FAQs Archives - Nikole Hahn

Did You Get a Letter From Me?

You might be asking, “What do I do with this?”

You were one of 100 letters mailed out in the last few weeks. You might be a church, individual, or business. Whoever you are, here are some suggestions on what to do with that letter:

Pray as I serve in this transition between working a day job and working full-time ministry with WorldVenture. In the midst of raising a full years support to be cleared to serve with WorldVenture, I am also working on necessary reports for 2019 social media strategy, managing The Bible Study Project, and setting up Roots Writers and Social Media Critique Group as its own entity as I co-lead it with Sherry Rossman. I’m also attending conferences and keeping up with education to stay relevant in social media.
Consider support. Please. Most non-profits do not have someone JUST doing their social media. Most people running a non-profits social media are also doing other things, like pastoring. This supported-staff position with WorldVenture enables WorldVenture to jump into the world of digital discipleship in partnership with you. You would be helping a missionary organization. Whatever the Lord puts on your heart whether that is $8/month or $100/month. Click here to begin that process. Or, feel free to check me out. Contact WorldVenture. Email me to set up a video conference or invite me out to meet you. I am willing to travel. You are also helping the 500 plus workers and partner churches, allies, and individuals understand digital discipleship.
Support us because digital discipleship shouldn’t be an individual effort. We should work together to share the Gospel with unreached people groups. The sooner I get to full-time ministry, the sooner work can begin to develop these things. My time is limited now to before or after a 40-hour a week day job.

Thank you for your anticipated support. Thank you for your prayers. Don’t forget to sign up to receive my prayer newsletter.

FAQS: When Should I Follow Through on My Commitment?

If you have a monthly, quarterly, or yearly pledge, and you are waiting til I have received 100% in commitments before allowing the pledge to debit your account, here’s why you should be fulfilling your commitment now:

Raising a Year’s Budget: I am working to raise a year’s budget. The reason they have us raise a year’s worth of support is to prevent future problems of shortages. Your financial situation can change in a year. When I begin receiving disbursements, I receive a set amount. If I am in the negative at the end of the year, I have to pay WorldVenture back the shortage. Waiting to fulfill your pledge can cause issues later.
Fulfilling Your Commitment is a Vote of Faith: The story of the man and his prayer for rain is my favorite tale. The man asked his congregation to pray for rain during a drought. They were to show up later that day on the top of a hill to pray. When the man arrived, he noted how none of his congregation carried with them an umbrella. So, he turned around and left. Fulfilling your commitment is bringing an umbrella to a prayer meeting that is praying for rain. You are a part of the story. I will write later on why this portion of today’s FAQs is important.
Yes, I Have a Day Job While Raising Support. For the past couple of years, I have footed the bill for over $1,000 worth of annual expenses to running online websites. There are many needs to improve the websites and to develop them to encourage engagement, including background checks on the volunteers, chat groups, and a possible partnership with an imprint to encourage writers to develop their talent for the mission field (even if they write for the secular crowd). Plus, expenses are making keeping up with house repairs difficult.

Click Here to Fulfill or Make a New Commitment

FAQs: October Support So Far

We are at 11.37% financial support. Want to learn more? Email me and let’s set up a Skype or in-person meeting!

FAQs: Why Do I Review Books on This Site?

Reviewing books is a way for me to refuel my creativity. Unashamedly, it is also a way to receive free books. On a missionary budget, this is helpful. All books will be reviewed from a Christian perspective, but not all books are Christian in nature.

Reading secular books and novels allow me to understand the world in which we live. It’s easy to sequester myself in the coziness of the Christian world, reading safe fiction and nonfiction, but that doesn’t help me learn how to communicate with people from other worldviews.

Writing and grammar also change. This means I have to continually educate myself in trends and new writing styles. With my field being in social media, I also have to read and learn marketing trends. My goal is to make marketing human. Just because I have to market, doesn’t mean I don’t think of people as individuals. I put people and relationships first above my agenda.

That’s a promise.

