. There's something here for everyone."

Witnessing Made Easy is also available for purchase in softcover from online bookstores and Ways You Can Witness will be available for purchase online in February 2010.

The contest is described and entry details are included here.

For more details about Mitchell's past efforts on behalf of Christian organizations, click here.

Donald W. Mitchell is author of Adventures of an Optimist, and co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook, The Portable 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, The Ultimate Competitive Advantage, Witnessing Made Easy, and Ways You Can Witness.

May God bless you, your family, and all you do in the name of Jesus!

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman, Mitchell and Company

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell

Help Others Gain Salvation . . . It's Easy

2009-12-06T08:12:00.000-08:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this morning?

I hope so. I know that I am!

Beginning in 2006, I had the privilege of being asked to conduct a global contest to help find more effective ways to assist in attracting more people to gain Salvation through the intercession of the Holy Spirit by accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and following Him. I offered this contest as a Christmas gift to God. The winners were announced just after Easter 2007.

As part of that contest, I offered to help write two books about what the winners were doing. Since then, I've been writing up a storm working with the contest winners.

The first of those books, Witnessing Made Easy: Yes, You Can Make a Difference is now available for free on-line access at

http://www.step-by-step.org/witness.html

The book explains how any church (from the smallest to the largest) can accomplish 400 times more witnessing than it does now at little expense. Isn't that wonderful?

The changes needed are simple ones: Identify an anointed in-congregation evangelist to teach and encourage witnessing for five minutes in each church service and activity. From that beginning, almost everyone in the congregation will write a testimony, learn to share the testimony in writing and orally, begin to distribute books of the congregation's assembled testimonies, and support inexpensive witnessing training of the same sort in foreign lands. The book explains how.

Many people estimate that hardly any Christians witness to anyone outside of their own families despite Jesus directing us to share our faith through His Great Commission. With these changes, you can expect that 40 percent or more of the congregation will be witnessing to non-family members every week. The number of people who gain Salvation soars. The book also demonstrates how much people enjoy witnessing of the sort that is encouraged by the book and provides lots of practical advice about how to overcome fears and shyness.

The book tells how a typical church of 200 worshipers has helped hundreds of thousands of people to find the Lord. Wouldn't you like to do the same?

If 10,000 churches heeded this call, there would be the greatest revival in history. Wouldn't that be an awesome way to honor God?

If you like what you read, share the book with your pastor and your Christian friends in other congregations.

The book won't be available for sale for a few weeks yet, but we wanted to offer access to an online version now as our Christmas gift to you this year.

May God bless you, your family, and all you do in the name of Jesus!

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman, Mitchell and Company

Copyright 2009 Donald W. Mitchell

Advance Peek at an Excerpt from 2,000 Percent Solution Living

2009-09-09T19:16:00.000-07:00

Good evening, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this evening?

I hope so. I know that I am!

I felt called by the Holy Spirit to accelerate
writing of my new book, 2,000 Percent
Solution Living. Writing is going well, and
I thought you might enjoy an advance peek
at this blockbuster book, a way to live way
beyond your wildest dreams.

This excerpt comes from part of the book's
introduction:

Wisdom is the principal thing;

Therefore get wisdom.

And in all your getting,

get understanding.

Take firm hold of instruction,

do not let go;

Keep her, for she is your life.

— Proverbs 4:7, 13 (NKJV)

Would you like to enjoy your life more, accomplish so much that you amaze yourself, have lots of free time, be with loved ones as much as you want, and earn a much higher income while spending less time and effort working? Those are some of the potential benefits that 2,000 percent solution living offers you.

To gain those benefits, you’ll have to make some changes: Stop doing some harmful things and start doing some more beneficial things. In the process, you can use God’s help to turn your life into a masterpiece that both brings glory to Him and joy to you and those you love.

How do I know what’s possible and what’s involved? I’ve been helping people make such improvements for many years as demonstrations of the opportunity for everyone on Earth to make improvements at 20 times the usual rate. In addition, I’ve gained benefits from 2,000 percent solution living for myself.

Are you ready to start now? Read on to learn what to do.

Fulfill Your Potential by Gaining the Right Knowledge and

Performing Breakthrough Service

“… he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger,

and he who governs as he who serves.”

— Luke 22:26 (NKJV)

Most people have no idea how little of their talent and knowledge they are employing. I see that lack of awareness all the time among my students. I believe that you are underestimating your potential as well.

Here’s an example of what I mean. Dr. Burra Ramulu worked as a shift supervisor at a fertilizer factory in the Middle East for many years. However, his most important responsibility was to train young Arabs to hold the organization’s senior roles. He was effective in such preparation, and all of those with positions above him in the organization were younger men whom he had originally trained.

After deciding to earn a doctorate, Dr. Ramulu became interested in 2,000 percent solutions (ways of accomplishing 20 times the results with the same or less time, money, and effort). His first 2,000 percent solution project was to study how his factory’s profits could be increased by more than 20 times while spending very little money for new investment. He found a way to greatly increase capacity, improve quality, expand productivity, and lower costs that only required an investment equal to about 10 percent of the plant’s existing capital base. As a result, cash flow expanded by more than 20 times.

Realizing that his opportunities to advance his career were constrained in the Middle East, Dr. Ramulu moved back to his native India and took a position with a global producer of basic commodities. As his dissertation subject, Dr. Ramulu investigated how to create a new business model for his employer, the first major business-model improvement for that industry in more than 50 years. As a result, he located a way to lower costs by over 40 percent, to reduce capital needs by even more, and to expand his company’s business volume by several hundred percent. The new business model was approved by his employer and is now being implemented. When in operation, profits for that business in India are expected to expand by much more than 20 times while competitors will be eliminated for many years to come.

Not satisfied with what he had learned and accomplished during the process of attaining his first doctorate, Dr. Ramulu decided to study for a second one. This time his dissertation work was based on an even more fundamental problem: How to lift poor, uneducated people out of despair and to make their lives hopeful and economically successful. Choosing to serve Kasimpet, the village where he grew up, Dr. Ramulu faithfully trekked hundreds of kilometers across India on weekends to teach the people there about 2,000 percent solutions.

Also supported by other volunteers who had once lived in Kasimpet, an initial 50 people soon reformed the bad thinking habits that had held them back, began using better thinking processes, formed a cooperative, and began designing and implementing profitable 2,000 percent solutions. In just a few months, most of those 50 people increased their incomes by more than 20 times, reduced their debts by more than 96 percent, slashed the interest rates they were paying on the remaining debt by 96 percent, and increased their net worths by more 20 times. They also gained new, positive outlooks on life, and sought to cooperate with one another rather than be divided by the accidents of birth from which castes are defined.

As this book was going to press, these 50 people had pledged to teach what they had learned to at least another 20 other people each who will be asked to do the same for 20 more people. Should everyone be faithful, most poverty and despair can be eliminated from that part of India in just a few years.

Naturally, Dr. Ramulu enjoys a wonderful sense of accomplishment from encouraging so many positive improvements. Can you imagine the sense of satisfaction that he enjoys each morning as he thinks about the villagers?

What else might Dr. Ramulu accomplish? It’s up to what God calls him to do. There is no practical limit to his potential to succeed in serving others.

There are millions of people with as much potential as Dr. Ramulu has who could have done what he did to serve others. But few of them choose to serve by learning and teaching breakthrough skills. Dr. Ramulu made that important choice, and that decision liberated him and those he has taught into 2,000 percent solution living.

I pray that this book will do the same for you.

Foundations of 2,000 Percent Solution Living

Become complete.

Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace;

and the God of love and peace will be with you.

— 2 Corinthians 13:11 (NKJV)

Since I was young, people have often asked for my advice. I have always been happy to share my ideas, and many people have benefited. I have always been grateful to God for granting me this ability to serve and for providing His guidance for what to say and write.

I was deeply humbled in 1995 when the Holy Spirit directed me to lead an effort to help everyone on the Earth accomplish at least 20 times more. (You can read about the origins, methods, and conclusions of what I call the 400 Year Project, ways to make 400 years worth of normal improvements during the years from 2015 through 2035, in Adventures of an Optimist, BookSurge 2007, and at www.fastforward400.com.) I was so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task that I had no idea what to do first. Fortunately, He directed my steps and learning so that the necessary solutions have been identified and described in my books about the 400 Year Project.

Despite my willingness to help in every possible way, it recently struck me that I may not have been sharing what I have learned in the right ways: When I asked people who have been reading about my work for years what questions they would like me to answer about accomplishing 20 times more, I found nothing new in what they asked. In fact, I had previously written answers to each of the questions I received.

From those responses I realized that people who want to make breakthroughs in all aspects of their lives need a brief compendium of the most important ways to accomplish 20 times more. This book, 2,000 Percent Solution Living, is intended to facilitate those accomplishments.

After thinking about the possible contents for the book over several weeks, I was surprised to be awakened at 1:30 a.m. on May 19, 2009, by a voice that dictated to me in great detail what should be in this book. This dictation continued for many hours and finally paused for me to begin asking clarifying questions, which were then answered. The instruction lasted over six hours.

From that experience, I concluded that by writing this book I am merely serving as a fleshly vehicle for a message from the Holy Spirit that is intended for all people on Earth. I pray that I have been faithful and accurate in sharing with you what I was directed to write.

The Lessons for You

But who can teach a lesson to God,

since he judges even the most powerful?

— Job 21:22 (NLT)

Most people rarely read nonfiction books, dipping perhaps into one or two in a decade. If that’s your reading pattern, this section is for you. I summarize the book’s key lessons here.

If this information is enough for your purposes, stop after reading this section. If you want to learn more about why these solutions are important or how to implement them, go to the chapters that describe the lessons you want to learn more about.

If you would rather read a fuller treatment of the book’s contents, you can skip this section and just begin reading Chapter 1.

Lesson 1: Accept Salvation by repenting of your sins; believe Jesus is God’s Son and in His resurrection from the dead; and give your life to Jesus Christ to do His will, not yours (or rededicate your life to Him if you have accepted Salvation but have not been walking with Him). Start every day by praising and thanking the Lord, praying for what is righteous that you want done in the name of Jesus, and studying the Bible. Attend church whenever possible; make a weekly written commitment of added ways to follow His direction; and witness to others about your faith until at least 20 people to whom you have been speaking choose to accept Salvation.

Doing these things will help you to hear and understand the Holy Spirit who will guide your steps toward the most productive directions on Earth, will provide you with supernatural support for making performance breakthroughs, and will help you earn eternal rewards to be enjoyed in heaven. As a result, you will have all the wisdom and power you need to do any righteous thing you want. Isn’t that awesome?

May God bless you, your family, and all you do in the name of Jesus!

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman, Mitchell and Company

Copyright 2009 Donald W. Mitchell

Happy Thanksgiving Thoughts

2008-11-27T11:55:00.000-08:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this morning?

I hope so. I know that I am!

I feel very blessed today to have this opportunity to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. Today is a day when we could and should spend the day thanking God for all that He has done for us . . . and showing His love to others.

Pastor Bill Keller has blessed me very much over the last few years through his Daily Devotionals sent by e-mail. From those many messages, I've learned to start my day with Bible reading and prayer. I've also gained a lot of knowledge about what the Bible says about how to live my life, and I have become more obedient to God through this knowledge. I hope you will find similar inspiration from Pastor Keller's messages.

Here is information that Pastor Keller sent this week about some of the many ways you and those you love can gain from what he shares through the www.liveprayer.com site:

1. Distribute Liveprayer Daily Devotional - I need people to take each day's Daily Devotional and forward it to everyone that you know. This is a great way to help spread God's Word on the Internet. Also, post it to various blogs and message boards that you frequent.

2. Liveprayer TV Program - Tell everyone you can about the TV program. The program is on "live" every Monday thru Friday from 10-11pm EST (9-10 CST, 8-9 MST, 7-8 PST), exclusively on the Liveprayer.com website in virtually HD quality. Each night I deal with the hot issues of the day and in people's lives, and viewers can call in for prayer or to ask questions. It is a unique program like nothing else on TV.

3. Jonah Project - Tell everyone that you know to check out the Jonah Project. This is the vehicle God has given us to bring together true followers of Jesus Christ in these last days in one group that can make an incredible impact on the spiritual course of this nation and in millions of people's lives. There is a vision video on the Jonah Project homepage that clearly lays out how God can use this group in these last days. You can access the Jonah Project website by going to Liveprayer.com and clicking on the Jonah Project link.

4. Liveprayer Church - We are already getting incredible feedback from people who have been coming to the services each week at the new Liveprayer Church. This is a great resource to share with people, especially those who currently don't have a church home or won't go to a regular church for whatever reason. Get the word out about this new online church to everyone that you know.

5. Video Daily Devotional on Cell Phones - Next Monday is the launch of this exciting, cutting-edge use of modern technology to minister to people. As of next Monday, get everyone that you know to go to the Liveprayer.com homepage and get signed up for this incredible FREE daily ministry to people via their cell phones.

6. Fundraising - Unlike other ministries, Liveprayer has ZERO paid fundraisers or development people. Again, I just never went the route all major ministries go of having a staff of people who do nothing but contact donors and go out to raise funds. All we do each day, all that we provide is made available for FREE to take God's Word into the marketplace and impact lives for Christ. Obviously it takes money to operate. I've simply shared our needs and walked by faith that God would provide each month. Raising money is a special gift. I am praying that those who have that special gift and want to serve God will help me in this area.

May God bless you, your family, and all you do!

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman, Mitchell and Company

Copyright 2008 Donald W. Mitchell

Your Help Is Needed to Reduce Poverty

2008-11-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this morning?

I hope so. I know that I am!

Because of the current global economic issues, I wanted
to do something to help poor people. While recently
reading a book called Crowdsourcing, I was struck by the
opportunity to launch a new kind of contest to create
better solutions for reducing poverty.

Traditionally, online contests have provided a period
of a few months to propose solutions. The best solutions
then gained prizes and recognition . . . and were
publicized for all to use.

The new idea is to start a contest by publishing some
outstanding solutions and inviting people to propose
improvements on those solutions. The list of published
solutions would be continually updated to reflect the
best solutions received to date.

Entrants would have the opportunity to use parts of
already proposed solutions for their entries.

In this way, someone might make a small change that
would provide a large improvement in a fine idea and
turn the result into something much better. And then
the process repeats itself as someone else adds
another valuable small change.

In the contests that were reported, the eventual
winning solutions were approximately 1,000 times
more effective than the first leading solutions that
were received.

I am interested in doing something like this by
beginning with the best solutions for eliminating
poverty that any of my students have generated. I
would publicize these on all of my blogs and put
out a press release about the contest.

What are your thoughts about this kind of contest?

How could it be made better?

How could it be made more interesting to you?

What prizes and recognition do you think should
be offered?

How should the winning entries be publicized?

Thank for your consideration of this request
for help.

I look forward to hearing from you.

You can send me e-mails at
save_more_souls@yahoo.com

May God bless you.

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman, Mitchell and Company

Copyright 2008 Donald W. Mitchell

Blurbs Needed for a New Christian Book About Witnessing

2008-05-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this morning?

I hope so. I know that I am!

