Biblia
- When Christians Mean Business-Part 2,
- by Jack Van Deventer
The point here is not that Christians should be entering business
ventures for the purpose of self-indulgence, but rather Christians
should strive to be successful in business in order to spread the
gospel, which includes providing for one's family, the needs of the
Church, the needs of the poor, and the well-being of future
descendants. "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's
children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous"
(Prov. 13:22).
In
terms of business savvy, is the average Christian male
head-of-household even in the same league as the virtuous woman in
Proverbs? "She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she
plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are
strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her
lamp does not go out at night… She makes linen garments and sells
them, and supplies the merchants with sashes" (Prov. 31:16-18, 24).
We
observe that the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 is a real state
developer, a farmer, a merchant, and a textile manufacturer. She is a
business woman. Does her family come first? Of course. Do the poor and
needy benefit from her kindness? Yes indeed. She is a wife and mother
first (as a married Christian man should be a husband and father
first), but making and handling money through business transactions is
notably mentioned in the listing of her virtues. Her industriousness
and generosity illustrate the gospel.
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Practica
We have just
finished our Family Entrepreneur Conference and Retreat. What a
weekend! We covered homeschool, family and home business topics.
Actually, the
best part was the interaction. Most of the talks were a give and take
affair, so lots of ideas were passed around. Then, many of the
participants met by the pool and in the lobby talks and to discuss
more nuts and bolts about implementing their homeschool and home
businesses. Here is what Jim Erskine, owner of Homeschool Radio Shows said
about the retreat:
We
really enjoyed spending time with you guys at the homeschool /
homebusiness conference! I've been listening through our set of the
conference audios while working on orders and doing "catch up" work
here... They are just excellent, chock full of great info and
instruction. ( You should be charging much more for these! ) I know
they're really going to help lots of folks to get where they want to
go with their home biz goals.
Best Wishes,
Jim Erskine
www.homeschoolradioshows.com
So, why am I
telling you about a retreat that happened last weekend?!? Because we
have the recorded talks on CD! Below is a list of the talks and a link
if you want to purchase one, two or the whole set:
- What about a
Family Business
- Let's Talk About
Debt
- Start Selling on
eBay This Week
- Dads and the Big
Picture
- Winning the War
of Our Culture
- Leadership
Education...Not a Conveyor Belt Education
- The Importance of
Teaching Life Skills to Your Children
- Reaching the
Reluctant Writer
- Let's Brainstorm
Ideas for YOUR Business
- Make Money Online
Tonight
To read more
about these talks or order one, click on the link below:
Workshop CDs
My wife wrote a
cool wrap-up of the retreat that you may find interesting:
We just finished
our first Family Conference. The
people who attended the conference went home with practical ideas in
business & homeschooling that they could implement tomorrow. Not only
did they go away with suggestions for products to pursue, they also
were able to interact with the speakers on ideas they brought to the
conference. This is invaluable because sometimes we can not see the
forest for the trees. Someone outside of your circle that has
marketing skills and business knowledge can help steer and direct your
pursuits. Or, an experienced homeschooler can encourage you in just
the right direction. These types of conferences allow people to share
ideas and swap contact info so they can improve their homeschool or
business plans.
The idea of
synergy…two heads are better than one…was quite evident this past
weekend. Many times throughout the weekend I saw huddles of people
discussing their business or homeschool ideas. It is cool to see how
we can help each other in our endeavors. Some people have product
ideas while others have the marketing channels. What is cool about
these two is one family has a cool product but doesn’t have a way to
market it so you can find another family who has a “list” (potential
customers). Both families can work together in this business venture
and profit, bringing different strengths to the table. We met a few
families that we would like to work with during the next year. I’ll
keep you posted when we have plans finalized.
One of the treats
of the conference is meeting people who are really market-savvy. They
started talking to us and sharing ideas that we had not event thought
about. The cherry on top is that these guys are Christians and I
would much rather work with Christians anyway.
For example, Jim
Erskine (www.HomeschoolRadioShows.com)
showed Steve how to reduce his bit-rate on our downloadable talks (If
you know what that means, you are light years ahead of Kerry).
Therefore, it will be more convenient to download talks, take up less
bandwidth, and make future talks a better possibility. All of us,
including the speakers, learned from each other.
The homeschooling
and Godly home track were a blessing to those families who attended.
Cindy Rushton inspired the moms who were tired & weary with
organizational tips, writing ideas and ways to minister to their
children. I enjoyed discussing leadership education (my passion these
days) with several homeschool families. I believe this weekend was a
true encouragement to everyone. The kids even enjoyed hearing Matthew
Rushton speak on purity, business and homeschooling. At lunchtoday,
my middle daughter shared stories she had heard from Matthew about
successful entrepreneurs…they all had a small business as a child.
while our kids shared their products and the lessons they learned from
selling their own product.
If you missed
this fantastic retreat, you can still get the workshop tapes. We are
selling our workshops through our website at www.CurriculumConnection.net/retreataudio.htm and Cindy
Rushton is selling their family’s talks at her website www.CindyRushton.com
- http://www.curriculumconnection.net
- http://www.familyebiz.com
- info@familyebiz.com
- If you have suggestions on future newsletter topics or have
questions, please email me.
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