On Thursday, I am leaving for Phoenix, Arizona to join others at Palmcroft church for WorldVenture’s 75th Regional Celebration event. If you are interested in attending, click here. It begins at 7 pm.
Pray for:
Decisions That Keep You Awake…
“Don’t go in there,” my husband begged in text as I stood outside the pet shop. “Run!”
A couple of days later, we went home with a ball of fur because he couldn’t say no to his wife. His wife (me) couldn’t say no to amber eyes and a playful spirit. We lost our own cat several months prior and the house felt too empty. I knew our next resident would not be like our last cat. Just like our former dog wasn’t like our last dog. Each animal has their own strengths and weaknesses.
Even as I write this, I have taken two Excedrin as our cat kept us up most of the night. But other things kept my mind awake, too. When you take on new responsibility, you feel it.
And lastly, just plain old excitement for the future. Old fears battle fresh joy, and I find new courage each day to face daily challenges. The weight of people that believe in what I do sits on my heart, but not in a way that is a burden; it is a reminder that God has entrusted me with more because I think I became trusted with little (Luke 16:10).
Breaking new ground is hard work, but I need my team around me. Their experience in places I have not seen will make this new ground fertile. I will make a lot more decisions and I am praying I make wise ones. Surrounded by true friends and a supportive husband, I can’t help but feel some confidence as I look toward the future. Just like I am confident that one day, our new resident will find her “normal” and settle into a predictable behavioral pattern (sigh).
Meanwhile, how could I say no to this girl?
P.S. WorldVenture published an important blog post. Go here to view it on their Facebook page. Be sure to share your thoughts afterwards on their Facebook page. This is an important conversation to have between organizations.
Beyond Marketing: Developing Evangelistic Outreach Teams is a Phoenix Pastor’s workshop coming January 9, 2018. I (WorldVenture) am partnering with Southwest Church Connection at Desert Springs Community Church to help pastors use social media to develop evangelistic outreach teams.
I would encourage churches to consider, not just sending your pastor to this workshop, but someone tech-minded from your congregation, too. Registration will be open soon. We want to let you know that this is coming up. Put it on your calendars and stay tuned. You can register to receive this blog via email or you can register to receive my prayer emails here.
After the pie, when all the dishes are cleaned, and life returns to normal portions, my mind returns to pressing needs like TRC Magazine’s next edition. It’s the last edition of 2017. It’s been a fruitful year.
December means our Intern is coordinating the social media for TRC Magazine in honor of Advent. We’ll see devotionals and maybe some interviews. Renee, our volunteer, will compliment our intern’s social media with her art.
TRC Magazine is not an ordinary ezine. We publish stories to influence and make a difference. We also teach our volunteers and intern to engage with our readers. Our readers are global. They come from a variety of backgrounds. Not all are believers. Our vision is not to chase the stories everyone else is chasing. It’s a creative way to empower the church to serve online.
Read last edition by clicking here.
Interested in supporting this work and other works, give a monthly donation by clicking here.
Weeks like this week make me say, “Lord, will you please hurry this support process?!”
I work in two mentally stimulating jobs that challenge my comfort zone–a Day Job and my position with WorldVenture. Time management is an important tool in my belt.
This week, I came home drained from so much mental stimulation. Don’t tell God you are bored, because He will give you something to do. Ministry is exploding and I am swept away in it while facing the reality of a lack of time. The need for churches (individually and corporately) to learn the proper use of Social Media, to not be afraid of it, or to put aside their prejudices against it is huge. The demand on my time is hard and strangely joyful.
Yet, I am comforted by what the Lord is doing in my life, too. I don’t know what next year will bring, only that I have chosen to live this way with the expectation that God will deliver me. We will get to 100% support and it will be a story of His glory.
So, why cheat the process? Why ask God to hurry what He has deemed an important part of my journey? Every time I fall down, God picks me up again. Every time, I hear rejection, God remakes my heart so that I am stronger and better. God is even remaking our marriage. Every day, we are growing together in the same direction, applying what we are learning in the Bible and in life to our lives.
We are at 29% support. Would you consider a monthly support of $25, $35, or whatever God puts on your heart?
Ideas are like embers that spark in a fire and fling off into the cold night only to fade in the sand. I’ve known people who have great ideas, but manpower or leadership become a problem. Without a leader, an idea doesn’t have a chance to flame. Without the flame, volunteers aren’t attracted to it enough to commit to its long-term goals. In response to people who have great ideas, and understanding they need a place to share ideas, I created a site where people can use the teaching blog to share great ministry plans.