I also hope that 2008 will be your best year so far.

I'm writing a book about ways that all Christians can bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to more people based on a global contest (as described in Charisma) that was completed last year.

If you write Christian books, provide Christian programs on television or the radio, or are a minister or pastor and would like to consider writing a blurb for the book, please send me an e-mail at save_more_souls@yahoo.com /.

May God bless you.

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman, Mitchell and Company

Copyright 2008 Donald W. Mitchell

Excerpt from Adventures of An Optimist About Saving More Souls

2008-01-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this morning?

I hope so. I know that I am!

I also hope that 2008 will be your best year so far.

I thought you might also enjoy reading the chapter of Adventures of an Optimist that looks at saving more souls. Here it is:

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?

— Romans 10:14 (NKJV)

Missionary Aid

Read the Bible. Work hard and honestly. And don’t complain.

— Billy Graham

When I received e-mails from many of my first Rushmore University students, I was delighted to find that many of them were foreign missionaries, pastors of evangelical churches, lay leaders founding Christian schools, and businesspeople who wanted to establish new business models built around Christian principles. I felt blessed by those opportunities to learn from the experiences of these fine people as they sought to do God’s will.

My education often included learning that I didn’t know very much about how those with such vocations go about what they do. For instance, I had a student who was a missionary pilot in Africa who kept explaining to me that there was a 2,000 percent opportunity in better scheduling flights to visit missionaries. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what he could be talking about. After all, a small plane is only going to hold so many people and so much in supplies. Even if you optimally combined two or three sets of visitors, that wouldn’t be a 20 times improvement in performance.

Realizing that this student was trying to tell me something I didn’t understand, I kept asking questions. Eventually, he explained what he meant in more detail.
He was appalled to find that he was flying day after day to the same missions with a different educational or aid group. Often, the education was similar to what the mission had received just a few days earlier. The missions were primarily looking to accumulate as much aid as possible and were willing to undergo extra training and education if enough aid could be gained in the process. At the same time, other missions in the area hadn’t received an educational or aid visit in many years.

How could this feast or famine condition happen? It turns out to reflect poor communications among the various Protestant churches. The people who arrived at a mission on Friday didn’t realize someone had been there with a similar program on Tuesday. However, the missionary pilot knew because he talked to his passengers every day and had flown in both groups.

I was excited to see what solution the student would propose. He came back with an excellent plan to involve a friend in a religious organization to develop a coordinating Web site for major churches to use so that they could monitor each others’ missionary support activities by site. I was acutely aware that there is a wide distance between proposing such a fine solution and enlisting the appropriate people to participate. I told the student that I wouldn’t grade his paper until the program was implemented. That was more than two years ago, and I’ve heard no more about the project.

Similar experiences with other Christian students made me realize that while many feel called to make important improvements in the name of Jesus, they often lack the staying power to turn those calls into practical results. I must admit that much of my initial enthusiasm for working with these students was tempered as almost all disappeared one by one without accomplishing the wonderful dreams they had initially shared with me. In most cases, they didn’t even get started on their dreams.

I was puzzled. What was this lack of follow-through all about? Finally, one student told me that he had been intimidated by my enthusiasm for his dream. He shared with me that he felt unworthy of taking on such a challenge. To me it seemed clear that God wanted this man to accomplish the challenge.

The student’s reluctance didn’t surprise me. The Bible is full of great leaders who didn’t feel up to the task that God assigned. Moses, for example, told God that God should pick Aaron to lead the Israelites because he, Moses, was such a poor speaker. God often chooses those with limited skills and experience to perform miracles so it will be clear to everyone that He deserves the glory rather than His servant.

Enlisted into My Special Task

My faith is the grand drama of my life.
I’m a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith.

— Oliver Messiaen

In the summer of 2006, I began to see how the 400 Year Project could be brought to a successful conclusion. Realizing that perhaps I had devoted too much of my attention to this one challenge, I began to seek ways to rebalance my life. One of those rebalancing methods was to spend more time communing with God through prayer, Scriptural studies, attending services, and listening to the still, small voice within.

For several years I had been enjoying the devotionals sent to me daily over the Internet by evangelist Bill Keller. I liked many of the devotionals so much that I asked Bill if I could copy them into my blog, and he kindly gave me permission. In those days, he didn’t keep an online archive and I felt like many people would want to look up various subjects.

One of those devotionals speared me like an arrow that summer. The evangelist reminded his readers that our responsibility as believers is to share the Gospel with others through our example and our words. Not feeling well equipped to do more than try to be a good example, I began to pray about what else I should be doing.

The next day, my answer came: I was to launch a global contest to locate the most effective ways that souls were being saved and be sure that information was shared widely. This sharing would be a blessing for those who wished to fulfill the great commission to spread the good news of Jesus. Fortunately, I had been studying for several years about how such contests had been run by secular organizations to generate improvements. I decided to announce the contest in my blog, http://www.livespirituallybetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com, on August 26, 2006.

I didn’t want to presume that someone already had good answers or ways to find such answers: I decided to offer free e-books of The 2,000 Percent Solution and The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook to anyone who enrolled in the contest. It occurred to me that this sharing might also stimulate some good ideas to arise sooner. In pursuing this task, I recalled many conversations with Peter Drucker about how sharing secular knowledge with pastors had been helpful to the development of some Protestant megachurches.

I also wanted to share whatever else I could to help make the contest a success. As a prize, I offered the chance to be included in one of two books about great ways to save more souls. I would coauthor both books and cover the launch expenses, and the proceeds would go to support the best ideas. Presumably winning such a contest might also help with getting publicity, attracting volunteers, and gaining donations. My assumption was that most people who are great at saving souls have been working on that rather than writing about what they do and seeking publicity to alert others to the opportunity. My experience in writing, producing, and promoting such books could possibly be of help to such effective leaders.

I doubt if many people could have been more daunted than I did by the task. I felt like my role, at best, was to be a conduit for God’s will. At worst, I might insert myself in ways that harmed the process. I can’t quote Scripture, didn’t attend a Bible college, and find myself with more to learn about my faith than answers. But I do have lots of faith and as a result felt confident that God would find a way for His will to succeed regardless of my blunders.

Helping Hands

Only the mediocre writer is always at his best.

— William Somerset Maugham

Fortunately, the spirituality blog had developed a following before I announced the contest. Within just a few days, people sent e-mails with observations and questions about the contest. I appreciated and benefited from all of the comments I received.

Some feared for my soul: To them, this contest looked like I wanted to replace the Holy Spirit’s role in salvation with my thoughts and actions. Others were concerned that I was trying to buy my way into Heaven. I took those concerns to heart and asked people to pray for me so that I wouldn’t fall into such traps.
A few people sent me useful Scriptures that spoke about the proper ways that salvation might be gained by unbelievers following activities done by believers. I learned from those references and paid careful attention to them.

Many people were concerned by what they saw as ineffective evangelical efforts in the United States. Many different descriptions expressed those concerns, but a fair paraphrase would be to say that too much evangelism was aimed at those who had accepted Christ and too little at those who aren’t Christians. In particular, people were concerned that evangelism had become something mostly pursued by a few superstar pastors and ministers while the bulk of Christians did little in this regard.

Other people still saw the biggest opportunities for evangelism in places outside the United States where few had heard of Jesus. They told me fascinating stories about successful experiments in underdeveloped nations, including even hard-core Muslim countries where sharing God’s word could lead to death.
Occasionally, I was contacted by someone who seemed to know more about how to work with the Christian community than I did. When that occurred, I asked how to attract more contest enrollees. The advice I received was to simply let Christian leaders know about the contest, and the leaders would pass along the information to their congregations and readers. That seemed to me like a suggestion easier said than done. However, I felt encouraged by all of the care, concern, and advice that I received.

A Christmas Gift for God

We praise Him, we bless Him, we adore Him, we glorify Him,
and we wonder who is that baritone across the aisle and
the pretty woman on our right who smells of apple blossoms.

— John Cheever

Christmas can be a disturbing holiday as the challenges of gift giving, card sending, and entertaining weigh heavily on our time, our minds, and our bank accounts. It’s easy to lose sight of the reason we celebrate Christmas: to honor the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I find that if I’m not careful, my Bible reading time diminishes rather than increases just before Christmas, despite my desire to do the opposite. My only remedy has been to devote much of Christmas Day to reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Passing one jammed shopping mall after another in the fall of 2006, I began to wonder why no one ever thinks of giving a gift to God for Christmas. The more I thought about that omission, the more convinced I became that some people would welcome the idea of enrolling in the contest to save more souls as a Christmas gift to God.

Having had some success in the past with putting out press releases, I took this route to share my idea in the usual way. The response was muted. The secular press just didn’t seem very interested, and the Christian media hadn’t seemed to notice the release.

After that disappointing result, I did a little online research and found that there were outlets for press releases that go solely to Christian media. I rewrote the earlier press release a little and sent it out via some of those services. I was pleased to find out that it was much less expensive to send out such a release to Christian media than to all media.

The response was very encouraging this time. Many Christian news outlets briefly summarized the contest, and inquiries about the contest rapidly picked up. I was also interviewed for some printed articles and drive-time radio programs.
Because of the long lead times involved with some of the stories, I decided to extend the end date for entries from January 31, 2007, to Easter 2007. That also seemed like a logical ending time for finishing a commitment made to God as a Christmas gift in 2006.

I was delighted to find that not only had the quantity of contest inquiries increased, but the quality of the most recent ideas provided some real eye-openers, as well. I was equally impressed that the ideas didn’t duplicate one another; people were finding vastly different, effective ways to reach those who didn’t know and accept Jesus.

Not surprisingly, the tools of mass communication appealed to some. If you can televise programs around the world where no one is now seeing Christian messages, you can begin to create fertile furrows in unplowed fields. One report showed that by spending $110 in Kenya to televise an hour-long DVD, 11 people reported that they were saved and 5 others volunteered to work as evangelists. That apparently low cost per person contrasted with some e-mails I received that estimated a cost of over $10,000 per person saved for some major evangelical events in the United States.

Radio was also described as a possible answer. One man reported that he had found a way to establish Christian radio stations for less than 1 percent of the usual cost. He had several stations operating in Canada and planned to expand to about 100 more around the world. He reported that relatively few of his listeners had ever heard a Christian message before.

One man wanted to tap into the tremendous flows of tourists who seek entertainment. His idea was to build a Christian-themed multimedia experience in Branson, Missouri where believers could bring their friends to learn about God’s promises.

But most people had the opposite instinct to employing mass media: They saw energizing the vast numbers of Christians as the best way to save more souls. After all, if each Christian would only speak to a few other people, all non-Christians would at least have the background to consider if they felt called to become Christians.

As people wrote to me, I began to realize that my sense of inadequacy in sharing my faith was pretty normal. In fact, I was surprised to learn that I was actually better equipped to share my faith than most Christians are. I have read the Bible many times. I’m familiar with the sections of the Bible that call for witnessing our faith to others. I try to set a good example in everything I do. I have become comfortable with telling others that I am a Christian and inviting them to learn more. My suggestions had helped some people begin a search for God that led to them becoming Christians.

I began to realize that God may have chosen me for this role of directing the contest in part because I felt inadequate in sharing God’s love while having seen some successes come from my sharing among seekers.

What was possible to accomplish with evangelism? As you can imagine, there are some amazing individual evangelists: They can walk up to anyone, quickly establish powerful rapport, and talk easily about becoming saved after just a few general sentences. Some of these people contacted me and shared their testimonies. One man even sent a book describing his methods. His approach was so well thought out that it could have been a role model for recruiting sergeants trying to find the next 100,000 U.S. Army troops.

Gradually, I began to hear from people who had focused on taking insecure believers and turning them into effective witnesses. What was the lesson? Directing Christians to save more souls is an ongoing educational task of the church that deserves to be part of every worship service. Yes, that’s right. People need to be reminded to share their faith during each service and to receive practical training. Otherwise it seems as though many Christians think that they can learn everything they need to be a Christian by just waiting for God to direct them. Yet these same people conscientiously send their children for driver’s education training and attend Bible-based services.

What’s the biggest hurdle? Many Christians are delighted to be saved, but don’t feel like they have an obligation to help anyone else become saved. Without the desire to help the unsaved, there’s little benefit gained by instructing people in how to accomplish that task.

Take It Step by Step

Talk to him of Jacob’s ladder,
and he would ask the number of steps.

— Douglas Jerrold

While many people focused on one evangelism approach or another, I was impressed to learn about the bigger vision of Jim Barbarossa, an Ephesians 4 evangelist at Jubilee Worship Center in Hobart, Indiana (http://www.jubileeworshipcenter.com), and head of Step by Step Ministries in Porter, Indiana (http://www.step-by-step.org). Jim has developed a process for energizing and directing a church’s congregation toward local, national, and international evangelism while serving as an example that other churches can emulate. Jim’s background was in business before finding Jesus later in life. Once having been saved, Jim immediately began witnessing enthusiastically with others. If you ever get a chance to meet him, you’ll see that he’s a natural for his spiritual calling.

At the time I met Jim, here’s how the step-by-step process worked. Jim had signed on with his wife, Carla, as an evangelist for Jubilee Worship Center. Now, if you are like me, you probably haven’t ever been to a church with evangelists on staff. Jim’s view is that the first full-time pastoral employee a congregation should hire after a pastor or minister is an evangelist. This step should occur when the church has around 70 members.

Why does such a small church need an evangelist? Jim’s view is that most ministers and pastors are overwhelmed with other responsibilities, especially if the church is just starting up and growing. In such circumstances, evangelism is usually limited to altar calls among the mostly saved congregation.

Jim’s pastor, Dale Combs, asked Jim what resources Jim needed to succeed. Jim asked for five minutes out of every service; otherwise, Jim felt that he wouldn’t be able to make steady-enough progress. At first, this time was devoted to creating a desire to witness. Church members were initially very resistant. However, Dale and Jim were firm in their commitment, and progress was slowly made in creating a desire to witness among the congregation.

Yet, even after creating a desire among congregants to witness, many admitted that they felt afraid to do so. Some were concerned about saying the wrong thing and harming someone. Others didn’t want to face rejection. How could those fears be overcome?

Then Jim was inspired to ask each person in the congregation to provide a written personal testimony that could be combined into a book. Editors and typists helped parishioners with this writing. In many of the testimonies, people describe their lives before they accepted Jesus as their Savior and go on to explain how much better life has been since then. The stories are very powerful and interesting to read. I suspect that many churches don’t know what good works God has done within their congregations. Certainly, those who haven’t been saved don’t know what a wonderful experience this is. Each person also provided a photograph for the cover. Over time, most church members chose to share their testimonies.

Each person in the church was then asked to take seven copies of Real Life Stories a week and to hand them out to friends, neighbors, strangers, bank tellers, grocery clerks, wait staff, and anyone else it occurred to the church member to talk to. The books don’t look “churchy” in Jim’s view, and recipients are impressed to receive a book from an author whose picture appears on the cover. Church members are encouraged to inscribe the books to the recipient as though performing a formal signing at a major bookstore, noting on what page their testimony falls. Not surprisingly, many people took the books, looked at the one- or two-page testimony of the giver … and kept reading.