FAQS: My Husband’s Role

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WorldVenture appointed me, not my husband, Tony, as a missionary. Yet, he plays a role in what I do every day.

I introduced him to Facebook. He now posts #LunchroomViews when he hikes, influencing both secular and believer in his online life.
Helped him merge to Twitter. He’s learning the ins and outs of that, too.
He’s political, but through WorldVenture’s missional influence, his belief in God is lived out in redeeming ways online politically and personally. It’s more about the relationship with others now.

He has become an avid prayer warrior and helps me manage ministry, job, and appointments with prospective financial partners by picking up most of the house work on his days off. This weighs on me. I love him for his generosity.

Before I hit the button that rocketed me into this new world, we talked alot about what this will mean for our marriage and for each other. What if I have to travel without him to a different country? What if it’s a dangerous country? What if I was jailed for my efforts online or persecuted legally and we lost everything? Would he still love me even if the world was against me? Inevitably, what I do will impact him, too.

We share an open marriage where we talk about things before they become an issue. Our relationship is honest; it’s been honest from the beginning. He tells me things I don’t want to hear, and I hold up my end of the bargain by listening. His role as friend, partner in my online ministries, and husband is important to me as a person and missionary.

I wouldn’t be a missionary today if God hadn’t brought him into my life. I would still be wandering.

Want to hear more? Let’s talk.

So What Does ‘Financially Partnering’ With You Mean?

A friend had a question about how to give and what each button means. I’ve been making some assumptions that people understand how and why missionaries raise monthly support. This is the accidental assumption one makes after 10 years of being a church secretary and dealing directly with a Missions Commission. If you have other questions, feel free to email me. All questions will be kept confidential.

Q: Do I give now or when you quit SRCF and go into full time ministry?
A: To go into full time ministry, I need to raise 100% support now. This means all giving must go through the “start/modify” button after you press “give.” For Direct Debit or Credit Card/Debit Card, it only allows monthly giving. “Mail a Check” allows for annual giving.

Q: Does a Special Donation go towards your monthly need?
A: No. Special (tax deductible) Donations go towards my ministry account. This does not get counted towards what I need to raise per month. It does help keep down expenses in the Ministry Account as an appointee. To give towards my monthly support, please use start/modify a commitment.

Q: What is a Personal Gift?
A: A Personal Gift is non-tax deductible and gets deposited right into my checking account. I would prefer no personal gifts until I am at 100% support.

Q: I don’t want to do an automatic debit (i.e. Direct Debit or Credit Card/Debit Card), but I do Want to have my yearly donation go towards your support. How can I do this?
A: Go to “Start/Modify” and choose “Mail a Check” instead. Choose how often to give and how much, and mail a check out.

Q:I want to give annually using credit, debit, or direct debit. How can I do this?
A: You cannot give annually using credit, debit cards, or direct debit. To get around this, you can set up online banking to issue a check. Just make sure the memo states my name and account number. The bank will mail a check for you. It can even be scheduled to send at a much later time. Meanwhile, you’ll need to set up an online commitment so, when the check arrives, it is credited towards my support account, not my ministry account.

Q: What do the numbers reflect each month on the first of the month?
A: I am so thankful for the number of verbal commitments I have received, but the numbers only reflect those who have registered those commitments online (even if the check is sent annually at the end of the year). I encourage you to register your verbal commitment so we can together pray to 100% support.

Q: How do I set up an online commitment?
A: Let’s talk. I am happy to walk you through the process. Send me an email to set up an appointment to either call you or come over to your house and walk you through it. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are always open. We can meet and walk you through the process provided no other appointments exist that day.

Q: Why do you need to live on support?
A: The Bible contains numerous examples of both Jesus, His disciples and the Apostles depending on the financial support of others during their ministry. Luke 8:1-3 says,“Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.” These women, among others, were paying the expenses for Jesus to travel through the cities “bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.” Jesus depended on others for support. READ MORE

Volunteers Needed #Missions #Mentors #Writers

TRC Magazine:

You told her many times that you aren’t a writer. She heard your testimony many times and so have others. You can’t put two sentences together. TRC Magazine is looking for writers who will give a voice to the people God is working through that can’t write. We are looking for writers to show us all aspects of the Christian life. We are a very diverse crowd. Provided the story follows the usual statement of faith and won’t lead anyone astray, you are welcome to apply here.

