From the Editor
by Bill Gaffney

It is already the middle of January. Have you remembered to renew your membership yet? If you haven’t, please do so.

Are you forwarding the link to this newsletter to your business acquaintances? If not, why aren’t you?

We are always looking for submissions to the newsletter.

YOUR VOCATION, YOUR CALLING, YOUR MINISTRY
By Michael Q. Pink

In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul writes, “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called.” Paul saw himself as a prisoner of the Lord. He recognized that the life he lived was not his own, but rather it belonged to Jesus Christ.

My question is: How do you view your life? Do you live your life with the present moment-to-moment knowledge that you have been bought with a price? You are not your own. With that knowledge, Paul urges us to walk worthy of the vocation or calling wherewith we are called.

Sadly, too many of us feel that unless we are in the ministry, we are not really called, or at least we are not fulfilling our calling. I want to tell you that most of us are not called to full time ministry, as we typically understand that word. Most of us are called to a vocation and Paul urges us to walk worthy of that vocation. He is literally saying that we are to walk out our vocation in a Godly manner worthy of the One who called us to the work in the first place, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Most of us thought that if God had a calling on our life it must be as a pastor, missionary or an evangelist, but I am here to tell you that most of us have been called to a vocation. That vocation, for most of us, is right in the middle of a very large mission field called the marketplace.

Recently, I was with a client and prayed that as we went about our business, others would notice the Spirit of God on our lives and want to have that for themselves. When we were having dinner at the airport, a lady who had been overhearing our conversation, interrupted us and said, “I’ve been eavesdropping a bit; would you please tell me how I can become a Christian?”

We were both a little surprised, at first, but soon found out how serious she was and invited her to join our table. After listening to her story and sharing the love of the Father with her, she was eager to pray right there in Ruby Tuesday’s! God is truly awesome and He is calling people to himself right there in the marketplace. Our vocations are convenient locations from which we can reach out to the unchurched and disenfranchised with the hope that is within us! Truly our vocation can be a holy calling!

Michael Pink is founder and President of Selling Among Wolves, a CBN-USA business partner. This article is taken from two pieces written by Michael on December 1st and 4th of this past year.

THE CRITICAL NEED FOR CRITICAL THINKING
By Keith Center

In the depths of the Second World War the allies were taking punishing bomber losses in the European Theater. It was not just the loss of aircraft but of trained crews that created grave concern. The allies could not replace crews at this staggering rate.

A research project was started to discover ways to avoid these losses. The boffins (scientists and engineers) studied the aircraft coming back from raids over Europe. Some of these planes were horribly shot up. Ailerons hanging off, tailplanes riddled with bullet holes, flack holes ripped throughout the wings and fuselage.

The boffins seemingly tried everything and added more armor to various places but the losses continued. Nothing was working. The allies still lost crews and bombers at an alarming rate.

The breakthrough was made when someone realized that they were studying the planes that came back, not the planes that didn’t. So they studied the areas of the bomber that were not damaged. Why? Because maybe the planes that were getting shot down sustained damage where these bombers did not.

They looked for reasons why the bombers returned and discovered that the hydraulic system was in the undamaged areas. More armor was placed around the fuselage to protect the hydraulics. The loss rate improved. They had found the solution!

All along they had all the information that they needed. They were just looking at it the wrong way.

Today we all have trials. Sometimes feel we are going to get shot out of the sky like those bomber crews. In our trial God may have provided us with all the data we need. We just need to look at it differently. Ask for wisdom, that’s what James said, whenever we have a critical need for critical thinking.

Keith Center is an Accredited Associate, Institute for Independent Business with Mason International Business Group, Ltd. and a member of CBN-USA Cincinnati. Keith can be reached at keithcenter@iib.ws.

HOW TO INSPIRE MEN TO GREATNESS
by Brian Mitchell

General Douglass MacArthur possessed an unshakable faith in his own anointing. Like many of the post-Civil War generation, he inherited a romantic view of life in general and war in particular.

“The soldier, above all other men, is required to perform the highest act of religion – sacrifice,” he often told audiences. “In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes, which his Maker gave him when He created man in His own image.”