This approach meant that congregants could be sure the right message was being shared and the perceived risk from their offer to witness was minimal. When a conversation ensued, the witness could fall back on describing a well-prepared personal testimony that would be interesting to most people.

In quantities of many thousands, these paperback books are inexpensive to print and bind. Where do the funds come from? The church has a special box on the floor near the altar where members are asked to drop extra donations (above their normal tithes and offerings) for the purpose of evangelism.

As a result of continuing with the book program, about 40 percent of the church’s members are out sharing the Gospel every week through handing out these books or tracts based on the testimonies. To me, that was very impressive.
Before the church had these books containing members’ testimonies, Jim had a few tracts printed up that contained practical messages about peoples’ problems and how Jesus could be the answer. The tracts concluded the last page with the sinner’s prayer and a way to contact Step by Step Ministries for discipleship. From the beginning, the most enthusiastic church members used the tracts to introduce people to Jesus.

Soon, Jim and Carla were hearing about copies of the tracts and books that had reached people all over the United States and dozens of countries around the world. Jim began to think about what else might be done.

He decided to add audio tapes that could be shared. The power of the voice is often greater than the printed word, and such tapes are also helpful to people who cannot or don’t have the time to read but want to learn about God.
In the system to provide these simple messages (via tracts, tapes, and books), Jim also realized that his evangelistic efforts could support foreign missions without the substantial expense involved of sending missionaries from the United States. Instead, Christians in foreign nations who wanted to share God’s love could use Step by Step tracts, tapes, and books to do so. After the tapes, tracts and the books provided by a volunteer, the idea is to visit again in three days to see if the recipient wants to talk about the material. In many cases, the unsaved said they wouldn’t read or listen the material when offered, but took the materials anyway and later read or listened to them.

After a large-enough new congregation is established in a foreign land, local versions of the testimony books can be created from their experiences. In addition, it was often cheaper to translate and print the tracts and books or duplicate the tapes in poor countries than in the United States. By seeding these non-U.S. Christians with the tools and the witnessing process, the foreign Christians were able to save many souls and create communities of believers who can hopefully raise the funds to become financially self-sufficient in their evangelism.

For months, one of my daily pleasures was to receive e-mails from Jim that contained reports of evangelical efforts in various countries. The most exciting of these reports would show dozens of individual photographs of smiling new Christians after emerging from their water baptisms. Other e-mails contained the happy testimonies of these excited new members of the faith.

In 2006, Jim and Carla realized that they could teach others to play the evangelist roles in their churches, and a conference was organized to provide this education. Plans are underway to do this again each year in the future. DVDs of this conference are available and are sent to foreign nations to train church-connected evangelists in those countries.

I look forward to keeping in touch with Jim and Carla and their pastor, Dale, to learn what steps they will add to further improve this process. If you pay attention to the steps you take to serve God, each single step can take you further toward God’s will for your life and our world.

The biggest surprise of all was to realize that by God directing Jim to me through Dale’s wife, Lisa, I had uncovered another 2,000 percent squared solution. This approach used by Jubilee Worship Center and Step by Step Ministries to sharing the Gospel involves a 20 times higher percentage of congregation members witnessing than the typical church and support for foreign evangelism has cost a mere 25 cents per person saved, way less than 4 percent of what traditional methods cost.

This post is based on Chapter 12 of Adventures of an Optimist.

May God bless you.

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman, Mitchell and Company

Copyright 2007-2008 Donald W. Mitchell

My Christian Testimony as Published in Adventures of an Optimist

2008-01-18T07:26:00.000-08:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this morning?

I hope so. I know that I am!

I also hope that 2008 will be your best year so far.

I thought you might enjoy reading an excerpt from Adventures of an Optimist where I describe how I became a Christian.

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

— James 4:10 (NKVJ)

Let me reveal how I became a Christian so you’ll know where I’m coming from with regard to improving the quality of your life. As a youngster, my mother regularly took me to Sunday school. It was my least favorite activity; sleeping was much preferred. I did enjoy listening to sermons, but it was frowned on to take youngsters to adult services.

If I pretended to be asleep, mom would sometimes let me sleep in on Sundays. I was pretty good at pretending so I soon was the biggest backslider in my Sunday school grade. Fortunately, it was an evangelical church so my classmates were always cooking up schemes to get me to attend again.

By the time I turned 13, I was pretty full of myself. There wasn’t much room for God in there alongside my exaggerated opinion of myself. One day while my family was away for a drive, I felt really sick. By the time they got home, I was delirious. Within an hour I was in the hospital where I would stay for two weeks as I barely survived a bad case of double pneumonia.

My physician, Dr. Helmsley, was a good Christian and worried about my soul because my life was in jeopardy. He talked to me about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit twice a day when he stopped by to check on me. After I recovered, he took my mom and me to a tent revival meeting.

Having recovered from the illness, I soon pushed God out of my life again. During the next year, I was very caught up instead in athletics. When I was in ninth grade, I desperately wanted to make a contribution to our junior high track team, which had a remote chance of winning the big meet. Our coach, Mr. Layman, told each of us exactly what had to be accomplished for the team to win. I was determined to do my part. I had to come in first!

But that wasn’t likely to happen. Based on past performances, there were at least two people who could out leap me in the standing broad jump, my main event. To make such a jump you stand on a slightly raised, tilted board and spring forward as far as you can into a sand-filled pit. After two of the three jumping rounds, I knew it was hopeless. I was in sixth place and four of the competitors’ jumps were longer than I had ever gone before. I also didn’t like the board we were using.

Remembering that we should call on God when we need help, I thought of praying … but what I wanted was so trivial in God’s terms that I didn’t think it was worthy of prayer. So I decided to make God an offer instead: “Dear God, help me win this event, and I’m yours forever.” After all, if He came through, any doubts I had about God would be dispelled.

I got onto the broad-jump board and felt very calm. I did my routine and took off into the air. Suddenly, I felt light as a feather with a large, gentle hand lifting under me. I was dropped softly at the end of the pit. I had out leaped everyone, and gone more than six inches past my best jump ever. I couldn’t believe it. Then I remembered my promise to God, thanked him, repented my sins, accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, and ran off to tell everyone on the team.

What was even more remarkable was that I was the only person on the team who performed up to the plan. Knowing what had to be done had probably given us performance anxiety, and people underperformed because they didn’t believe they could do what the team needed.

After a few days, I started to think that perhaps I’d just developed a new broad jump technique and God didn’t have a role at all. God soon dispelled that thought by making sure that my jumps for the rest of my life were shorter than I had jumped when He lifted me up.

Since then, God has been speaking to me on a regular basis. I’ve learned to pay attention and act promptly. When I follow His orders, things work out great. That’s my secret to high performance, and I just wanted to share it with you so you could benefit, too. He knows the answers, even when you and I don’t … which is most of the time.

Having been told to start the 400 Year Project by God, I continued to receive instructions. In 2005, for example, God told me to start explaining to people how to live their lives by gaining more joy from what they already have.

You may be wondering why I put this Christian testimony into what’s mostly a secular book. It’s simple. God has been telling me to put my testimony into this book every day lately, and I just found a good place to fit it in my story.

If you already gain high performance from your spiritual experiences, that’s great. Even if such spiritually based performance is the case, based on my experiences I believe you are missing out if you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I encourage you to find out about and consider what you’re missing: That message is an important part of what God told me He wants you to think about as you read this chapter.

Life without Jesus can be pretty lonely and scary. Wouldn’t you like to find out how to enjoy His love, peace, and guidance? A good book to help you start exploring this spiritual opportunity is Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now (FaithWords, 2004).

May God bless you.

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman, Mitchell and Company

Copyright 2008 Donald W. Mitchell

Adventures of an Optimist Is Now Available

2008-01-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

Good evening, Spiritual People!

Are you feeling motivated this evening?

I hope so. I know that I am!

I also hope that 2008 will be your best year so far.

I thought you might enjoy learning about what I've been slaving over for the last six months to help you achieve more spiritual progress.

As you know, I've been working on the 400 Year Project (demonstrating ways to make global improvements at 20 times the usual rate) since 1995. Along the way, I've helped write six books that details progress on the project (The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The Portable 2,000 Percent Solution, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage).

The thinking behind the project has, however, moved much faster than publishing of books has permitted. As a result, I realized early in 2007 that I could see the end of the project.

I decided to share that vision of a world improving on all of its performance areas (big and small, individual and collective). I've put that vision in my new book, Adventures of an Optimist: A Progress Report on the 400 Year Project to Help You Improve 20 Times Faster.

Last year, I held a contest to find a foreword for the book. Ms. Teresa Bolen was the winner of the contest. Here is what she had to say about the book:

"What would you do if God gave you knowledge for making the world a much better place? Not your everyday, ordinary, run of the mill knowledge, but knowledge that would allow you and your team to create solutions that would otherwise not be available to the people of Earth for another 400 years.

"Though he’s far too humble a servant of God to say so himself, I believe that is exactly what happened to my mentor and friend Don when he was gifted with the inspiration to create the 400 Year Project – a project to create 400 hundred years worth of improvements in merely 20 years. You read that right: four centuries worth of improvements in only two short decades.

"The kinds of global improvement methods he writes about have the potential to provide nutritious food, clean water, excellent healthcare and safety to everyone on the planet. These improvement methods have the potential to bring peace to every region of the globe. On a more personal level, these methods have the potential to dramatically increase longevity, perhaps even to more than double one’s lifespan. Don’s methods offer the potential to improve the quality of life, personal relationships, finances, and education, and to present a myriad of new opportunities for you and everyone around you. If you’re not already familiar with Don’s other works such as The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage, then this may sound like a fairytale. However if you are already a follower of Don’s work, then you’ll immediately recognize the potential of his 400 Year Project to bring that Divine inspiration into physical reality, ushering in improvements on a global scale, limited only by the imaginations of those who are putting these teachings into practice. In a world where many find themselves lost in the doom and gloom of contemplating a future dominated by disease, disaster, crime, war, and suffering, Don’s optimistic vision is not merely a shining path of hope, but a template for how to recreate our world into something so blessed and wonderful that everyone experiencing it would become optimists.

"In Adventures of an Optimist, Don takes you on a personal journey of how he came to be such a practical optimist and why he has so much faith in all of us. He gives a crash course on his world-renowned 2,000 percent solutions, i.e. any way that you can accomplish 20 times as much with the same time and resources, and gives convincing evidence on how that kind of incredible progress — though seemingly enormous at first blush — is merely a baby step for each of us. Don shows us again and again that we can gain infinitely more by learning how to make breakthroughs in areas with the most potential to benefit ourselves and everyone else.

"One of the great things about Don’s writing is how he demonstrates the ways he and his students have repeatedly succeeded with these improvement methods. He also shares the flops, lest we begin to feel that we are reading the optimistic musings of an intellectual superman!

"Don’s masterful use of metaphors and riveting storytelling ability draw you in to experiencing those moments with Don almost as if you were there in person while it was happening. One of my favorite examples is when he describes becoming one of Amazon.com’s top ten reviewers. Like so many people, I had wondered how in the world he accomplished it, especially in addition to his busy life as CEO of Mitchell and Company, helping world-class business professionals create better and better business solutions; professor at Rushmore University, guiding students to create their own 2,000 percent solutions; and writing numerous finely crafted books. You get to imagine what it was like in Amazon’s earlier days when most people were using dial-up modems, see how Don’s thinking interacted with the growth of the internet and of Amazon, and find out how he realized he could reach more people through Amazon reviews than even the most famous authors of business books do.

"Once the reader is comfortably grounded into imagining the possibilities of 2,000 percent solutions, Don eases you into multiplying those exponential improvements. He expands the vision more and more, and you’ll either come out on the other side with your mind wide open for the very real possibilities that the 400 Year Project offers, or you’ll already be taking action to start making those breakthroughs in those areas with the most potential to benefit yourself and others.

"As you read the book and begin to fully grasp the promise of the 400 Year Project, creating 400 hundred years worth of improvements in only 20 years, you’ll ask yourself, “What role do I want to play?” If you’ve ever wanted to make the world an infinitely better place, if you’ve been looking for an opportunity to make a difference so profound that you joyfully leap out of bed each day to create that difference, then this book may just be the introduction to the means you’ve been seeking. Get ready to open your heart, open your mind, and let the possibility of a future brighter than all your wildest dreams be revealed to you."

Teresa Bolen

Author, Master Plan to Master Exams: How to Discover Your Hidden Abilities to Create the Success You Desire

Kyoto, September 15, 2007

Here is the table of contents so you can get a sense of what the book covers:

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Background Briefing: What Can Four Centuries Worth of Improvements in a Generation Mean for Your Life?

Preface: A Singular Sensation

Introduction: Seeds of an Optimistic Idea, the 400 Year Project

Part One: ORIGINS

Chapter 1: How I Became a Practical, Unlimited Optimist

Chapter 2: A Surprise Announcement

Part Two: LESSONS

Chapter 3: Crawling and Toddling Ahead

Chapter 4: Introducing 2,000 Percent Solutions

Chapter 5: Irresistible Growth Beckons

Chapter 6: Reaching Millions of Readers

Chapter 7: Competitive Advantages

Chapter 8: Tutoring Lessons

Chapter 9: A Complementary Dimension: Getting More Out of Life

Chapter 10: Multiplying Exponential Improvements

Chapter 11: Making 400 Years Worth of Progress Quickly by Further Multiplying Exponential Improvements

Chapter 12: Saving More Souls

Part Three: PRESCRIPTIONS

Chapter 13: A Learning Foundation for Rapid Progress

Chapter 14: Entrepreneurial Models for Rapid Progress

Epilogue: Your Role in the 400 Year Project

Appendix A: Become a Helpful Book Reviewer

Appendix B: Why Are 2,000 Percent Solutions Available for Almost Any Activity?

Appendix C: How to Have Your Own Optimistic Adventures

If you would like to get a brief look, Amazon.com has an excerpt that you can download for 49 cents at

http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-of-an-Optimist/dp/B000RO9UWI/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199235182&sr=1-1

If you would like to purchase a paperback copy, Amazon.com has new copies available for $18.99 at

http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Optimist-Progress-Project-Improve/dp/1419684981/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199235182&sr=1-2

If you want to learn more about the 400 Year Project, register for free to read about this work at http://www.fastforward400.com/.

May God bless you.

Donald W. Mitchell
Chairman, Mitchell and Company

Copyright 2008 Donald W. Mitchell

More Christmas Gifts Delivered for God: Global Contest to Save More Souls Runners-Up Are Announced

2007-06-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

I have the pleasure to announce the winners of the contest to save more souls that I started last August.

A global search for better ways to help save souls has identified a variety of profoundly more effective ways for Christian evangelism to be practiced by engaging vastly more Christians in evangelism at much lower cost. The solutions include securing weekly commitments from congregants to set a good example as Jesus did, introducing children to the Gospel during Christian face painting and other activities by using the Wordless Book, following our Savior’s example of seeking out sinners who think their sins are unforgivable, organizing and training women to present themselves as witnesses to the unsaved, raising money from friends and acquaintances to extend the reach of salvation activities, providing volunteer-based call-in Christian counseling services for those who want to discuss Salvation after hearing a Faith-based broadcast message, developing a multimedia walk-through Bible experience to help people learn about a true relationship with Jesus Christ, and establishing very low-cost noncommercial Christian radio stations where none exist.

