Tag: homeschool business
Jun
30
Starting a Business As a Missions Project
Have you ever made a tent? Probably not. You may have put one up in your backyard or even gone camping and put one up. However, actually making one…well, that’s not something 99% of us would know the first thing about. You would know, if you have done your Bible study, that Paul would make tents as a means to support himself during his missionary journeys.
Today, “tentmaking” in evangelical circles is not a foreign term, but usually brings to mind a person supporting themselves while doing missionary work. The Business as Missions movement is working to re-define tentmaking as not just a means to support yourself, but as a means of evangelism by bringing paying jobs to a village and setting a remarkable example of Christian entrepreneurship. The daily exposure to a boss that personifies Christ is changing lives all over the world.
An article you can read at Tentmaker.com offers a description of tentmaking in today’s terms and why you and your church should consider it as a vehicle for missions work. Their definition of ‘tentmaker’ is:
A tentmaker is a professional, a skilled craftsman, a student, or some other person who uses professional, vocational or academic skills to support themself while they share the gospel of Jesus in places or with groups of people otherwise inaccessible to traditional mission approaches. That currently describes a large portion of the unreached world.
(see a whole list of ‘Tentmaker’ articles at: http://www.tentmakernet.com/articles/index.html)
Meeting needs as a way to be the hands and feet of Jesus can take many forms. In the past, businessmen, despite large donations to missionary efforts, have often been put at the bottom of the spiritual totem pole. The fact that their primary aim for doing business is profit somehow carries with it a negative spiritual image. Granted, there are many, many, greedy businessmen (and women) whose focus is only on the bottom line, but let’s put them aside for now. Let’s talk about the people that deeply love God and have a gift for creating jobs and meeting needs through business. I have personally known pastors that have left successful businesses to become a pastor of a church or a missionary, thinking it is the only way to truly serve God. These same men found they weren’t cut out to be a pastor or missionary and returned to their businesses – unfortunately with a deep sense of failure.
Are you called to pastor a church business?
If those same businessmen could have networked with other men like themselves, they might have discovered their calling was to pastor-not a church, but a business. Think about it, not only are they using their gifts for the glory of God, but they can meet some of the deepest economic needs of an individual while giving them opportunity to offer the gospel to people that would never set foot in a church. Called to be a pastor of a business – quite a paradigm shift, isn’t it?
The Business as Mission Network, started by Justin Forman, is at the forefront of this movement, and we have featured several blog posts on the BAM Network. I believe Justin said it best:
The most overlooked opportunity in the Church today is for Pastors and business leaders see work as an opportunity for worship. And sadly, I think too many business leaders have grown accustomed to “outsourcing” their faith to “professional pastors” and paying the pastor to do “real ministry”. We’ve lost sight of the simple idea that God is glorified when we use our God given passions and skills with excellence.
The essence of Business as Missions has been (so far) starting businesses in areas overseas, bringing the gospel along with much needed jobs and commerce. The day to day exposure of a town to a business that is run by Kingdom Principles for the purpose of bringing glory to God will appear nothing short of amazing to the locals.You will have evangelical opportunities that often take traditional missionaries years to develop.
How does this apply to me?
By now I am sure you are wondering how this applies to you and your homeschooling family. No, I’m not asking you to go to Uganda with your family and start a business. How many of you have shied away from doing missions work because you can’t bring yourself to the necessary “business” raising of funds? I thought so. You are not alone. However, have you considered starting a home business for the sole purpose of raising funds for missionaries of your choosing? Consider it an ideal homeschool project, teaching entrepreneurial skills while raising funds for spreading the gospel-and giving your family an experience that they will never forget.
As Christian parents, one of our main objectives is to raise children to the glory of God. Entrepreneurial training will give them tentmaking skills in whatever path they follow. Starting a small home business to raise funds for any worthy agency or church will ‘train up’ their view of business with a new focus. A focus on all work as “Kingdom Work”.
If your family isn’t ready to start a business yet, doing a unit study on the Business as Missions concept is a great alternative. The Business as Missions Network has an excellent list of the top 25 books on the subject and can be found at http://www.businessasmissionnetwork.com/2007/07/top-25-business-as-mission-books.html
Also, I highly recommend you read this brief: Why have a course in Small Business & Missions?
I plan to continue this discussion tomorrow with ideas you can use to start a BAM and tell you about some of the work that Youth With a Mission is doing in this arena.
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I would love to hear comments on this paradigm shift in evangelism – do you think it’s a viable means of spreading the gospel?
More From HomeschoolEntrepreneur
Jul
13
All WordPress Apps Are NOT Created Equal!
Here we go again, moving from one place to another….it would be really frustrating were it not for the hope of helping others learn from ALL my many mistakes. I may not know what to tell you what to do, but i sure have some things to tell you NOT to do!
For those of you that haven’t followed us from the beginning, we started this blog with WordPress that was hosted on another webhost. That webhost had WordPress available in their Fantastico, and being somewhat new with WordPress, thought I had arrived!
What I didn’t realize, was that different webhosts put WordPress on their server differently. I found I couldn’t add any plugins or html of any kind, which may seem outrageous, but that is what their tech support confirmed for me, so I wasn’t sure where to go from there. Having had more experience with WordPress, I question that, but at the time, what tech support says is all I knew.