Cataclysm Missions Intl LLC:

Many volunteer positions exist here. Can you mentor someone online? Can you help a church or ministry do online work better? Can you write once per month on the blog and help others evangelize online and face-to-face? Check out this ministry here.

FAQs: Why Do I Have So Many Websites?

In late 2011, I finished my first fiction fantasy novel and had plans to attend the Christian Writer’s Guild, “Writing For The Soul,” event in Denver, Colorado in 2012. I was excited and nervous to pitch my idea to an editor and agent. Like any new writer, I felt like this was it.

I worked so hard to build my online platform. I visited blogs. I built my own website using Homestead (my first company). I had a blog on WordPress where I had published interviews and book reviews. Writing is a small community, and God connected me with some great new friends. I had been online since 2006. My publishing list was a long one–a lifelong desire that started when I was a teenager. But reality hits every new writer.

Some truths I learned were…

Traditional publishing is hard.

Independent publishing (or self-publishing) is just as hard and more expensive.

While an agent asked for a partial manuscript in 2012 (the closest I had ever gotten to traditional publishing), it was later rejected because fantasy fiction in the Christian market was hard to sell. I continued writing more novels, and a strange restlessness began to seep into soul.

If I got a novel published, name on the cover, what then? So what? What was I going to do in between writing and publishing? What matters most to God? My name on the cover? Or the words and actions in between?

TRC Magazine began in 2012 (published in 2013). God had so many stories in the world that I wanted to give a place where people could share them. As a writer sending to big magazine conglomerates, it was discouraging to not get through the front door. Mainly, the people who got through the door were people with larger online platforms that could bring in new readers to these magazines. I wasn’t jealous. It takes a lot of work to get where they were, and I was happy for people who get that far in their life. They’ve earned it. God took my dream of writing and changed it. TRC Magazine became a place to be a megaphone for stories from anyone who wanted to tell it. If they couldn’t write, we help them. That wasn’t enough after a while. I was restless again.

We live in an economically hard area. I started a new business of Social Media Consulting as a ministry to help struggling writers and others get help with their marketing that would be within their budget and teach them to be independent. I was still sending in manuscripts and short stories, but I started to see the cutthroat side of Christian book reviewing. I didn’t like what I saw or how Christians online were mean to each other, or on their own agenda. Aesthetically, we weren’t cohesive, working towards the united goal of the Great Commission.

That’s where WorldVenture and Cataclysm Missions Intl LLC came in. I became a Social Media Missionary with WorldVenture and started Cataclysm Missions Intl LLC (CMI).

Why reinvent the wheel when other online cybermission organizations were doing a great job for the Great Commission? The problem was in how to bring them all together in one place so the pulpit becomes aware of online missions work. How do we also inspire people to join CMI or other cybermissions organizations if they couldn’t serve a traditional missionary organization? How do we educate and equip regular Christians who just want to go to church on Sunday to use their one social media well? How do we change Christian culture in how they react to things online?

The goal of Cataclysm Missions Intl LLC is to bring people from online into a fellowship of faith and the people in the pews to online in order to reach a hurting and lost world. How do we get Christians excited for what God is doing through technology?

I run so many websites so the current volunteers at TRC Magazine and CMI do not have to run a website. I take away the barrier of marketing, maintenance, and cost so God can use our volunteers through our different brands to reach this world. We are showing symbolically that, though we are different, we can work together with a single purpose. It’s been a struggle to bear the yearly costs of running three websites, but God is a generous God. He is the God of the impossible. On a church secretary’s salary, He has made all things possible. His example of generosity has led me to trust Him for all future things.

So pray for me as I continue to run these sites. Pray we can begin to engage, not just share things.

Deadline for prayer requests for my March newsletter is February 29.