Weston, MA (Christian Newswire) June 12, 2007 – Management expert Donald W. Mitchell announces the runners-up in a global contest he sponsored to give a Christmas gift to God by finding ways to conduct Christian evangelism more effectively. Mitchell said, “I am thrilled that so many excellent solutions were suggested. Praise God.”

The winning solutions were provided by:

1. Cherie Hill, founder of www.ScriptureNow.com (securing weekly commitments from congregants to set a good example as Jesus did), who observed, “When it comes to saving souls, Jesus gave us the solution in one simple command, ‘Follow Me.’”

2. Vicki Simons, children’s ministry volunteer (introducing children to the Gospel during Christian face painting and other activities by using the Wordless Book),

3. Gisele Umugiraneza, a part-time evangelist (following our Savior’s example of seeking out sinners who think their sins are unforgivable),

4. Gael Torcise and Wendy Lobos, leaders of White Glove Gals, www.WhiteGloveGals.com (organizing and training women to present themselves as witnesses to the unsaved),

5. Herpha Jane T. Obod, a teacher, (raising money from friends and acquaintances to extend the reach of salvation activities),

6. Tom Andersen, operations director of NeedHim Ministries, www.NeedHim.org (providing volunteer-based call-in Christian counseling services for those who want to discuss Salvation after hearing a Faith-based broadcast message), who commented, “Since NeedHim began in 1996, we’ve had the privilege of explaining eternal life through Christ to hundreds of thousands of people, one precious soul at a time.”

7. Greg Volich, president and producer, The God Experience at the Ark, www.TheGodExperience.org (developing a multimedia walk-through Bible experience designed to help people learn about a true relationship with Jesus Christ), and

8. Roger de Brabant, general manager, CHIM FM Radio Network, www.CHIMFM.com (establishing very low-cost noncommercial Christian radio stations where none exist), who noted that he draws inspiration from the words of Jesus in John 9:4,

“I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no man can work.”

Details of these Holy Spirit-inspired practices will be reported in a new book to be published within a year tentatively titled, 2,000 Percent Solutions for Saving More Souls: Effective Ways You Can Pursue the Great Commission, which will be coauthored by Donald W. Mitchell and those who contributed the solutions. A publisher has not yet been selected. All profits and royalties from the book will be donated to the ministries represented by those who presented the solutions to further their evangelism efforts.

Mitchell noted, “I’m very pleased that these solutions range from things that can be done by individuals, to activities that congregations can pursue, to programs that Christian organizations can implement. There’s something here for everyone.”

The contest is described and entry details are included at:

http://livespirituallybetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/2006/08/announcing-world-wide-contest-to-save.html

The contest winning solutions are described at:

http://livespirituallybetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/2007/05/christmas-gift-for-god-revealed-winners.html

For more details about Mitchell’s past efforts on behalf of Christian organizations, see

http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/donald-mitchell-amazon-tech-media_cz_hc_books06_1201amazon.html

Donald W. Mitchell is co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook, The Portable 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage.

May God bless you, your family, and all you do!!

Don

Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell

A Christmas Gift for God Revealed: Winners of a World-Wide Contest to Save More Souls Are Announced

2007-05-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

I have the pleasure to announce the winners of the contest to save more souls that I started last August.

A world-wide search for better ways to save souls launched in August 2006 has identified profoundly more effective ways for Christian evangelism to be practiced by engaging vastly more Christians in witnessing at much lower cost. The winning solutions require a church building a team to assist learning about evangelism by the church’s full congregation, dedicating part of each church service to training congregants about ways to witness and evangelize, and pursuing low-cost ways to joyfully share congregants’ testimonies with more unsaved people.

Weston, MA (Christian Newswire) May 14, 2007 – Management expert Donald W. Mitchell announces the winners of a world-wide contest he sponsored to give a Christmas gift to God by finding ways to conduct Christian evangelism more effectively. Mitchell happily noted, “The best solutions vastly exceeded my high expectations for this contest. Praise God.”

The winning solutions were provided by Jubilee Worship Center in Hobart, Indiana (http://www.jubileeworshipcenter.com/) and Step by Step Ministries in Porter, Indiana (http://www.step-by-step.org/).

Senior Pastor Dale P. Combs of Jubilee Worship Center conceived of having in-house evangelists who would concentrate on preparing congregants to share God’s love with those who had not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Pastor Combs’ vision has been fulfilled by “Ephesians 4” evangelists, Jim and Carla Barbarossa, who lead a team of evangelism fire starters from the congregation to provide five minutes of witnessing and evangelism training, and encouragement as part of every church service.

These efforts seek to fulfill the direction described by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:11-13:

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;” (NKJV)

From these educational efforts, the majority of congregants at Jubilee Worship Center have prepared written testimonies of their Christian rebirths and the positive effects of rebirth on their lives. These testimonies have been converted into tracts and books that almost all congregants share on a regular basis with the unsaved. Since the evangelism-training program was begun, tens of thousands of tracts and books have been shared by congregants with unsaved relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and old and new acquaintances.

“I am absolutely amazed at how God uses such simple ideas,” states Pastor Combs. “When God told me that we were to train those who come to Christ to be active participants in the Harvest as part of the Vision for Jubilee Worship Center, I had no idea how to put it all together. Not long after, God brought Jim and Carla into our church and they were the missing piece of the puzzle. Together we began training our congregation to share their stories with their lost friends. Little did I know the impact of what God was going to do on a global scale!” The effect has been to increase the evangelistic efforts of this average-size congregation by over 100 times.

Lisa Combs shared that she is grateful for the evangelistic efforts of the congregation. “This allows the pastor the time to spend on other issues that press the church. Since there are people who are trained to share their faith, more lives are being reached than if just the pastor was doing so.”

The harvest of saved souls has been large. The cost per soul saved has been small compared to traditional efforts by full-time evangelists.

Mitchell noted, “I would never have realized that God had done so much good in one congregation if I hadn’t read these powerful, heart-felt testimonies.”

Jim Barbarossa explained why the unsaved have responded so well to these testimonies. “Our witnessing tools focus on many practical aspects of how being saved improves your life on Earth. Because people are looking for answers to their biggest day-to-day problems, these life-changing gifts are received with joy. With this approach, witnessing is made easy and comfortable for even the shyest Christians because they experience warm acceptance of their help, rather than rejection.”

Carla Barbarossa noted that "God has used the witnessing and evangelism teachings that He gave my husband, Jim, to set me free from a paralyzing fear that stopped me from sharing my faith for the first 25 years of my Christian life. Today I enjoy sharing my faith and especially like doing the 5-minute witnessing and evangelism sessions to encourage others to get free from fear and share their faith."

This work has been expanded to fulfill Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:19-20:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (NKJV)

Step By Step Ministries has found that the practices and tools developed at Jubilee Worship Center are readily transferable to other churches in the United States and to evangelistic ministries in other nations. In a number of African nations and in Pakistan, Step By Step Ministries has been providing tracts, tapes, CDs, and books based on Jubilee Worship Center’s witnessing. As employed by evangelistic ministries abroad, these materials have been used to save tens of thousands of souls at a cost of less than 25 cents per soul. As more experience is developed with using the Jubilee Worship Center approach, the foreign ministries are developing their own materials in local languages based on the experiences of those reborn there by using Jubilee Worship Center congregants’ testimonies. As a result of redirecting evangelism by Christians who live in foreign nations and producing materials abroad, the cost of saving souls is much lower than for sending missionaries from the United States to share the Gospel with unsaved people in those nations.

As a result of these activities, congregants at Jubilee Worship Center and the evangelists at Step by Step Ministries (who are part of the congregation) are helping present Jesus’ offer of salvation to more than 400 times as many unsaved souls as an average-sized American church’s congregation does. Because of this higher level of witnessing, the Holy Spirit has a chance to work in the hearts of more unsaved people.

Details of these Holy Spirit-inspired practices will be reported in a new book to be published within a year which is tentatively titled, Christian, Can You Share Your Testimony and Spare a Quarter? Congregation-Based Evangelism Delivers a 2,000 Percent Squared Solution for Helping Save 400 Times More Souls, which will be co-authored by Donald W. Mitchell, Senior Pastor Dale P. Combs, Lisa Combs, Jim Barbarossa, and Carla Barbarossa. A publisher has not yet been selected. All profits and royalties from the book will be donated to Jubilee Worship Center and Step By Step Ministries to further their evangelism efforts.

The seven-month-long contest is described and entry details are included at:

http://livespirituallybetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/2006/08/announcing-world-wide-contest-to-save.html

For more details about Mitchell’s past efforts on behalf of Christian organizations, see

http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/donald-mitchell-amazon-tech-media_cz_hc_books06_1201amazon.html

Dale P. Combs is senior pastor at Jubilee Worship Center. He can be reached at 219-947-0301.

Jim Barbarossa is co-founder of Step by Step Ministries and senior evangelist of Jubilee Worship Center. He can be reached at 219-762-7589.

May God bless you, your family, and all you do!!

Don

Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell

Many Wonderful Entries Received for the Contest to Save More Souls

2007-04-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

As you know, I've been registering people for the contest to save more souls through Jesus since August 2006. I would like to thank the many people from around the world who took time to register and enter their ideas. I appreciate your interest in assisting this Christian project.

As of Easter, the contest closed for receiving entries.

I'm delighted to let you know that many interesting and valuable ideas were shared. I believe that most Christians will find one or more of these ideas to be personally inspiring and interesting to work on.

The entries are being catalogued and evaluated now. After that will come the judging.

I'll announce the winners here and share some information about each idea so that you can begin to apply these approaches to your own Christian life. I'll also let you know how to get into contact with those who proposed the ideas and practices so that you may participate directly with them if you choose.

After the announcement will come the big challenge of writing about the winners. After the materials are available, I'll share information about how you can acquire copies.

May God bless you, your family, and all you do!!

Don

Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell

Announcing a World-Wide Contest to Save More Souls

2006-08-26T04:43:00.000-07:00

Good morning, Spiritual People!

I have been praying for several weeks for guidance about how I could serve God better. Last night the answer came to me, and I want to share with you what I learned and invite you to join me on an exciting spiritual quest!

As you may already know, God called me in 1995 to begin a project to help the world make 400 years worth of normal progress in the 20 years between 2015 and 2035. With His help, the outlines of the answer are now clear to me, and I'll be sharing the answers with anyone who wants to know them just as fast as I can between now and 2015. If you want to read more about this project, go to http://www.fastforward400.com

One of the first steps in the project was to publish The 2,000 Percent Solution (see http://www.2000percentsolution.com ) which describes how to accomplish 20 times the current results with the same effort and resources.

Since that book was published, I've been helping people learn how to implement that productivity-enhancing process in their chosen fields. I have been fortunate to attract a number of Christian missionaries among my students. They have made me aware of the many ways in which Christian work can be made more productive. For instance, the various Protestant churches don't share information with one another very effectively in terms of the support they provide for missionaries in far-away places. As a result, some missions receive aid from a different denomination almost every day (often duplicating what was done the day before) while other missions haven't seen any aid in years. Frequently, the aid that is provided is poorly chosen for helping with the actual needs.

Yesterday, I was very moved by Bill Keller's powerful devotional about how the only lasting legacy we can truly have is to help souls be saved. Those gains are stored up forever in Heaven.

Here's what God told me to do last night: He told me to launch a contest to find better ways to save souls through Jesus by using the 2,000 percent solution process and then to publicize what is learned as widely as possible.

Will you join me please in this worthy task? May God bless you richly when you do!

Here are the prizes:

1. God will appreciate and bless your faithfulness in serving His purposes.

2. The person who provides the best solution will join me as a co-author of a book called The 2,000 Percent Solution for Saving Souls. All profits and royalties from this book will be donated for implementing the solution described in the book.

3. The 101 next best solutions will be featured along with credit for the solutions in a book that I will edit called 101 Great Solutions for Saving More Souls. All profits and royalties from this book will be donated for implementing the solutions described in the book.

Here are the contest details:

1. To enter, you must register by March 31, 2007. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address ( save_more_souls@yahoo.com ). The purpose of registration is to be able to send you further instructions as needed and to help start a community among those who are interested in this subject.

All those who register will receive free copies of the e-books for The 2,000 Percent Solution and The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook to help you in creating your 2,000 percent solution.

2. To be considered for one of the prizes, you must send your 2,000 percent solution to this address ( save_more_souls@yahoo.com ) by Easter 2007 (April 8).

3. Each solution must be less than 5,000 words and be written in English.

4. The following format is required:

a. A definition of the 2,000 percent solution you are proposing and how this solution will save souls 20 times more effectively with the same time and resources

b. A description of the "stalled thinking" (see Part One of The 2,000 Percent Solution for examples of stalled thinking) you wish to overcome

c. A step-by-step analysis of the proposed solution employing each of the 8 steps in the 2,000 percent solution process (see Part Two of The 2,000 Percent Solution and all of The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook for detailed descriptions of how to do this)

d. Evidence that the solution works based on experience with applying the solution

5. The entrants agree to forgo any royalties or profit from the publication of their ideas in the two books and to allow their solutions to be published and publicized

6. The decisions of the judges are final

7. Solutions that achieve more than 20 times increases in effectiveness versus best practices on August 26, 2006, are applicable to more unsaved people, which can be applied by more Christians, and have superior track records of success will be considered as superior by the judges.

8. Any changes or clarifications in the rules will be published here so that they can be seen by registered registrants.

Other ways you can contribute if you do not register to compete include:

1. I plan to form a non-profit foundation to own these copyrights and to distribute the funds earned by the publications to aid the solutions devised. I need volunteers with experience in these areas to set up the legal, tax and accounting structures properly and to serve on the foundation board.

2. Assuming that I will receive lots of entries, I'll need help in preliminary evaluations of the entries. This will involve checking the entries to see if they meet the criteria.

3. I need a panel of judges to evaluate the entries to choose the winners.

Please send your questions to me at save_more_souls@yahoo.com I'll look forward to hearing from you!

May God bless you, your family, and all you do!!

Don

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell

Your Spiritual Legacy

2006-08-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller republished a devotional today that I
recommend to you for your consideration.  It has food for
thought.  He has given me permission to copy his e-mails,
and I'm sure he would be happy if you would share this
with people you know as well.

What will be your legacy 20 years after you die?  200 years
later?  2000 years later?

Please read on.

*********************************************

DAILY DEVOTIONAL FRIDAY AUGUST 25, 2006

(2 Timothy 1:5)

From Tuesday February 20, 2001:

The greatest legacy you can leave is in the lives you touch
for God.  As I have gotten older, each passing year makes
me realize all the more how brief our journey here really
is.  It is only natural that we think about how we might be
remembered after we are gone.  I don't want to sound cold,
but the fact is, other than our family and possibly a few
close friends, the memory of our life will fade quickly. 
Once we are gone from this life, there is very little left
to remind people we were even here.