So I ventured over to WordPress.com, and found it incredibly easy to set up. Once again, I thought I had arrived (whatever THAT means!) . That is, until I got a friendly email from the WordPress staff that I had too many ads on my site. I emailed them back and asked them if they were sure (I really didn’t have that many, surely not as many as SOME WP blogs…) and asked them “isn’t making money the main reason most people blog??”
Their response was kindly, and told me, yes indeed, most people did want to make money blogging, which is why they offer their program free to anyone who wants to host their own site. I guess if they are paying for the blog, they don’t want to pay for it. Makes sense, I just wish I had figured this out to begin with! I had read enormous amounts on blogging for profit before I started, but didn’t really read much written on who, how or what to blog ON.
This is the purpose of this post …..to let you know that it DOES matter where you set up your blog. There are way too many choices, but that’s free enterprise for you. So people like me waste hours and hours of time to look at every option only to arrive at what over 75% of bloggers decide-self-hosted WordPress!
I love ProBlogger…purely platonic, I promise….but he has a chart posted with all the options you can look at, and tons of other tips and helps. Yaro Starek in his Entrepreneur’s Journey also has videos that are lifesavers that I have mentioned before. But WordPress gets the prize for selfless offerings in blogging software. It’s completely free, and there’s a directory of all the plugins you can add and a bottomless pit of online support. If you are somewhat new at all this like I was, plan on spending a little time learning it all, but it feels sooooo good when you finally get it right!
I definitely can’t say I have ‘arrived’ yet, but I can share what NOT to do if you are trying to make a living blogging. It’s definitely one of the best homeschool projects there is!
May
23
Why You Need This Blog…or Welcome!
This is your traditional ‘Welcome to my blog’ first post. The first post is always the hardest, maybe because it’s difficult to choose a starting point, but I have a feeling that I won’t be at a loss for words.
All great beginnings start with a vision, and I would like to share mine with you. Homeschooling has changed a lot since 1989 when we first started homeschooling our 11 year old daughter. Actually, we tried to start in 1983 when Rachael’s kindergarten teacher (Calvary Christian Academy in Denver, CO) told us that due to her ‘precociousness’, she would do much better in a home school situation! I really wasn’t sure how to take that, but being somewhat of a 60’s throwback turned newborn Christian, I found the unconventional idea of homeschooling intriguing. However, at the time we were “professional” foster parents for an unwed mothers home and the administrators of the program did NOT like the idea at all. I guess they thought the young mothers might want to try it themselves or something.
Homeschooling is so much more accessible now, with abundant support available in almost every capacity, more curriculum choices than we know what to do with and last, but certainly NOT least-the internet! You could almost design an entire curriculum from online resources alone.
The One Thing That Hasn’t Changed in 20 Years
Aside from all the wonderful changes that the early homeschoolers didn’t have, there is one thing that hasn’t changed at all. The homeschool family’s finances, or lack thereof. It is a rare family that successfully homeschools without one parent staying home full time with the children. Homeschooling is definitely a full time job!
Unfortunately, the US economy is geared around a two income household, which makes surviving on one income very difficult for the majority. Not that it can’t be done, and done well, I personally know many parents, even single mothers that have taken up the challenge enthusiastically and with great success, but I know more families that struggle with it every single day.
We were one of those families that struggled financially with trying to live on one income, and began to explore solutions in a variety of home business endeavors. Finding good ideas and resources were scarce and scam awareness was not yet in my biological data base. As a result, over the last 20 years I have researched 100’s, if not over a thousand various ways a homeschool family can make money and maintain a respectable, thriving homeschool at the same time.
In a conversation one day with one of my dearest friends, we were talking about an article on “How to Choose Your Perfect Business” and one of the questions was, “What do you know the most about?” While I was musing over the last 20 years of homeschooling, playing ’soccer mom’ and all the other mini businesses that I had run, my friend pops up with my long sought answer: “Your perfect business is finding home businesses for others!”
She was right, I was always coming up with new ideas, or new takes on old ideas, and actually, was probably almost annoying….OK, moderately annoying… at my constant obsession with finding another “new” idea that could solve someone’s financial woes. All this was starting to make sense and I finally began to see how God might be able to use those countless hours searching every knowledge source I could lay my hands on to help others.
All that to say is my vision for this blog is to put in print all the possible ideas and resources for homeschool families to make money at home while still keeping up with the kids’ home school. Part of the solution also lies in teaching your kids to start their own business and make it part of their everyday school. I’ve even developed what others call my “Goodwill Project” and have a website that has all the resources you need to make home business a part of your homeschool. I would love to have you stop by HomeSchool-Entrepreneur.com sometime and say ‘hi!’.
Meanwhile, I would love your feedback and look forward to serving you. And maybe you’ll even stumble across that life-changing idea for your perfect home business!
Welcome to Homeschool Entrepreneur!
Equip your children with a life skill that will stay and grow in them forever. Business training in the home not only creates a natural learning environment for any age. The "Family Business" draws families together and provides opportunity for discussions you won't find in any book . . and the extra money comes in handy, too!
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