Where my strength comes from!

A few of  my "Tweets" this mornng!

"I Can Only Imagine! http://youtu.be/bfWwtsWC44g 0 
   You are my Hiding Place. 

"How Great is our God"! http://youtu.be/0ZFN8TBfgNU 

#milwaukee#ilovemilwaukee

YouTube

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty

More on my other BLOG!

http://northshorefinishingwellgroup.blogspot.com/2015/02/richs-thought-of-day-some-of-my.html

Opportunity to develop your strengths is more important than your role, title or your pay!

"Across the board, having the opportunity to develop our strengths is more important to our success than our role, our title, or even our pay."  Strengths Finder 2.0   Tom Rath

 Seems like one of our goals should be to be aware of the opportunities around us and even actively search for them!

Making the most of every opportunity!

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Seizing opportunities is directly tied to the spiritual gift of discernment. When we see what looks like an opportunity, we have to discern whether we are seeing a true opening or just our own wishful-thinking or a random idea. 

Just because an opportunity arises does not mean that we should take it. An opportunity is just a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. We still have the hard work of determining whether it is something WE SHOULD DO!

Opportunities are doorways that God opens. It is divine leading, even though we may not be able to predict what lies beyond. 

God also directs us with closed doors!  Don't be discouraged!

Ability to see with the eyes of God, think with the mind of Christ, and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit! 

A good prayer!


A tool to help us discover our talents which can then be developed into "Strengths"

http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/About-StrengthsFinder-20.aspx

How your Church can use "Linkedin" as a tool for creating community.

 First your church needs to have a passion and desire to see the importance and understand what community is!

 Community 101 by Gilbert Bizezikian

"If you had to answer, in a single word, what God's dream for human beings is, what would you say?  Community?

God's dream for the creatures made in his image is that they begin to realize the beautiful words of the psalmist: "How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity" (Psalm. 133:1 NRV

 Then, start a Linkedin GROUP! 

Linkedin is a great "tool" that can help connect people.
That is the first step. Although not everyone is on Linkedin, it is very easy to create a short and basic profile. And it is FREE!  Linkedin is NOT like Facebook. As Author Wayne Breitbarth says, "Linkedin is Facebook on steroids"

Wayne is the author of The Power Formula for Linkedin Success. Also a member of our church. Thanks Wayne for teaching me 99% of what I know about Linkedin!

Benefits of having a private church linkedin group:

1. Easy to see all the profiles quickly of everyone in the group. 2. Easy for "new" people to connect with others. Assimilate    quickly!

3. Can pray for each other better as you know them better!

4. Can be of help to people finding new jobs. Jobs at individual's place of employment can be posted! Person looking and applying for that job has a "friend" at the company. As we know, it's all about "relationships"!

5. Easy to start a discussion or ask a question of the group.

6. Group is searchable: Can find people with similar interests. Now you can call them and meet for coffee, etc

All this helps create "community"

Someone from the church can easily start a "GROUP".
Not a job for the pastor to do! Find someone with an interest and passion for this!

It helps if the staff is on board with this new endeavor!
Without promotion with the pulpit...the group will not flourish.

Someone from the church can easily start a "GROUP".
That's what I did shortly after joining Linkedin.
It's called Eastbrook Community. It is a closed group, meaning only people who have a relationship with Eastbrook are let in. WHY? My vision for starting the group was to help connect unemployed people from Eastbrook with employed people. Members can post available jobs on the site and unemployed people then know someone in the company.
That's part of the secret of getting a job.

Here is our PROFILE: 

Private group. To request membership, click Join and your request will be reviewed by the group manager.

As our pastors and church office give us names of new members, they will be invited to join our group! If you found this group on your own...and feel you should be in the group...
send me an email!

What a great "tool" to use to get acquainted with fellow Eastbrookers!