Some people may be memorialized by having a building or
road named after them, others may have their memory
honored by having an event named after them.  But for most,
there will be little evidence of this life once it is over. 
My purpose today is not to discourage you, but to challenge
you in regard to how you CAN live on long after your life
is over.

I have often talked about leaving behind the temporal
things of this world when we die.  How the only thing we
will take from this life into eternity is our relationship
with Christ.  That our works will be tested and much of
what we do in this life will be burned up as wood, hay,
and stubble.  The works that will stand the test of fire
are those eternal works.  So it is with our legacy, what
we leave behind.  We leave behind our name, which may or
may not continue.  The most visible thing we leave is
our children, but they too will one day die.

What we do leave behind that will NOT pass away are
those souls who will live for eternity because we were
obedient.  Understand that only the Holy Spirit can bring
a person to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. 
However, God uses human instruments to affect a person's
life and bring them to that point.  Your prayers, your
kind words, your acts of charity, your unconditional love
for others during your life will live on in that person
for eternity!

The point I want you to understand today is that it is
never too early in life, or too late in life to impact
someone for eternity.  It is after all our purpose in
this life.  Our purpose is to serve and glorify God. 
Our service to God comes in the service to others.  Our
service to others has ETERNAL consequences.  It is our
greatest legacy.  It is the part of us that WILL live on
for eternity.  We live on long after we leave this life,
in the lives of those we touch along our way.

I love you and care about you so much.  I pray today that
you will take these words and meditate on them throughout
the day.  This is one of those Devotionals that you should
print out and keep with you.  We all go through those
times in our life when we wonder what it is all about, if
it really matters.  The answer is a resounding YES!  We
need to be reminded from time to time that we are
significant because God uses us in His plan and purpose
to touch other lives at every step along our journey.

I am so appreciative to God that He has given me this
wonderful opportunity to share the love and hope we have
in Jesus Christ with hundreds of thousands worldwide each
day.  I am clearly focused now more than ever, that the
best way I can make my life count, is in those the Lord
allows me to minister to along the way.  It is the
greatest way I can imagine to live my life.  My challenge
to you today is to make sure you leave an eternal legacy,
that you live on after your death in the lives of those
the Lord allows to cross your path.

Thank you for your love and for your prayers and for your
sacrifice to help me reach the lost and hurting masses
for Christ!

In His love and service,

Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

***GET YOUR FREE LPeMAIL ACCOUNT!  Never miss
receiving your Daily Devotional again.  LPeMail is
an effective email SPAM filtering application
that most ISP's charge $10/mo, for FREE!  Get your
LPeMail account now at: www.lpemail.com.

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer
Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each
day.  Simply go to
http://www.liveprayer.com/DailyDevotionalAudio.html
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by
phone by calling toll-free, 1-888-382-4662, or
access it on your wireless device by going to:
http://wapdd.com

(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

************************************************

May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell

Let Your Faith Be Stronger than Your Feelings and an Altar Call!

2006-08-24T07:41:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller republished a devotional today that I
recommend to you for your consideration.  It has food for
thought.  He has given me permission to copy his e-mails,
and I'm sure he would be happy if you would share this
with people you know as well.

He also includes an altar call to accept Jesus that you
can use to help bring people to Jesus!

Please read on.

*********************************************

DAILY DEVOTIONAL THURSDAY AUGUST 24, 2006

( Hebrews 11:1 )

***ALTAR CALL VIDEO CLIP!!!  I am so excited to be able
to share with you one of the simplest, yet most powerful
evangelistic tools you will ever find.  I have recorded
a simple presentation of the Gospel along with the
invitation for the person watching to accept Jesus Christ
as their personal Savior by faith.  There are just over 1
billion people in the world on the Internet, and it is my
desire that in the next year over 100 million people will
view this opportunity to accept Jesus Christ into their
heart and life by faith.  Please, email this clip to
EVERYONE that you know.  Post it on every message board
and chat room you can find.  Make this link part of your
personal profile.  Post it on your MySpace or other
community page.  I believe MILLIONS of souls will come to
faith in Christ through this video clip.  Do your part
and help make this the most viewed video clip on the
Internet! 

Video altar call:  www.liveprayer.com/altarcall.cfm

IN CELEBRATION OF LIVEPRAYER'S 7 YEAR ANNIVERSARY, TODAY
I HAVE CHOSEN ONE OF THE LIFE-CHANGING DAILY DEVOTIONALS
FROM YEAR ONE (8/99-7/00). 

from Monday May 29, 2000

Faith is what we believe, not how we feel.  One of the
requests I get daily is from people who just don't "feel"
God.  Or, they were once "on fire" for the Lord and just
don't "feel" Him like they once did.  Don't make the
mistake of judging your relationship with the Lord, or
your service to God based on how you feel.  Our
relationship with Christ isn't an emotional experience. 
We accept Christ by FAITH.  It is a relationship built on
"faith" and not "feelings."

Feelings will betray you since they can change from
day-to-day, even minute to minute.  Our faith, however, is
not based on how we feel, but what we believe.  Just like
your feeling may change in regard to your spouse, parents,
children, friends..it doesn't stop them from being who they
are in your life.  You accepted Christ by faith.  Our
relationship with Him is one of faith.  Just because your
feelings may change, your relationship with Him does not.

As you mature in Christ, as those who have walked years
with the Lord can attest, you rely less on how you might
feel and more on your faith.  The wonderful thing is that
God is the same "yesterday, and today, and forever." God
is immutable, a $5 theological term that means "unchanging."   
So regardless of how you might feel, God is always the same. 
His promises are the same, He is the same, there are no
surprises from God.  He doesn't change the rules on you at
a whim.  His love, His concern for you never diminishes or
fades away.

The longer you walk with Christ, the better you get to
know Him, the more you realize that you don't have to rely
on how you feel.  You can count on your faith, what you
believe to guide you through this journey because God
never changes.

For many people, this is a big hurdle to cross over.  The
hurdle of feelings versus faith.  I will be praying for
you today to really understand that you don't have to
count on the way you feel to determine your walk with
Christ.  It is not measured by goose bumps.

That is why I stress so much the daily time with Him. 
The 30 minutes or so at the start of the day in the Word
and prayer.  Just like you can never develop much of a
relationship with your friends without actually spending
time with them, so it is with your relationship with
Christ.  How can you have a relationship with Him, when
you never spend time alone with Him?

I love you and care about you so much.  Today is the day
we go to church, our focus tends to be on God and the
things of God.  I pray that you overcome the hurdle of
feelings versus faith, and really commit to having a
serious relationship with Christ.  That doesn't happen
overnight, just like an earthly relationship doesn't
happen overnight.  It is a day-to-day commitment.  Make
that commitment today.  Luckily for us, He never changes,
so He is waiting for you.

Thank you for your love and for your prayers and for
your sacrifice to help me reach the lost and hurting
masses for Christ!

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

***GET YOUR FREE LPeMAIL ACCOUNT!  Never miss
receiving your Daily Devotional again.  LPeMail is
an effective email SPAM filtering application
that most ISP's charge $10/mo, for FREE!  Get your
LPeMail account now at: www.lpemail.com.

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer
Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each
day.  Simply go to
http://www.liveprayer.com/DailyDevotionalAudio.html
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by
phone by calling toll-free, 1-888-382-4662, or
access it on your wireless device by going to:
http://wapdd.com

(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

************************************************

May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell

There Is Only Victory in Serving God!

2006-08-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller wrote a devotional today that I recommend to
you for your consideration.  It has food for thought.  He
has given me permission to copy his e-mails, and I'm sure
he would be happy if you would share this with people you
know as well.

Is it to avoid defeat?  Jesus wants us to do more.

Please read on.

*********************************************


DAILY DEVOTIONAL   TUESDAY AUGUST 22, 2006
( I Samuel 4:2, James 1:5 )

Learning through defeat.  Show me a war general who never
lost a battle and I will show you a war general who has
never been in a battle.  Show me a football coach who never
lost a game and I'll show you a coach who has never coached
a game.  Show me a businessman who has never had a bad deal
and I will show you a businessman who has never been
involved in any deals.  As great as Tiger Woods may be at
playing golf, even he doesn't win every tournament.  Life
my friend is made up of winning and losing.  The only way
you can't lose is to not ever get out there and try. 
Today, I want to encourage and challenge you to learn from
those defeats you experience along your journey through
this life.

We live in a world, in a culture, that celebrates winning
no matter what is at stake.  Watching Tiger Woods win his
12th professional major yesterday epitomized the fact that
we love those who win.  Athletes and sports teams are
celebrated and adored for winning.  Winners in the
business world are measured by the amount of money they
make.  The business leaders of our day who we look up to
are those who close the big deals, create the cutting
edge technology, and end up on the Forbes list of richest
people.

Winners in the world of entertainment are the ones who
have the most successful movies, the most watched TV
programs, the ones who sell the most CDs, the ones who
are known by people throughout the world.  At the end of
every war there is a winner and a loser.  Politics at
every level is about one thing, getting elected or
winning.  Winning and losing is actually part of every
person's day-to-day life whether it is dealing with your
finances, what happens at school or on your job, or
something as mundane as getting the parking place right
by the door to the mall instead of 12 rows back.  We
live in a world and society that measures pretty much
everything we do in terms of winning and losing.

One of the cold realties of life is that you can't win
all the time.  Along the way you will suffer defeats in
everything.  While losing is never fun and nobody enjoys
losing, the key issue that I want to address today is
that you can learn much from those occasions when you
lose.  Rather than allowing the defeats you experience in
life to demoralize you, to depress you, to paralyze you,
take the opportunity to analyze why you lost so that you
can do better the next time.  We can often learn more
about ourselves in defeat than we can in victory.  Not
only does defeat keep us humble, but it forces us to do
better the next time.

This way society has of judging our lives in wins and
losses even carries over into our Christian life. 
Recently I did a Devotional on the fact that there is no
failure with God.  The only way to fail God is to do
nothing for God.  Even though the world may consider
something we do for the Lord a failure, the world does
not factor in things like our obedience, our faithfulness,
not to mention the spiritual things taking place that
only God knows about.  However, we can never lose sight
that even in our service for the Lord we are engaged in
battles, both in the natural and spiritual realm, that we
are trying to win to bring glory and honor to the Lord.

A great example of this has been the attempt by Liveprayer
to take the TV program nationwide.  Since we are doing
something nobody else has ever tried to do before, we have
had no practical roadmap and have had to take this walk
completely by faith.  The month we were on nationwide in
July was something we had to experience to gain a complete
understanding of what was involved to do this long term. 
Obviously it was my goal and desire to continue past July,
and the fact is I could have forced the issue and continued
into August.  But by the end of those 4 weeks in July I
realized that I had completely underestimated what we were
attempting to do spiritually, emotionally, and  financially. 
It was so overwhelming that I had to pull back just to
literally survive.  I'm not being dramatic, it was that
intense!

So, in what the world would label a defeat, here is what
I have learned. Despite having done 870 programs over 3 1/2
years, having been reaching an audience of 1/4 million
nightly throughout the State of Florida for the year
leading up to our national launch, I underestimated what
being able to reach the entire nation, "live" for an hour 5
nights a week on a major secular network would be like. 
I've spent the last 7 yrs of my life reaching a
predominantly non-Christian audience of millions worldwide
every single day.  I believed I was prepared but simply
never imagined the level of warfare that I would encounter. 
Let me tell you, satan is NOT going to just sit back and
watch someone proclaim Biblical Truth and the hope and
love of Jesus to the lost and hurting masses on a major
secular TV network without major opposition.  NO WAY!

Very few could ever understand the level of warfare I
have learned to assimilate in my daily life over these past
7 years as a result of bringing God's Truth to over 2
million souls worldwide every day through the Internet and
the tens of thousands more every night on secular television
via the TV program.  What I experienced in July was 100x, no
1000x greater than anything I had ever experienced before. 
In addition to the financial aspects, I fully understand why
other ministries stay in the safety of the Christian TV
networks, or the few who do air on some secular stations
simply preach a very non-confrontational pre-taped message
geared to a church audience on Sunday morning.

Financially, Liveprayer has been an absolute miracle of God. 
We never should have survived the first year after the
venture funds we expected 6 months in dried up as a result
of the dot.com bubble bursting in early 2000.  However, God
sustained the work, allowed us to expand and reach more
people each year through the Internet, add the secular TV
program to the mix which continued to expand, and over
time not only stay current with our financial obligations
but work down the debt we incurred surviving those first
2 years from over a million to right at $600,000.  Having
seen God work miracles time and time again in meeting our
needs, I underestimated the fact that this would become
our main battleground in taking the TV program to the
nation.  Satan knew if he could keep the finances dried up,
we could not stay on the air.  Despite years of financial
victories, we were now at an entirely different level in
going from a budget of $2 million a year to just over $10
million a year.

The reason the warfare was so intense, the reason satan was
fighting so hard was evident in those 20 nights we were on. 
An average audience of 300,000 people each night were
hearing the Truth of God's Word proclaimed loudly, boldly,
and visibly like nobody else was doing.  Being on nationwide
"live" for an hour 5 nights a week, people were able to call
in and have their faith rewarded as God met their needs. 
Each night over 5,000 emails for prayer poured in from
people who were hurting were reaching out in their time of
need, looking for answers and hope.  Most important of all,
over 2,400 souls we know of came to faith in Christ during
those 20 nights.  TWENTY FOUR HUNDRED!  Praise God!

Each night, I felt the incredible power of being able to
share with a lost and hurting nation the Truth of God's
Word and the fact He loves them so much.   I sensed the
hunger and desire through those cameras as people from
coast to coast tuned in to hear His Truth proclaimed and
the fact they could have a personal relationship with His
Son Jesus Christ.  Each one of those 20 nights as I told
the viewers how they could be saved, I knew there was an
all out war going on in the heavenlies.  Night after
night, the commitments poured in as people surrendered
their lives to Jesus!

I love you and care about you so much.  God clearly
honored our faith to follow Him in using that program
during those 20 nights to impact millions of lives,
transforming many for all eternity.  However, in the 
world we live in, the fact we were not able to sustain
the program past those initial 20 nights would correctly
be classified as a defeat.  It was in defeat that I
learned what it would take spiritually, emotionally, and
financially to sustain the program reaching the entire
nation "live" for an hour 5 nights a week on a major
secular television network.  It was in defeat that I
found the comfort of God's love and His strength to press
forward.  It was in defeat that whatever commitment I had
made to the Lord to boldly take His Truth and the hope of
Christ to the nation through secular television was now
solidified and I became resolute in fulfilling His call
upon my life.

*YOU CAN EITHER LET THE DEFEATS IN LIFE INTIMIDATE YOU
FROM EVER REACHING YOUR GOALS, OR YOU CAN USE THE DEFEATS
IN LIFE TO MOTIVATE YOU TO VICTORY!!!

Even though I understand that what we did those 20 nights
was clearly a victory in God's eyes and for millions of
people, satan has temporarily won since every night we are
not on, people are not hearing God's Truth and how they
can be saved.  I know that every day people who will never
go to church, never read the Bible, never watch Christian
TV, are dying and going to hell because the TV program is
not on.  I have learned the lessons I needed to learn in
defeat so that when we get the program back on nationwide,
this time it will be declaring God's Truth and bringing
people to faith in Jesus Christ until our Lord returns.