My goal is to gather all those creative people together to inspire the church body to serve online. We like to look at serving as only in the face-to-face world, but serving happens online, too. People are already online at church. They need only direction, urging, and patience to teach them how to use the social media they already have to reach their circle of unbelievers. Sometimes, it’s not the lack of knowledge of technology, but only the missing creative flair that comes from creative people.
This is all very time consuming though. It’s a joy to do this, but without the church helping to financially partner with me, my time available is restricted to Saturdays and Sundays because of the need to have a day job.
On Saturday, June 24 at 10 a.m. MST, I invite you to a Zoom meeting where I will walk you through what I do with WorldVenture. To get the Zoom address, please leave a comment and I will email you.
Hi there,
Nikki Hahn is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Sharing About What I Do With WorldVenture
Time: Jun 24, 2017 10:00 AM Arizona
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/2235510809
Appointed by WorldVenture in 2015, I wasn’t actually released to raise funds until March, 2016. Necessary training is what prevented me from sending out those emails and making those phone calls. This probably confused many as people expected to hear from me, but God was wiser. Developing as a worker in the field of social media and technology means I am developing as a person, too, and taking the scenic route to my goals.
In fact, the NIV Stewardship Bible I bought early on has been comforting. Living on the thin ice of faith means I am forcing myself to trust God to deliver on His promises and putting our lives and our finances on His altar. Stewardship principles are misunderstood, maybe even poorly worded when brought up at the pulpit on occasion. People immediately assume you or the organization needs money rather than giving as an act of worship and faith.
Seth Godin wrote “No Way Out” in this blog:
The thing is, though, that the long-term strategy might be the opposite. The best long-term approach might be to learn something, to tough it out, to engage with the challenge. Because once you get through this, you’ll be different. Better.
Engaging with this challenge means spending much more time on my knees in prayer, trusting my finances and my future with the Lord. I have no idea if our future will mean a comfortable retirement, but I do know our future won’t look like our grandparent’s future. This is okay. God will give me a place to lay my head even if it is a stone. At least, He has redeemed me from my past and His relationship is the only thing I need no matter what the future becomes. I know one thing though.
This new career path is the only way I want to go and I never want to retire. Social media and technology will change. But if we, as Christians, do not choose to change, our places of worship will become irrelevant and we will become irrelevant.
What could that look like?
Once I get through this, I’ll be different, better.
Since the beginning of December, I’ve been running active ministries and looking for a new job. I’ve also been praying and working to raise my support numbers.
God continues to work on the hearts of those He wants to use to support my work. I have a couple of verbal supports and I am at 22% support. It’s been tough to get everything done. The job hunting has taken away valuable free time, and I am pleased to say my prayers were answered.
Last week, I began my first week at a new job. The hours work well with ministry and I am slowly getting a feel for what my new schedule will look like with WorldVenture. I won’t say publicly where I am working as they are sensitive to the brand reputation of their company. It is my desire to keep my social media activity unconnected to the job. What I post is my own and not reflective of the company I work for.
I leave my role at Solid Rock Christian Fellowship as a church secretary to becoming Solid Rock’s church-supported Social Media Mentor (part of WorldVenture’s organization).
As a friend pointed out, “Working for money will make you miserable.” I do what I love and love what I do.
Will you continue praying for me?
Unlike other jobs, I give notice to Solid Rock Christian Fellowship after almost 11 years with a heart heavy with so many emotions. I know that where I am going is where God wants me to be in the interim before I launch as a Social Media person with WorldVenture. Other doors closed this week, too. Not that I can go into any detail, but an old life is fading and a new life is beginning.
Change is something a person can count on. It’s a constant. I’ve experienced so much change the last couple of years. It leaves me breathless. Even as I watch winter fade into spring, I am excited for the future. When I sing songs in church, I hear them differently now. It begs the question: Are you really living on faith? I mean, really?
Lastly, are you really impassioned about sharing your faith? I mean, really? I ask this because when I mention the online world and how people can funnel that passion through this tool to share the Gospel, I get one common response: “I don’t like change.” This usually follows after, “I hate Facebook.”
“I hate change,” is a barrier I come up against time and time again. It’s not just a barrier to what I do, but it is a barrier that keeps people from learning how to use the online world as a tool to build relationships and share their faith. Social media is simply a conversation. It’s like meeting someone in the hallway and asking, “How are you?” And instead of walking away after a short answer, staying to listen.
The church isn’t dying. The church has a communication problem. This problem is keeping the church in a building and causing people who are online to sound like angry Americans because the church isn’t learning how to train their people how to use the online world in appropriate ways or teaching how to contextualize responses to another person’s culture.
I would love to hear how your church is training your congregation to serve online. If you aren’t training them, why not?