We all have a place in our church. We should be radically welcoming as a church. A place for new people to experience community and get "connected" Our Groups 277 + members are only a small part of Eastbrook but we can take a lead in welcoming new people.
This is just a bunch of people whose lives have crossed in this place to come together with a view toward advancing the cause of Christ through God-honoring work.
If you have a desire to be a resource for our unemployed, either by posting job openings from your place of employment on this site or desire to pray for our people, please join our group.

This is a place for Eastbrook people to connect with the purpose of enabling careers, ministries, and new business opportunities. The depth of experience available in Eastbrook's people is remarkable. This group could enable Eastbrookers to reach out in new ministries, to start new businesses, to grow in their careers.
Wouldn't it be exciting if, as the economy languishes, Eastbrook people came together to start new things.
Mission statement and goals may change, so come back again. Your input desired!

_________________________________

 While on staff at Eastbrook I had a weekly prayer group for unemployed people. Anyone could attend, not only Eastbrookers. Besides praying for each other, we learned about using Linkedin as a "tool" for finding a job. It worked. People did find jobs!

Anyone who faithfully attended even if they were not a member of Eastbrook, I let in the group.

Also, a great benefit is that all 300 plus people can easily see each other's profiles!  
What is the benefit of that?

Well, we can easily get to know people better! 
New people from our church can see the other 300 members of the group. 

Can call them, invite them out for coffee or lunch...

The members of the group are searchable!

Wayne Breitbarth even found a golfing partner using linkedin. Great way for finding new friends!
Possibilities are endless!

If you are going for an interview and know the interviewers name...find them on Linkedin and you will know all about them. You can be sure that they have already looked at your profile. 

So, the bottom line is: Start a group on Linkedin! Your vision or mission statement may be different. 

Would love to hear how you are doing!

Blessings

Bloom Where You are Planted!

My latest TWITTER POSTS 

Have a great day!

My Daily BLOG 

 

Richard

 The Power Formula For Linkedin Success

New Goal for the year

Be rooted, grounded and grow and so rise to the top of your field...and bloom where you are planted...using the abilities, gifts and strengths the Lord has given you.

My Strength or God's Strength?

A few words on "Strength" from the book of Psalms:

The Lord is my strength and my shield;
    my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
    and with my song I praise him. Psalm 28:7

The Lord is the strength of his people,
    a fortress of salvation for his anointed one. Psalm 28:8


The Lord gives strength to his people;
    the Lord blesses his people with peace. Psalm 29:11

God’s Call

Just a few questions you may want to ask yourself

What is God calling me to do?  Have I asked Him?

What is my passion?  My Spouse’s

Where do the world’s needs and my passion intersect?

Have I taken the online S.H.A.P.E assessment?

Have I taken the Strengthsfinder 2.0 Assessment to see what my “strengths” are?

Have I taken the IDAK Talent Assessment?

What are my dreams?

What can we do?  (Add spouse’s name if married)

What about interests?

How would I spend my time?

What is important to me?

What can I do that will outlive me?

What experiences have I had that my give me a clue to the above?

What are my gifts?

Am I using my talents, gifts in my local church? If not, why not?

Am I a good steward of my gifts, time, abilities, etc.?

What would I do if I had a million dollars or more?

Do I have enough information or do I have info overload?

Who do I need to contact, email, call?

Do I need some more training in some area?

Are these the correct questions to ask myself? And my spouse if married?

Some excerpts from:  God’s Best for My Life by Lloyd John Ogilvie 

“What are we daring to attempt which could not be accomplished without His strength and intervention? So often we plan our lives around what we could do without Him on our own.  A sure sign that we are in communion with the Lord is that we are attempting what only He can do? Can you identify that in your life?”

Strengthsfinder: New insights

I received this from a Linkedin Connection Paul Hayes. Paul gave me permission to quote him.

"In the DFW area, there are a lot of churches that are utilizing StrengthsFinder as part of their ministry. I don't have the exact figure, you can probably find it on the Gallup website somewhere, or if you post in one of the LinkedIn SF groups, someone will probably know and reply, but my understanding is that the likelihood of someone else having the same order for the 34 talents is infinitesimally small. I don't trust my memory, but the figure less than a dozen in the world's population sticks in my mind for some reason.