I will be praying for you today.  Praying that you will
remember that there is no failure with God.  Don't fear
stepping out in faith to fulfill whatever it is God has
called you to do with your life.  I will also be praying
that you will realize that we all win and lose along our
journey through this life.  Losing is no fun, but use
those moments as opportunities to correct your mistakes
and work on those areas you are weak.  Don't let the
defeats you experience in life get you down, but use them
as learning opportunities so that you can do better the
next time.  We all enjoy winning, but never forget that we
can learn the most from our defeats.

Of course, the one defeat you will suffer from for all
eternity is rejecting Jesus Christ as your Savior.  The
most important victory in your life comes when you accept
Christ into your heart and life by faith and have your
sins washed away and receive the free gift of everlasting
life.  If you have never experienced that victory, I
encourage you to go to: www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html  
Pray, ask God to open your heart to the truth of the words
there, and make the choice today to ask Jesus Christ into
your heart and life by faith.  Coming to know Jesus as your
personal Savior is the greatest victory there is, since it
is one you will enjoy for all eternity!!!

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

***GET YOUR FREE LPeMAIL ACCOUNT!  Never miss
receiving your Daily Devotional again.  LPeMail is
an effective email SPAM filtering application
that most ISP's charge $10/mo, for FREE!  Get your
LPeMail account now at: www.lpemail.com.

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer
Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each
day.  Simply go to
http://www.liveprayer.com/DailyDevotionalAudio.html
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by
phone by calling toll-free, 1-888-382-4662, or
access it on your wireless device by going to:
http://wapdd.com

(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

************************************************

May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell

Help Someone Today Spiritually!

2006-08-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller wrote a devotional today that I recommend to
you for your consideration.  It has food for thought.  He
has given me permission to copy his e-mails, and I'm sure
he would be happy if you would share this with people you
know as well.

Is it enough to be saved?  Jesus wants us to do more.

Please read on.

*********************************************

DAILY DEVOTIONAL   THURSDAY AUGUST 17, 2006
( Acts 20:35 )

Helping others is not an option.   One of the most
compelling things about the accounts of Jesus' life in
the Gospels is His compassion for those who were
hurting.  Jesus loved people.  Jesus had a heart for
those who were looking for hope.  It does not take a
Biblical scholar to understand that as a child of God,
helping others is the main job God has given us to do. 
The scriptures are full of exhortations to help those
in need, the poor, the widows.  While the needs of
some people are obvious, we are also to be there for
those whose needs may not be as obvious, the
spiritually poor.

You see, the spiritually poor are looking for answers
to the questions of life.  When the challenges of this
life become overwhelming, they are looking for
answers, looking for hope.  A person in this state of
mind, at this place in their life is in desperate need
of a word from God.  Where does that word come from? 
From the people God sends into their life, YOU AND ME!

I realize many of you today are facing great battles
in your life.  Struggles with sin.  Struggles on your
job or at school.  Struggles in your family
relationships.  Struggles with your finances. 
Struggles with your health.  Let me share something
with you that I learned years ago.  It was at the
height of my personal struggles, when my natural
tendency was to focus solely on the battles I was
facing, that I would seek out ways to serve God by
helping someone else.

Even though my battles didn't go away, they became
more manageable.  The struggles weren't as difficult
and answers to my problems came a little easier.  Why? 
I am convinced the Bible teaches us that if we will be
about our Father's business, He will be about our
business.  It is a spiritual principle that works!!!

I want to challenge you today.  Pray about who it is
God has put in your life who is hurting and needing
hope in the midst of a difficult situation. It may be
someone in your family.  Possibly a friend.  Maybe
someone at church.  It could be a person at your work
or in your school.  God has strategically placed you
in the life of someone today who is hurting and in
need of a word from God.

Once you have prayed and God shows you who it is,
reach out to that person.  Have a cup of coffee or a
bite to eat with them.  Go do something together. Get
that person in a one-on-one situation and let them
know they are not alone in their battle, that they are
not alone in whatever they are going through.  You are
there to stand with them, to pray with them, and to
help them see victory.  Often, it is not necessary to
do more than just reach out in love to that person who
is hurting, for them to see and feel the love of Christ
coming from you.  I have always said it is usually not
what we say, but what we do that shows the Christ in us
to others.

I love you, and care about you so much.  I will be
praying for you today because I know you are going
through problems in your life.  I am reaching out to
you to let you know I will pray for you, I will stand
with you, and I will be here to help you overcome
whatever the battles are in your life.  God has given
us each other because He never expected us to go
through this journey alone.   We are to bear one
another's burdens.

Today, reach out to that person God has placed on your
heart.  Show them the love of Christ through your
actions.  Let them know they are not alone, that
someone cares for them.  That can be the difference
between victory and defeat in their life, between them
living without hope, and moving forward victoriously
over the problems in their life.  Never forget, helping
others is not an option, it is what God has called His
children to do.

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

***GET YOUR FREE LPeMAIL ACCOUNT!  Never miss
receiving your Daily Devotional again.  LPeMail is
an effective email SPAM filtering application
that most ISP's charge $10/mo, for FREE!  Get your
LPeMail account now at: www.lpemail.com.

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer
Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each
day.  Simply go to
http://www.liveprayer.com/DailyDevotionalAudio.html
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by
phone by calling toll-free, 1-888-382-4662, or
access it on your wireless device by going to:
http://wapdd.com

(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

************************************************

May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell

Be Prepared for Satan's Attacks as You Draw Closer to Jesus

2006-06-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller wrote a devotional today that I recommend to
you for your consideration.  It has food for thought.  He
has given me permission to copy his e-mails, and I'm sure
he would be happy if you would share this with people you
know as well.

Have you ever found yourself distracted by problems just
when you felt closer to Jesus?  That's one way that satan
attempts to distract our Christian growth and progress.
God's Word can cut through those distractions.

I would like personally thank Jesus for healing my ailing
right shoulder that has been very painful for 18 months.
I was scheduled to go the doctor on Monday, but on Sunday,
June 4, I listened to two healing services . . . and
during the prayer for healing in the second one my pain,
stiffness and loss of movement all disappeared.

Thank you, Jesus!

Since then, I had a dream in which I finally realized
how I had hurt my shoulder . . . so now I won't repeat
that mistake.

Thank you again, Jesus!

Please read on.

*********************************************

DAILY DEVOTIONAL   SUNDAY JUNE 25, 2006
(Ephesians 6:11-17)

***8 DAYS UNTIL THE NATIONWIDE LAUNCH OF THE LIVEPRAYER
TV PROGRAM ON THE i (formerly PAX) Network!  To find the
station in your area, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/coverage.cfm

***JUNE...A MONTH OF PRAYER AND FASTING!  I am asking
everyone in the Liveprayer family to make and take time
each day in June to pray for me, for Liveprayer, for
everyone who works with us in any capacity, for our
advertisers, and most of all for the millions of souls we
will be reaching when the TV program goes nationwide on
July 3rd.  In addition to praying each day, as the Holy
Spirit leads you please fast during the month and spend
that time of fasting praying for the lost souls we will
reach to open their hearts to Christ's love.  May the Lord
guide us and lead us each day as we bring His Truth and
the hope and love of Jesus to the lost and hurting
throughout our nation.

***REACH THE NATION WITH YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE FOR AS
LITTLE AS $5,000 A WEEK WITH ONLY A ONE WEEK MINIMUM ON THE
LIVEPRAYER TV PROGRAM!  For all the details, email me at:
bkeller@liveprayer.com


***THIS WORD IS FOR YOU!!!  Please, take a moment and ask
God to open your heart to receive this word of encouragement
for your life today!

WALKING ON WATER   PART TWO OF TWO

The price of walking on water.  I was greatly encouraged by
the incredible number of people who were challenged and
motivated by yesterday's Devotional on getting out of the
boat and WALKING ON WATER.  However, as I was about ready
to fall asleep last night, I immediately shot up, wide awake
in a cold sweat.  Have you ever been almost asleep when all
of a sudden you remembered something important?  You were
just about to fall into a deep sleep when you remembered
something important you forgot to do?  What caused me to
panic was the fact I forgot to mention in that Devotional
on Saturday that when you get out of the boat, exercise
your faith in the Lord and start to walk on water, you will
come under attack by satan.  Oops!  Sorry for forgetting
to mention that little detail.

You see my friend, the closer we get to the Lord, the more
we exercise our faith, the more dangerous we become to
satan.  A mere Christian does not intimidate satan, however,
a Christian fully surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ,
living in the Spirit and not the flesh, walking by faith and
not by sight is satan's worst nightmare.  Peter, the one who
walked on water was never much of a threat to satan during
the life of Jesus.  Peter's transformation into the powerful
man of God he became really happened during the time of his
greatest failure.  After denying the Lord, then being
restored by Jesus, it was clear that Peter was no longer the
same old inconsistent man he used to be.  During that
process was that special moment when the lightbulb went off
in his head and Peter fully surrendered himself completely
to the Lord and became the Peter we read about in the Book
of Acts.

It is that time in the walk of every Believer when you know
you are saved, when you are doing your best to live for the
Lord, when you know you need to fully and completely
surrender your life to the Lord, but you are still hanging
onto a bit of the old man.  You are following the Lord, but
you haven't really made that 100% commitment to Him.  Deep
down you know that you need to just sell out and trust the
Lord and not look back.  Each person comes to that place in
different ways at different times.  It rarely happens
immediately but is a process of events and experiences that
happen in your walk with the Lord that lead you to that
place of complete surrender.

One big reason it takes a while to get to that place is
because of the fact that every time you get close to the
Lord, you start to get serious about Christ, the attacks
start coming in waves.  To be blunt, you either get
overwhelmed in fighting the attacks or just plain scared
and back off of that total commitment to the Lord.  It is
like being excited about going to the beach.  You get
there, it is a beautiful day, you can't wait to get into
the water, and you rush in.  Within minutes you see a fin
sticking out only a hundred yards away and you run for the
shore as fast as you can.  Guess what.  Getting back into
the water really doesn't seem like such a good idea any
longer.  This is what happens  when you boldly step out in
faith to serve the Lord.  You will see sharks!

Sadly, most people are never really told anything about
spiritual warfare.  Paul, in closing out his letter to the
church at Ephesus, did his best to make sure they
understood that following and serving the Lord was not
going to happen without a fight.  Possibly a literal fight,
but for certain a spiritual fight.  You see he made sure
they understood that the real battle we fight is not
against flesh and blood, but it is a spiritual battle.
Satan is a defeated foe, but for this brief season that he
is loose, he is not just going to sit back and watch
someone serving the Lord without doing his best to take
them out.  The closer you get to the Lord, the more you
do for the Lord, the fiercer the attacks will get.

*PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT AS YOU EXERCISE YOUR FAITH AND GET
OUT OF THE BOAT TO WALK ON WATER, SATAN WILL ATTACK YOU!

However, God knew this and has given his children not only
the armor they need to withstand the attacks of satan, but
the weapon we need to fight with.  Did you think God would
ask you to follow Him and serve Him, knowing satan would
come after you and not take care of you?  He has given you
the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, our
feet have the gospel of peace, He has given us the shield
of faith, and the helmet of salvation.  If you notice,
there is something special about the armor God. THERE IS
NOTHING TO PROTECT THE BACK!

Do you know why?  (Good thing this is a written
Devotional, this is where I could break into about a 1 hour
"preach.")  GOD'S CHILDREN DON'T TURN AND RUN WE FIGHT
MOVING FORWARD, PRESSING FORWARD TO THE PRIZE.  COWARDS
RETREAT, GOD'S CHILDREN PRESS ON, KNOWING THAT WE HAVE
ALREADY WON THE VICTORY AND THAT SATAN IS A DEFEATED FOE!

Also, the child of God only has ONE offensive weapon.  The
sword, God's Word!  The Bible says that it is sharper than
any two-edged sword, penetrating even to the dividing of
soul and sprit, joints and marrow.  It is the only weapon
the child of God needs.  There is AUTHORITY in the Word of
God.  There is POWER in the Word of God.  When Jesus was
confronted by satan he didn't have a conversations with
him, he QUOTED THE WORD OF GOD TO HIM!

I love you and care about you so much.  I apologize for
challenging you and encouraging you to have the faith to
walk on water, without also warning you that when you get
on the water the sharks will start to circle.  My friend,
count it joy when you see the sharks since that means you
are a threat to the enemy!  Do not be afraid, but know that
God has provided you with not only the protection you need,
but the weapon you need to fight with.

Getting saved is the most important decision you will make
in this life since it determines your eternal home, but
once you are "born again," you need to then grow and mature
in your faith.  Getting to a place where you trust the
Lord enough to get out of the boat and walk on water is a
sign of that maturity.  I will pray for you as you take
that next step in the maturation process, and that is in
being able to stand and fight the spiritual battles that
come from serving and following the Lord.  After all, it
is easy to stand and fight when you already know..YOU WIN
BECAUSE HE WON!!!

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

***GET YOUR FREE LPeMAIL ACCOUNT!  Never miss
receiving your Daily Devotional again.  LPeMail is
an effective email SPAM filtering application
that most ISP's charge $10/mo, for FREE!  Get your
LPeMail account now at: www.lpemail.com.

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer
Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each
day.  Simply go to
http://www.liveprayer.com/DailyDevotionalAudio.html
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by
phone by calling toll-free, 1-888-382-4662, or
access it on your wireless device by going to:
http://wapdd.com

(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

************************************************

May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell

Raise Your Spiritual Sights by Focusing More on Jesus!

2006-06-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller wrote a devotional today that I recommend to
you for your consideration.  It has food for thought.  He
has given me permission to copy his e-mails, and I'm sure
he would be happy if you would share this with people you
know as well.

Is it enough to get to Heaven?  Jesus wants more for us.

I would like personally thank Jesus for healing my ailing
right shoulder that has been very painful for 18 months.
I was scheduled to go the doctor on Monday, but on Sunday,
June 4, I listened to two healing services . . . and
during the prayer for healing in the second one my pain,
stiffness and loss of movement all disappeared.

Thank you, Jesus!

Since then, I had a dream in which I finally realized
how I had hurt my shoulder . . . so now I won't repeat
that mistake.

Thank you again, Jesus!

Please read on.

*********************************************

DAILY DEVOTIONAL   SATURDAY JUNE 24, 2006
(Matthew 14:22-33)

***COMING TOMORROW!   Part Two of the powerful and
dynamic two-part Devotional on "Walking on Water." 
Don't miss it!!!

***9 DAYS UNTIL THE NATIONWIDE LAUNCH OF THE LIVEPRAYER
TV PROGRAM ON THE i (formerly PAX) Network!  To find the
station in your area, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/coverage.cfm

***JUNE...A MONTH OF PRAYER AND FASTING!  I am asking
everyone in the Liveprayer family to make and take time
each day in June to pray for me, for Liveprayer, for
everyone who works with us in any capacity, for our
advertisers, and most of all for the millions of souls
we will be reaching when the TV program goes nationwide
on July 3rd.  In addition to praying each day, as the
Holy Spirit leads you please fast during the month and
spend that time of fasting praying for the lost souls we
will reach to open their hearts to Christ's love.  May
the Lord guide us and lead us each day as we bring His
Truth and the hope and love of Jesus to the lost and
hurting throughout our nation.

