Too many times, We Christians are poor-minded. We concentrate on what’s missing instead of what we have. The problem with this line of thinking is that it is unhealthy and wrong… VERY WRONG!

“Just give me a cabin in the corner of Glory-land” is our mantra sometimes… like we don’t deserve anything… we are King’s kids… KING’S KIDS!

When God created the Heavens and the earth, He created it all… everything we would need… forever.

When he created stars, that was it.. they’re all here. When He created sand, again, all here. Water, buds of leaves in the spring, oxygen, etc.

So think of it this way. When we pray for God to bless us with something, and he says yes (which a lot of times He does), I don’t think God says, “Alright!, I need to CREATE something else for Kevin. I believe that if he answers yes, it has already been made, when He created it long ago… He doesn’t have to make it again… it’s already here… it’s been here.

I think when we pray, it sets OUR minds to find it. Does “Seek and you will find” sound familiar?

Think upon these things.

Think about what’s GOOD, not about what’s NOT.

• When you are thankful for the singers that you have, you tend to attract great singers… maybe because you treat them well.. because you are THANKFUL for them.
• When you are thankful for the bookings you already have, you tend to attract better dates because you DO THOSE DATES YOU HAVE better… because you are thankful for them.
• When you are thankful for the fans you already have, you tend to attract more fans because you treat the fans you have better. You tend to cherish them and create more things for them. They will, in turn, cherish your ministry and give you what YOU need… support.

I think people want to be around other people who have healthy minds… people who have “unhealthy” minds tend to attract those “un-healty” minds to them.

So, here’s the challenge.

Take an inventory of what you already have that is good. Don’t think about what you NEED… just concentrate on what you HAVE and want more of.

If you can’t think of ANYTHING that you have that is good, please do us ALL a favor and find something else to do.

I’ve had to deal with this sort of thinking myself recently.

Susan Unthank asked me if I would like to write an article once a month for SoGospelNews.com.  I was excited first to think that she saw me as a writer and a blogger (alot of people only see me as a Producer/Engineer/Writer dude).

Know what my next thought was?

“Wait a minute.  Why should I write an article for another blog… I have my own blog… Should I write some of my best blog posts for a website that’s not even mine?”

In other words, “I only have a limited number of GOOD blog post.  I shouldn’t give my best stuff away!”

Here is what I AM thinking. (and you should be too!)

“I have an abundance of GREAT blog posts… More than enough for the Empower your ministry blog… plus my course content, plus SoGospelNews.com and beyond”.  According to the Bible, more than I can ask or even think. All I need to do is to be a good steward of what God has already given me and he’ll give me more… that’s what JESUS said (remember the story of the talents?).

This is a mindset that I have to practice… everyday!  You should be practicing too… Let’s do it now.

Below, in the comments section, practice telling God something you are grateful for!

I’m very thankful that you guys read and (sometimes) comment.  I am thankful to be able to encourage people.  I am thankful to be able to search and find mentors and brilliant people to glean knowledge from.

[this is a blog post that I did for SoGospelNews.  I don't know how many of you saw this, so I thought I would re-post it here]

Kevin Ward’s permanent record says he’s the owner of kiloWatt Productions, the VP of Vine Records and the co-creator of EmPower Your Ministry. (His mom would want you to know he’s also a Dove-Award-winning producer who’s been nominated for his songwriting as well.) In real life, he’s a happy husband, soon-to-be father, a seeker of knowledge, and a pursuer of great people.

Online, you’ll find Kevin striving daily to be a mentor and thought leader with his blogs at KevinWardMusic.com and EmpowerYourMinistry.com, where he uses his gifts as a success and life coach to help others do just that. Connect with Kevin on Twitter and FaceBook to join him on the journey.

I’d love to add my $.02 worth to this, but the simplicity is what is so great about Seth Godin’s blog post today.

Failure, success and neither

The math is magical: you can pile up lots of failures and still keep rolling, but you only need one juicy success to build a career.

The killer is the category called ‘neither’. If you spend your days avoiding failure by doing not much worth criticizing, you’ll never have a shot at success. Avoiding the thing that’s easy to survive keeps you from encountering the very thing you’re after.

And yet we market and work and connect and create as if just one failure might be the end of us.

I encourage you to go out and fail today!  If you learn from every failure, you are THAT much closer to success.

If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived

After some consideration, I decided to let you find the video on your own edit all the bad stuff out of the video.  I probably should have done that to begin with.

Don’t go looking for it either.

Okay!

There is a relatively new site out there called “Chat Roulette”.

It’s a site where you turn your web cam on and chat with who ever comes up on your screen… they see you, you see them.

The brutal thing that happens is.. If they don’t find you interesting, you are a mouse click away from never seeing them again.  [I'll admit that I don't have what it takes to do this, but some do.]

