Business and Mission Go Together

When the Mission Machine didn't feed all the bill collectors . . .

. . . Earl knew he had to push some of those other buttons.

Our mission is about people receiving inspiration from films and art so that they awaken to the significance of their lives on earth, rise in faith, encounter Christ and go on to live Godly lives. What mission could be more important than that?
But, part of the work is navigating through a world full of obstacles which try to deny us the time and resources to accomplish the mission. When we take on outside jobs, such as the one Mark and Donna have taken at Taylor Research, we do so with the prayer that it will fit in and contribute to our vision, rather than compete with it.
Effective, meaningful art requires sustained periods of thought, prayer, searching for inspiration, and experimentation followed by long hours of highly skilled labor. So, taking an outside job does interrupt the flow of art.
We understand that it has gotten harder to donate, but that you still want to give. Other streams of income can be employed to sustain the ministries you believe in. By building a new stream of income in the Turners' Shaklee business you can support us both through business and renewed donations. Click here to go to their business web site: http://healthinthejungle.myshaklee.com .

Why Make Programs About Money and Business?

Now there are 5 installments of the "Say 'Let there be . . .'" talks online for you to listen to and read along. Program five explores ways to find money that you may not have been aware were accessible to you.
Why present content like this? Because your vision needs resources in order to become a concrete mission. We would be remiss as a ministry if we did not assist in raising everyone's awareness of the principles needed in a new, harder economy. The series is all about realizing the vision God has given you. It is spoken from our 40 year experience as well as the lessons we are learning right now. You know people who need to hear these entry level talks about vision and mission. Send them to our blog where they can focus on these principles.

News from the Turners

We have been meeting lots of new people and expanding our concepts of ministry.

Through attending seminars, voracious reading and personal coaching our financial education has been accelerated to meet the economic crisis effecting Horizon Gate and our constituency. The shape of the economy has forced us out of industrial age thinking and fully into the information age. In this age it is what you know that is most valuable, not social, or professional position and not material possessions.

We can see the creativity of business and its capacity to carry ministry to the masses. We are learning more skills in using the tools of the Internet, telephone and video to reach higher numbers of people. The size of our vision is larger because we can see a viable business structure and multiple streams of potential income to make it possible.

As Jesus was focused on his mission and built the community which would carry it out, we are reaching out to new groups of people more aggressively and with renewed conviction. New relationships with artists have resulted from exhibiting at concerts and conventions, as well as increasing conversations about individual financial challenges. Our vision is to develop the community of artists and arts supporters to be the ministering body of Horizon Gate.

New ideas are forming which will both increase material support for artists and get their work out ministering to the masses. We are in the process of creating a series of short audio programs based on the “Realize Your Vision!” webinar. These will be broadcast on blogtalkradio.com. Keep an eye out for a unique business providing greeting cards you can print and do your own handwork on. We are writing more articles for Internet news. Video e-mails are now a part of our tool kit.

Developing people as members of Christ's Community is the focus of both the internal management and the public outreach of Horizon Gate products and services.

Walking by faith is essential to expansion. Faith opens our eyes to opportunities and needs when we may be more inclined to shut down operations, “economize” and guard the little we have. But the gut reaction to close down is not actually “self-protection” as much as resigning ourselves to death. In business a decline in revenue signals a need to increase communications and enter the places where others are not meeting the need. Certainly this is the call of Christ to us now and God is regenerating our imaginations to see the opportunities to generate life.

To Generate Money Think Outside the Box

Some arts and ministry supporters make giving a priority and sacrifice to honor it. But most supporters donate on the basis of discretionary income which, these days, is slim if any.

Our imaginative creativity and ingenuity can go beyond donating “as able”. Assets could be established which generate on-going income for ministry and the arts. Assets are things which earn money without you having to run them: investments, bonds, real estate, intellectual properties, residual income, etc. Many of us were not taught the difference between assets and liabilities, or, if so, we forget.

So, we accumulate many things which drain our income (liabilities) instead of thoughtfully purchasing assets which would generate income to support those missions and causes that tug at our hearts. Instead of paying the banks for a large collection of liabilities (debt with interest), imagine the abundance of being out of debt with the ability to give substantially to ministries and the arts. That would be a lot more fun!

Ask Mark and Donna, or visit http://www.graceproceeds.com , about their tool which makes that kind of fun possible.