***REACH THE NATION WITH YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE FOR AS
LITTLE AS $5,000 A WEEK WITH ONLY A ONE WEEK MINIMUM ON
THE LIVEPRAYER TV PROGRAM!  For all the details, email me
at:  bkeller@liveprayer.com


***THIS WORD IS FOR YOU!!!  Please, take a moment and ask
God to open your heart to receive this word of
encouragement for your life today!

WALKING ON WATER   PART ONE OF TWO

When you focus on Jesus, you can walk on water.  This
week, the Lord has been helping me grow in my own personal
relationship with Him.  Our life from the moment we accept
Christ into our hearts becomes a journey of growing and
maturing to become more like our Lord.  That process
continues right up until the moment we take our last
breath.  It is like climbing a ladder that has an infinite
number of rungs on it.  No matter how high you get, there
is always another rung to work towards.  That is why we
can never become complacent or apathetic in our relationship
with Christ.  It should be the desire of every Believer to
become more like our Savior each day.

God has helped me learn over these past 15 years of
serving Him, to not allow the distractions of this life to
keep me from doing my best at what He has called me to do
that day.  Between the time I spend with the Lord,
overseeing the daily operations of Liveprayer, the 4-5
hours I commit each day to ministering to people
personally, doing the TV program "live" 5 nights a week,
trying my best to be a Godly husband to my wife, keeping
my physical body in shape, and simply having a bit of
"down time," each day is very full.

You can only imagine the number of distractions that come
from every conceivable direction each day.  Satan is a
master at using distractions to keep our focus off of the
Lord.  This week has been a difficult one for me.  This
morning as I finished up my time in the Word, the Holy
Spirit had me in the 14th Chapter of Matthew.  I was
looking for a passage, and after finding it, my eyes were
drawn to the anchor verses for this Devotional today.  It
is that wonderful story of Peter wanting to walk on the
water like Jesus did.

Peter, a man of incredible faith one moment, and no faith
the next.  I have read and studied this passage of
Scripture scores of times, preached on it over the years. 
But today as I read it, the Holy Spirit said to me, "Bill,
there you are.  Like Peter, you are a man of great faith
one minute, and of no faith the next.  When you keep your
eyes on Jesus, you can walk on water.  When you take your
eyes off of Jesus, you will sink."

I closed my Bible, got on my knees, and asked God to
forgive me for allowing the distractions of this life to
take my eyes off of Jesus.  I asked the Lord to give me
His strength, that no matter what may be going on
around me, I will never take my eyes off of Jesus.  I
cried out for Him to increase my faith so that I would
never lose sight of the Lord again.  As I got up, I
felt a renewed sense of strength.  My mind was crystal
clear.  My spiritual eyes were locked in on Jesus and I
knew that through Him, ALL things were possible.

My friend, let me share this word with you today.  YOU
CAN WALK ON WATER LIKE PETER.  Please, listen to this
again and let the words sink into your Spirit.  YOU CAN
WALK ON WATER LIKE PETER.  The only thing stopping you
is your lack of faith.  Peter was just a man of flesh
and blood like you and I.  He had the same problems, the
same struggles we do.  The Bible says that Peter got out
of the boat and walked on the water.  How?  His faith! 
Why did Peter walk on the water and you haven't?  Peter
had the faith in Jesus to believe he could walk on the
water when the Lord said, "come."

Please take note that Peter only began to sink when he
took his eyes off of Jesus and focused instead on the
storm around him.  When he allowed the storm around him
to distract him, that is when he began to sink.  As
long as you stay focused on Jesus and don't allow the
storms in your life to distract you, YOU CAN WALK ON
WATER LIKE PETER!!!

I love you and care about you so much.  This will be a
difficult word for many people today because they do not
even have the goal of walking on water.  They have set
their spiritual goals so low, they are simply satisfied
being saved and knowing they will get to Heaven.  But
for those reading this today who are looking for a
challenge, here it is.  Don't be satisfied with anything
less than walking on water!  It is not a matter of is it
possible.  We already know that it is because Peter did
it.  God is no respecter of persons.  If Peter did it, you
can as well.  Set your goal to walk on water.

God has called each one of His children to serve Him. 
Everyone has a different calling on their life and serves
God in different ways.  Whatever way God has called you to
serve Him, set your goal to walk on water, meaning have
the faith to serve God to the best of your ability, knowing
that as long as you are keeping your focus on Jesus you
will walk on the water.  Can you serve the Lord sitting in
the boat?  Sure.  But if you are going to serve the Lord,
why not get out of the boat and walk on the water? 
Sitting in the boat doesn't require much faith at all,
walking on the water requires great faith.  If you want to
be the best for the Lord, you have to give your best to
the Lord.

I am praying for you today.  Praying that you will hear,
and respond to this word of encouragement from God today. 
He loves you, cares about you, and wants the best for your
life.  We will always have storms in our life.  That is
never going to change.  We can either spend our life
focusing on the storms, or spend our life focusing on the
One who can calm the storms.  The fact is, you will never
be all God has called you to be as long as you are focusing
on the storms.  Keep your eyes on Jesus and YOU can walk on
the water!!!

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

***GET YOUR FREE LPeMAIL ACCOUNT!  Never miss
receiving your Daily Devotional again.  LPeMail is
an effective email SPAM filtering application
that most ISP's charge $10/mo, for FREE!  Get your
LPeMail account now at: www.lpemail.com.

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer
Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each
day.  Simply go to
http://www.liveprayer.com/DailyDevotionalAudio.html
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by
phone by calling toll-free, 1-888-382-4662, or
access it on your wireless device by going to:
http://wapdd.com

(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

************************************************

May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell

Pray . . . And Act!

2006-06-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller wrote a devotional today that I recommend to
you for your consideration.  It has food for thought.  He
has given me permission to copy his e-mails, and I'm sure
he would be happy if you would share this with people you
know as well.

Is prayer enough?  Sometimes.  But other times, we also
need to act on our own behalf. 

I would like personally thank Jesus for healing my ailing
right shoulder that has been very painful for 18 months.
I was scheduled to go the doctor on Monday, but on Sunday,
June 4, I listened to two healing services . . . and
during the prayer for healing in the second one my pain,
stiffness and loss of movement all disappeared.

Thank you, Jesus!

Since then, I had a dream in which I finally realized
how I had hurt my shoulder . . . so now I won't repeat
that mistake.

Thank you again, Jesus!

Please read on.

*********************************************

DAILY DEVOTIONAL    FRIDAY JUNE 23, 2006
( 1 Chronicles 16:11, Matthew 7:7,  Mark 11:24 )

***10 DAYS UNTIL THE NATIONWIDE LAUNCH OF THE LIVEPRAYER
TV PROGRAM ON THE i (formerly PAX) Network!  To find the
station in your area, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/coverage.cfm

***JUNE...A MONTH OF PRAYER AND FASTING!  I am asking
everyone in the Liveprayer family to make and take time
each day in June to pray for me, for Liveprayer, for
everyone who works with us in any capacity, for our
advertisers, and most of all for the millions of souls we
will be reaching when the TV program goes nationwide on
July 3rd.  In addition to praying each day, as the Holy
Spirit leads you please fast during the month and spend
that time of fasting praying for the lost souls we will
reach to open their hearts to Christ's love.  May the
Lord guide us and lead us each day as we bring His Truth
and the hope and love of Jesus to the lost and hurting
throughout our nation.

"Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always." 
(1 Chronicles 16:11)

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you."  (Matthew 7:7)

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer,
believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." 
(Mark 11:24)


Prayer requires action.  Today, I want to help you with a
simple but powerful truth that could revolutionize your
prayer life.  So much of the time we treat our prayer life
like we are rubbing a magical lamp and asking the genie
inside for our wishes to be granted.  Even mature
Believers often fall into the trap of treating God like
some kind of cosmic concierge who is there at our beck and
call to fulfill our every whim and desire.  The truth that
I want to share with you today is that prayer requires
action on our part.

When we pray, we are demonstrating our dependence upon
God.  We are saying to God that "we need you," that
"without you we can do nothing."  Prayer is also an act
of faith.  What is the use in praying unless you have
faith there is a God who hears you and faith there is a
God who can help you?  So when we pray we not only
demonstrate our dependence upon God, but also our faith
in God.

The key moment comes AFTER we have prayed.  What do we
do then?  This is the critical point where many Believers
fail.  Prayer requires action on our part.  Too many who
pray, fail to follow up their prayers with ACTION!  They
pray and seek God for a need in their life, finish
praying, and then sit back waiting for God to meet their
need.  Is God able?  Of course, He is God!  However, never
forget that we pray out of faith, and true Biblical faith
requires ACTION!

If you are praying for God to heal your body, pray, but
then ACT!  Go see the doctors and specialists that are
out there to help you heal.  Go research what your health
issue is and find the best people possible to help bring
complete and total healing to your body.  God heals in
many ways and by far the most common way God heals is
through human instruments called doctors.  So if you need
healing, pray, ask God to heal you, and then put your
faith into action and do all you can in seeing your body
healed.

If you are praying for God to meet your financial needs,
pray, but then ACT!  Seek out successful men and women
and get their wise counsel.  Sit down and put a game plan
together to help you meet your financial needs and
achieve your financial goals.  God can provide for us in
many ways, but His most common form of provision is through
our hard work.  So if you have financial needs, pray, ask
God to provide for you, then put your faith into action
and do all you can to see that your financial needs are
met.

If you are praying for your marriage or for a relationship,
pray, but then ACT!  Seek out Godly counsel from your
pastor or some other qualified Christian counselor.  Get
away with your spouse or the person you are in a
relationship with and spend quality time openly and
honestly communicating with each other.  The root cause
of every marital and relationship problem I have seen in
over 17 years of ministry stems from a lack of pure,
honest, and open communication.  So if you have a problem
with your marriage or a relationship, pray, ask God to
bring healing and restoration to your marriage or
relationship, then put your faith into action and do all
you can to have a healthy marriage or relationship.

Never forget that it is God who is the One who will heal
you, provide for you, restore your marriage or
relationship, but God uses our faith in action.  Prayer is
not a passive exercise but an active one!  We are active
participants in God answering our prayers.  It requires
action on our part.  It is God who is answering our
prayers, but our faith requires us to be involved in that
process.  Just as James wrote to Believers that "faith
without works is dead," I tell you today that PRAYER
WITHOUT ACTION IS POWERLESS!!!

I love you and care about you so much.  Most people are
far too passive in their prayer life.  They pray and then
sit back waiting for God to answer.  No doubt there are
some things we pray about that are completely out of
our control and we must simply trust God to move on those
needs.  But much of what we pray about we have the ability
to put action to our prayers.  It is still God who is
answering our prayers, but He is working through our
actions.

It needs to be stressed again, we are not just praying out
of dependence upon God, but out of FAITH in God.  True
Biblical faith requires ACTION on our part.  If you really
believe something, you will live it.  If we truly believe
God will heal us, or provide for our needs, or heal our
marriage or relationship, or whatever the need may be, we
will be active participants in seeing our prayers answered. 
God honors our faith.  God is moved by our faith.  God
blesses our faith.  We pray in faith, therefore our
prayers require action!!!

As we end our 82nd month of Liveprayer, these are very
exciting times for the ministry.  One week from Monday on
July 3rd, the TV program will be seen "live" for an hour
every Monday-Friday from Midnight-1 a.m. EST all over the
nation on the "i" Network, formerly Pax Tv!  Today, I am
simply asking you to take a moment, pray, and ask God what
He would have you do to help me as we raise this last
$870,000 we need to raise.

I only ask that you are obedient, give according to your
ability to give, and give what God is asking you to give. 
If it is $20 or $50, fine.  If it is $100 or $250, fine. 
If it is $500, $1,000, $5,000 or becoming part of "The
300" with a gift of $10,000 or more, fine. The fact is,
it will only take 87 people to commit to one unit to pay
off this balance.  All I ask is that you pray and are
obedient to give what God is asking you to give today.
It is NOT the amount that is important, but your heart.

Also, don't forget that you can give to Liveprayer by
transferring stock to us which could be a help to you on
your taxes.  We can also accept gifts of real estate,
again saving you in taxes by simply transferring your
property to us.  Please be praying what you can do in the
coming weeks to help me.

***Don't expect someone else to do what God is asking YOU
to do.  I need your help, so please give your very best
gift today!

You can put your gift on your major credit card on a
secure server by going to my website, www.liveprayer.com 
under the "Donation" button, you can give via PayPal
using my email address, bkeller@liveprayer.com ,or you
can mail a gift to:

Liveprayer
6660 46th Avenue North
St. Petersburg, Florida 33709

All gifts to Liveprayer are 100% tax deductible.

In closing, I want you to know that for those who are led
by God to sacrifice some of what He has entrusted into
your care to help His work here at Liveprayer, I pray for
the Lord to abundantly bless your finances so that you can
continue to be a blessing to people worldwide that are
lost and hurting.  I know people are attacked in their
finances for supporting God's work here, and I pray a
hedge of protection around your finances.  May you and
your family be richly blessed as you have richly blessed
others in your giving.

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

***GET YOUR FREE LPeMAIL ACCOUNT!  Never miss
receiving your Daily Devotional again.  LPeMail is
an effective email SPAM filtering application
that most ISP's charge $10/mo, for FREE!  Get your
LPeMail account now at: www.lpemail.com.

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer
Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each
day.  Simply go to
http://www.liveprayer.com/DailyDevotionalAudio.html
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by
phone by calling toll-free, 1-888-382-4662, or
access it on your wireless device by going to:
http://wapdd.com

(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

************************************************

May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell

Choose Life

2006-06-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller wrote a devotional today that I recommend to
you for your consideration.  It has food for thought.  He
has given me permission to copy his e-mails, and I'm sure
he would be happy if you would share this with people you
know as well.

Despair can affect anyone.  God wants the best for you.
Let him into your life so your despair can be lifted!

Parents, help your children heal their hidden pain.

I would like personally thank Jesus for healing my ailing
right shoulder that has been very painful for 18 months.
I was scheduled to go the doctor on Monday, but on Sunday,
June 4, I listened to two healing services . . . and
during the prayer for healing in the second one my pain,
stiffness and loss of movement all disappeared.

Thank you, Jesus!

Since then, I had a dream in which I finally realized
how I had hurt my shoulder . . . so now I won't repeat
that mistake.

Thank you, Jesus!

Please read on.