So, there’s this guy called “PianoChatImprov” guy on YouTube.

Click to see the video in another page. Don't worry. It's 100% safe. No Bad words here!

He plays piano and makes up songs about the people that he sees popping up on his screen during his Chat Roulette sessions.  Sometimes he writes a song about what they are wearing.  Sometimes he writes songs about what they are doing.  Sometimes he writes a song about what they are writing in the “chat box”.

When he sings a line like “hey, what’s up?”, he loses them.

I also noticed that when he said something like “she raises her eyebrows in surprise” and “Reclining guy with a white tank top”, they know he’s talking about them and they stick around to hear what he has to say.

When he says a line like “You’re next”, they’re GONE.

It’s an experiment in process.  He’s learning as he goes.

So, with all of that said (hopefully, not seen though), what can we learn from this guy? How could I possibly apply this to ministry? I have five things.  I hope you can point out some things to me after you see it.

1. Do something unexpected. There are literally millions of people who are doing what you are doing.  How can YOU do it differently than the others?
2. Engage people early. The easiest way to do this is to talk about them.  The piano guy let them know that he was talking to them by either telling them what they were wearing, what they were doing, or repeating something that they typed.  People love to either talk about themselves or hear someone else speak well of them. I’m finding that in conversation, no one really wants to hear about you… especially in the beginning… they want you to hear about them .  The first person to realize this and leverage it gains more knowledge.
3. If you fail at something, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should give up. It simply means that you should learn from what just happened, adapt, and then try it again.
4. If someone is copying you, it’s a good thing. As of the last time I looked at his stats, several other people have copied his video and posted it under their own YouTube account.  Are you doing anything yet that anyone wants to copy?
5. [I know I said 4, but this is a bonus] Don’t use bad words, it’s a lot of work to edit it out!

I didn’t really know how to categorize the following stuff so, I’ll do another list… (you like lists don’t you?)

• An interesting trend is happening now.  People are going to “chat roulette” hoping that they will get to chat with Piano Guy.  Wow.  He went from anonymous to a virtual rock-star in less than a week.
• He’s been a member since March 8th 2010 and he (as of last Friday) had 1,598,618 views… I looked 3 days later and it was over 5 million.  He’s since been copied and other people are taking advantage of his traffic.
• 12 days since he signed up for a YouTube account, he has over 170,000 subscribers. (These are people who want to hear what he does next)
• Imagine if he had posted his website on the YouTube video.  Guess where over 5 million people would have gone next… and if he had a recording to sell or give away…

You can do something like piano dude did.  Maybe not quite as many viewers. Sometimes you have to push the envelope and be willing to look foolish for a minute.

Many times, you have to EARN the privilege to minister to a person.  You earn it by listening, engaging, entertaining, or flat-out impressing people sometimes.  Ministry is not necessarily a “right”.

Comment below and let me know what YOU saw.

I’ve been waiting for this day since last summer.

NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” is back on!  It’s one of the very few shows that I watch anymore.  I learn so much from it.

If you watched last night, you saw that the men (Rock Solid) and the women, (Tenacity) had to sell hamburgers for charity.  They were both given very prime spots in New York City to set up their restaurants.

The men set their price point at $100 per burger minimum with a rissotto dish that was $250.

The women set their price point at $25. Both teams could take “tips” for charity in addition to the burger tab.

The women work their hineys off, so did the men. But, the men beat them by $25,000… almost double!!

Ok, Kevin.. What’s your point?…What does “The Celebrity Apprentice” have to do with ministry?

Hard work does NOT neccesarily equal success!- (if it did, most of us would have more ministry opportunities than we could handle.  We’d also have plenty of money to support many other ministries to boot.)

If the women on “team tenacity” could have gotten EVERY patron off the street at $25 (plus tip) they still would not have even come close to the men.

The problem with the women on this particular task was that they terribly underestimated their “peeps”, their patrons, their supporters… at one point, Cindy Lauper even called them poor!

Here’s my question to you..

1. are you working hard on something that’s not really bringing in the results that you would like to see?
2. are you underestimating the value of your “peeps”?
3. are you giving them enough opportunities (products) to be able to contribute to your ministry?

I challenge you to take a long hard look at HOW you are approaching ministry.  You might just find that you are only offering the $25 hamburger with things like this.

• Taking dates out of “your need to feel busy” when you could use the down time to build something that could help people more easily and more deeply.
• Producing a CD or DVD just because its been a year since your last one.
• NOT building your website so that it attracts community and conversation because you think it’s too expensive.

I’m not beating anybody up.  I’m analyzing myself daily.

Tell me what you have done lately that you are wondering if it really even works anymore… or tell me what’s something inexpensive that’s very high value to your “peeps”.

As always, your comments are valuable! (so comment… or “You’re fired”!)