Awareness of this instills into people that we are all unique creations of God; what is unique about each of us aligns with the purpose we were put here for; and when we find what our passion is, the likelihood that we are also finding the purpose God has planned for our lives will also be found. Additionally, like any other organization, knowing the strengths of each member helps the organization deploy talent most effectively, just as would be the case in a business. It also is an effective tool for life changes support such as ministering to those seeking work, marriage and divorce, grief counseling, etc.

The other thing is what I call 'out bounding your strengths'. We all enter into situations where we ask others to make significant decisions based, in part, on their judgment and trust of who we are. For example, when you might be asking a major donor to fund an endeavor of your ministry or The Red Cross.

Using the 3 page summary report of someone's top five is a good way to frame that perception. In business, during the times when I have been asking someone to spend $100,000 or more at one time, I always include that as the last section of the proposal.

I usually introduce it by saying if I were being asked to spend what I am asking them to spend, I would want to truly know who I was dealing with, and this is not only who I perceive myself to be, it is who Gallup's assessment given to over 12 million people perceives me to be.

I urge them to take $10 and an hour of their time to determine if they think who that assessment perceives them to be is accurate or not, because if they consider that to depict who they are, then they can have confidence the following depicts who I am.

It puts StrengthsFinder before influencers who can spread it to more people, and it does so in a matter of fact way about it being something real. In effect, it is doing with StrengthsFinder the same thing that a life of example is ultimately a ministry.

 I did not get more than the top five till about a year and a half after taking the assessment for the top five report. When and if you ever decide you want to delve deeper into your strengths, you can go back to the purchase page and purchase the full 34 report for $89. It is generated from the same answers that generated your top five report. As soon as you pay, you have the full 34 report. When you have the list going deeper, you see ways that top fives combine with lesser strengths. For instance, my belief about only being able to receive through giving is something I attribute to my #14 Connectedness, #9 Relator, and #7 Empathy much more so than anything in my top five, yet that is an essential core of who I am. Such things are why eventually it is nice to have the full 34."

Thanks Paul for your insights and wisdom! 

In a previous post, I mentioned S.H.A.P.E. http://northshorefinishingwellgroup.blogspot.com/
Would be interesting to see how our "Strengths" work together with our "S.H.A.P.E."

Primer on Discovering Your Calling

Post #1 

Discovering our "Strengths" is one place to start our journey.

A good assessment is Strengthfinders.2.0  http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/About-StrengthsFinder-20.aspx       You can purchase at Amazon for about $15

It has a code in the back of the book that you use when you go online to take the 177 question assessment. After taking the assessment you get an immediate printout of your top 5 strength and a commentary on how to further develop those "talents" into strengths.


It gives you all 34 Strengths from high to low AND gives you a 2 minute video of EACH Strength!

Both assessments are good. You can compare the two printouts side by side and get a more complete view of your talents that can be developed into "Strengths"

The results of knowing your "Strengths" is that you can use them in your job, career, volunteering and in your marriage. 

Now if you are ready to tackle your Abilities, a good book that is probably out of print is Discovering Your Natural Talents by John Brady and Jay Carty.
John Bardley has a company called    Idak Group
They have an online Abilities Assessment. Cost $27. Very good.

  Another step in our journey is to find out your S.H.A.PE. 

Maybe this is really the place to START!

S is your Spiritual Gifts.
H is your Heart or Passion
A is your Abilities
P is your Personality
E is your Experiences.

There are several websites that offer an online survey.
They are approaching this from a Christian worldview. The Spiritual Gifts part.
Gives you a great analysis on how to use your SHAPE in a Christian non profit.
If you don't do the Spiritual Gift section it also applies to a Secular non profit.
They give a great printout.



You can search Google for a S.H.A.P.E. Assessment. 
It is a great tool. 

More later on "Calling"

 

My latest TWEETS