*********************************************

DAILY DEVOTIONAL   MONDAY JUNE 19, 2006
(John 8:44, 10:10)

***PARENTS AND YOUNG ADULTS!  SIX MONTHS AGO, JAMES
DUNGY, SON OF INDIANAPOLIS COLTS HEAD FOOTBALL COACH
TONY DUNGY, TRAGICALLY TOOK HIS LIFE.  THIS DEVOTIONAL
TODAY IS ONE OF THE MOST CRITICAL I HAVE EVER WRITTEN
IN DEALING WITH THE REAL LIVES OUR YOUNG ADULTS ARE
LIVING EACH DAY, AND HOW PARENTS CAN HELP THEM THROUGH
THOSE DIFFICULT TEEN YEARS.  THIS IS A DEVOTIONAL
FAMILIES SHOULD READ AND DISCUSS TOGETHER.  ALSO, PLEASE
FORWARD IT TO EVERY PARENT AND YOUNG ADULT YOU KNOW.
IT COULD SAVE SOMEONE'S LIFE!

This email comes from:   bloody_vampiric_mistress@

"there is no problem with myspace look mine up at
  it is a place for people of all ages to meet
friends so what people use profile to express themselves
just because were all not perfect like you want us to be
so what no ones perfect and you know what there is
nothing wrong with what kind of music we listen to or
what religion we have everyone is an individual in there
own way everyone is expressive in there own way and who
in the hell are you to judge others for there
individuality you are nothing your life is meaningless
you are nothing but a worthless peace of shi#  and i hope
you die a slow and painful death you nasty bastar*"


The tragic death of James Dungy and the teen internet
site MySpace.  I was already finishing a Devotional I had
been working on for months on the teen internet site
MySpace.com, when the tragic news came last December that
James Dungy, the 18-year-old son of Indianapolis Colts'
Head Football Coach Tony Dungy was found dead of an
apparent suicide.  As the details of his death began to
emerge, it was learned that James had overdosed on
prescription medication just a few months earlier.
Another critical detail that came to light was the content
of James' personal webpage on the popular teen internet
site MySpace.com.  Today, I want to speak directly to
young adults about how precious this life is, and to
parents about how critical it is to know what is really
in your child's heart and head.

Let me speak first to the young adults.  Please, listen
to what I am telling you today.  Your life is a gift
from God.  It is special.  It is precious.  You only get
one.  That is why I warn you all the time about the
things out there that can damage, even destroy your one
and only life.  Things like alcohol, drugs, and sex.  Never
forget that satan's mission is to kill, steal, and destroy
(John 10:10), and that means YOU!  Satan is not some
Disney cartoon character, some loveable class clown.  He is
the enemy of your soul and wants you destroyed and DEAD!

Satan masterfully uses the media to feed his lies to the
masses 24/7/365 through music, TV, radio, movies,
advertising, and the Internet.  Never forget that Jesus
exposed him for who he really is, a LIAR (John 8:44).
He tells you the same lies he told Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden.  "God really didn't mean that," God doesn't
want you to have fun," "it won't hurt you, "and on and on
his lies go.  He is often called the "tempter."  Satan
also plays on your youth and the fact you simply don't have
enough life experiences to comprehend how dangerous some of
the things you do really are.  Not ONE adult in their 40s
or 50s would honestly tell you they would make the same
choices they did at 16 if they had known then what they
know now!

Here is the bottom line.  Satan is a liar and wants you
DEAD.  God is Truth and wants you to LIVE.  This is
really simple.  Satan's goal is to destroy you and kill
you.  God wants to bless you and have a relationship with
you for all eternity.  If you ever think of killing
yourself, those thoughts are from satan, NOT God.  Satan
will lie to you and tell you that you are better off
dead, that your life has no meaning, that nobody cares
about you or loves you.  ALL LIES!  The Truth is God
wants you to have life, and life more abundantly.  The
Truth is that your life has meaning and purpose.  The
Truth is that there are people who care about you and
love you.  The Truth is that God loves you and cares
about you more than you will ever know!!!

Parents, let me speak to you for a moment.  The greatest
need your child has is for you to love them and nurture
them.  You do that by praying for your child every day,
by raising your child in the admonition of the Lord and
in the Truth of His Word.  You do that by protecting your
child from the evils of this world.  You do that by
providing for your child's needs.  You do that by having
a RELATIONSHIP with your child, and that only happens
through open and honest communication.  The greatest need
I see daily in the relationship of parents and their
children is more open and honest communication.  There is
no substitute for taking the time to sit down and
COMMUNICATE with your child.  The younger they are when
you start really communicating with them, the better that
communication is as they get older.

OK parents, now I am going to give you perhaps the
greatest information I ever will other than what is in
the Bible.  I assure you, unknown to 90% of the parents
reading this today is a teen internet site called MySpace
( www.myspace.com ).  It is a website designed
predominantly for young adults to go and create their
own custom webpage.  There is a basic template that they
fill in with pictures, with information on their likes
and dislikes, with their blog ( a modern day "dear diary")
that others can read and respond to, in addition to links
to their friend's MySpace pages.  I assure you that 70%
of the kids between 14-20 who are on the computer have a
MySpace.  Of course, there are other comparable sites,
but by far MySpace is the most popular of all in this
genre of websites.

Let me make sure you understand what I am telling you.
If your child has a MySpace, you will find out more about
your child, what is really going on in their heart and
head than you ever dreamed you would know.  This is their
personal signature, who they are, and in many cases a
side of them that you never knew existed.  By following
the links to their friend's MySpace, you will also get a
keen insight into who they really are and what is in
their hearts and heads as well.

I would encourage every parent with a child between 14-20
that is on the computer at all to ask your child if they
have a MySpace or something comparable, and that you want
to read their page.  Be prepared for your child to lie that
they don't have one.  Be prepared that if they do, they
will probably put up a huge fight about letting you read
it.  Be prepared that if you do read it, what you will
find out.  Based on what is on your child's MySpace, you
have the perfect opportunity to really start openly and
honestly communicating with your child, since again, what
you will read is in most cases their innermost thoughts
and what is in their heart.

For privacy reasons, I chose not to reveal the MySpace
page of the sad young girl who wrote that email I shared
with you at the beginning.  However, having viewed her
MySpace, it was VERY chilling.  Glorification of death,
of promiscuous sex, a page that reeked of satan and utter
rebellion to God and his Word.  I am fairly certain that
this girl's parents have never read her MySpace, though
they need to since she is very troubled and is in for a
difficult and rough life unless she turns her life around
and to the Lord.  In most cases I deal with, young adults
like this troubled girl don't have anyone in their life
who really cares about them and they grow up in homes
void of God and His love and Truth.  They are simply
looking for attention in their rebellion.  Pray for her,
since she needs to come to know the love of Jesus Christ
in her heart and life.

I would be shocked if Coach Dungy or his wife had any
knowledge of James' MySpace.  It was full of thug and
gangster themes, glorifying smoking pot, adulation of
thug rappers like Tupac and Snoop Dogg.  No doubt some of
it may have been a "front," or simply an effort to be
someone he really wasn't.  Many young adults will use
this type of site to portray themselves as someone they
fantasize about being.  But there is still much truth to
be gained about a person from what is on these sites.

James Dungy's MySpace was disturbing enough to know that
something wrong was going on in this young man's heart
and life.  The scary thing is that this is a young man
who was raised by two loving, nurturing, and Godly
parents.  He was afforded all of the possible blessings
life could offer a young person.  He was raised in the
church!  Yet despite all he had going for him, James had
some serious issues going on in his life.  His very last
post on his blog talked about not having "ne one to talk
to."

Parents, listen to me carefully.  YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE
FOR THE CHOICES YOUR CHILD MAKES.  God gave them the same
free will He has given you and each person.  That is why
raising your child in the admonition of the Lord,  in His
Word, is so critical.  So you can hopefully start shaping
at a young age those choices your child will make later
in their life.  James Dungy was 18, living on his own in
a campus apartment.  Coach Tony Dungy and his wife are
NOT responsible for his choice to take his life.  It was
his choice, and his choice alone.  If you had a child take
their life, YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHOICE YOUR
CHILD MADE!  You can only do your best, and at some point,
leave them to the Lord and pray for them.

I love you and care about you so much.  The death of
James Dungy is a sad reminder of how busy satan is in
trying to destroy the lives of our children.  It is also
another reminder of how raising your children is the
greatest ministry that a mother and father will ever
have in this life.  Young adults need to understand that
life is not a game, it is a precious gift from God and
this one life we each have will be over sooner than we
think.  The key is to fulfill our Divine purpose of
serving and glorifying God with our life and living it
each day for Him.  Parents need to do the best job they
can at laying a foundation of faith in their child's
life, and doing their best to openly and honestly
communicate with their child.

For any young adult reading this today that has had
thoughts of killing yourself, STOP AND LISTEN TO ME.
That message to kill yourself is coming from the lips of
satan who wants you dead.  NOTHING IN YOUR LIFE IS WORTH
KILLING YOURSELF OVER.  You are not alone!  God loves
you very much.  If you feel there is nobody to listen to
you, email me!  I am here for you.  My email address is
bkeller@liveprayer.com .  Everything you say is 100%
confidential.  I will do my best to help you.  Killing
yourself is NEVER the answer.  There is always hope and
God will always provide an answer.  I am praying for you.

For you parents, again I can only encourage you to do
your best to instill God's Truth in your children
starting when they are in the womb.  The more you openly
and honestly communicate with your child, the better your
relationship will be and your child will never feel like
they have nobody to talk to.  The greatest gift you will
ever give your child is YOURSELF!  Don't ever get so busy
with your own life that you neglect your child.  This is
a wicked, sinful, and evil world that we live in.  Your
child needs you to help guide them and protect them from
the traps satan has layed to destroy, even kill them.  I
am praying for you as God gives you His wisdom and
strength each day in raising your children.

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

***GET YOUR FREE LPeMAIL ACCOUNT!  Never miss
receiving your Daily Devotional again.  LPeMail is
an effective email SPAM filtering application
that most ISP's charge $10/mo, for FREE!  Get your
LPeMail account now at: www.lpemail.com.

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer
Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each
day.  Simply go to
http://www.liveprayer.com/DailyDevotionalAudio.html
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by
phone by calling toll-free, 1-888-382-4662, or
access it on your wireless device by going to:
http://wapdd.com

(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

************************************************

May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell

Father's Day Message

2006-06-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller wrote a devotional today that I recommend to
you for your consideration.  It has food for thought.  He
has given me permission to copy his e-mails, and I'm sure
he would be happy if you would share this with people you
know as well.

Whether you are a father, have a father, wish you still
had a father or wish you had a better father, this is a
wonderful message to you.

May God bless all fathers and their children today!

I would like personally thank Jesus for healing my ailing
right shoulder that has been very painful for 18 months.
I was scheduled to go the doctor on Monday, but on Sunday,
June 4, I listened to two healing services . . . and
during the prayer for healing in the second one my pain,
stiffness and loss of movement all disappeared.

Thank you, Jesus!

Since then, I had a dream in which I finally realized
how I had hurt my shoulder . . . so now I won't repeat
that mistake.

Thank you, Jesus!

It felt so good this morning to be able to hold my Bible
straight up in the air with no pain and no restriction in
movement.

Thank you, Jesus!

Please read on.

*********************************************

DAILY DEVOTIONAL    SUNDAY JUNE 18, 2006
(Ephesians 6:4)

Honoring our fathers.  Today is the day the world
celebrates Father's Day.  In our busy lives, it is good
that we are forced to take a moment and recognize our
dads.  I had a wonderful father that unfortunately passed
away when I was 16.  Even though I missed sharing those
young adult years with my dad, it was his love and
nurturing in my early years that helped build the
spiritual foundation in my life.  After praying about
today's Devotional, the Lord has directed me to use it as
a special encouragement to the dads out there.

How often do we take what dad does for granted?  There are
Godly men out there who are the spiritual heads of their
homes.  They work hard to provide the income needed to
sustain day to day life.  They love and honor their wife. 
They realize their children are gifts from God and help
nurture and mold their lives.  These dads realize that
serving God is their divine purpose and being the head of
their home is their first and most important ministry. 
Today is a day to make sure dad knows just how much we
love and appreciate him.

For those dads out there who are working hard to be the
kind of dad I just described, know that you are in my
prayers.  Know that each day as you spend that special
time alone with the Lord, He will encourage you,  prepare
you, and make you adequate for that day.  You are on the
path God wants you to be on as you strive each day to
serve Him, making your wife and children your number one
priorities.  Balance is one of the biggest hurdles you
face each day, and I pray the Lord will help you find that
perfect balance between work, home, serving Him, and
relaxing.

The other big hurdle is being able to give God control. 
Having so much responsibility each day, letting go and
really trusting God at certain times is not easy.  Just
remember, in John 15:5 it says "without me you can do
nothing."  God has given you great talents, great gifts,
but without the Lord's strength, and He being in charge,
it won't make any difference.  Make your faith real daily
as you learn to trust Him more each day.

I recognize today that there are also many dads who aren't
the kind of dad I described.  Unless someone is totally
committed and surrendered to the Lord, overseeing the
responsibilities of marriage and children often suffer. 
Without the Lord leading your life, getting caught up in
all of the traps of this world happen frequently, and life
really never makes much sense.  The importance of being a
husband, a father, doesn't have the significance it should. 
That is why so many men have left the home, abandoned their
children, and continually are caught up in every kind of
sin imaginable.

To those dads I want you to know that if you are tired of
running from God, tired of the pain, tired of the
heartache, tired of nothing working...this is the perfect
day to turn it all around.  Even though this is a day we
celebrate our earthly fathers, there is a Heavenly Father
who loves you so much, and if you call out to Him, He will
help you straighten your life out.

For those wives, ex-wives, and children of dads who haven't
been the Godly dad the Bible talks of, pray for your dad. 
Know that deep down he is hurting, and only surrendering to
Christ will change that.  God loves your dad more than you
do, and He is the one who can change your dad's heart.
I'll pray with you for your dad.

I want you to know that I love you and do care about you. 
For you dads out there today, let me encourage you by
telling you...if you keep Jesus first in your life, He
will help you overcome the trials of this life, and
allow you to see victories in every area of your life. 
In your marriage, in your children, in your career, in
your service for Him....if you will simply trust Him and
operate in His strength, you will know blessings and joy
above and beyond anything you ever imagined.

Please know that I will be praying for you today, and if
you need any special prayer to be the man, the husband,
the father, the servant God has called you to be....please
don't hesitate to email me at:  bkeller@liveprayer.com . 
God has given us many great examples of how to be a true
father.  Follow Him each day and He will mold you and make
you into the father He has raised you up to be.

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

***If I can help you in any way you can contact me
through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND
ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At
that moment, you will either spend eternity with
the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness
forever separated from God your creator.  To know
for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html

***GET YOUR FREE LPeMAIL ACCOUNT!  Never miss
receiving your Daily Devotional again.  LPeMail is
an effective email SPAM filtering application
that most ISP's charge $10/mo, for FREE!  Get your
LPeMail account now at: www.lpemail.com.

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer
Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each
day.  Simply go to
http://www.liveprayer.com/DailyDevotionalAudio.html
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by
phone by calling toll-free, 1-888-382-4662, or
access it on your wireless device by going to:
http://wapdd.com

(C) Copyright 2006, Bill Keller Ministries.
All rights reserved

************************************************

May God bless you as you learn from this message!

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2006 Donald W. Mitchell