MacArthur, who led his men into battle even as a general, was the only man to survive when his reconnaissance patrol was hit by artillery fire one night. “It was God. He led me by the hand, the way he led Joshua,” he said later. That he survived many brushes with death confirmed what he always believed: that God had set him apart to accomplish great things.

In World War II, he repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire. “The Almighty has given me a job to do, and he will see that I am able to finish it, he told one officer.”

Next to physical courage, MacArthur believed the most essential trait of the successful soldier was the ability to communicate. He picked the young Dwight Eisenhower as his assistant because of Ike's writing ability.

MacArthur was a writer – a poet even – and a talker. He despised meetings but spent hours each day in impromptu talks with others. New officers were routinely brought into his family through such talks.

His talking could turn down-to-earth men like Eisenhower into enthusiastic fans. He could even win over hard-bitten critics. After an 11-hour meeting with him in Tokyo after World War II, one critic came away exclaiming, “How does he do it? He’s in better health than when I saw him before the war. More fascinating than when he was chief of staff. What a man! What a man!”

MacArthur didn’t just argue people into agreement; he inspired them to believe in him and to imagine the world as he did. He understood what his critics did not: that men are moved to the highest purposes and greatest sacrifices by their emotions.

Excerpted from “General Douglas MacArthur,” Investor’s Business Daily, March 12, 1999

FEATURED MEMBER – AMY CARY

There are some people that are always going to be there, no matter what. Amy Cary is one of those people.

Amy has been a member of CBN-USA Dayton since the first meeting in May 2003. Amy served as the Dayton region’s secretary and Dayton South co-treasurer for almost 15 months until the birth of her first daughter London. But as I said she is always there and continued to serve in many behind the scenes duties.

Amongst other roles she has served and continues to serve in are the region’s database (which she assisted in developing) administrator, co-editor of the regional newsletter, editor for all the meeting reminders and numerous other roles. She has more recently assisted in developing a new member’s orientation, which we will be doing once again at the next Business Showcase. Through all of this Amy managed to have her second daughter Brooklyn (something about bridges) this past April. What a woman!!!

Outside of her involvement Amy and her husband Marc, who is a HS science teacher, are very active in FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes). Amy is also business manager for Nancy Roberson’s law practice, who happens to be a CBN-USA member and Amy’s mother to boot. Now we’ll let Nancy tell the rest of the story.

“When the law office had a job opening in August 1998, Amy surprised me by asking me to consider her for the position. After recovering from shock, because I had never entertained the possibility of working with Amy, my husband Bob and I decided that having Amy involved with the law firm made sense in many ways. And indeed it has! I have never regretted saying "yes" to Amy!

Our differences were my greatest concern. Amy is extroverted, creative, and right-brained. I'm introverted, detail-oriented, and left-brained. I remembered her teenage years! I really didn't know if our working together would work out, but Amy has not only succeeded but also thrived. The original position has evolved into the business manager for the law office.

Amy has been a blessing to me in so many ways, not to mention the joy of having her work by my side for so many years and even having my first granddaughter join us in the office for a couple months after she was born. (I loved it, but Amy almost lost her mind. That scenario was not repeated when my second granddaughter was born.)”

Congratulations Amy!!!

HELPFUL BUSINESS HINTS
By Keith Center

The Voice Exchange: This is what we use for the Dayton CBN-USA voicemail. It is a remote voicemail service that costs less than $10 per month and provides you with a local telephone number. For a relatively low cost you can add features like multiple mailboxes, voice message notification, live call connection, single number service, fax features, and other options.

Mozy: No, this isn’t about herding cattle! It is a remote computer backup service that offers free back up to personal databases of 2 GB or less and inexpensive service to business users. It comes highly rated on C-Net and offers a lot of options around frequency and time of back up and files backed up.

SOME COMMENTS ON SUPPORTING MINISTRIES
By Bill Gaffney

Last month I wrote a piece on tithing that discussed giving of your time. I want to take a few brief lines to talk about financial support of ministries and announcements of ministry events by CBN-USA.

There are many great ministries, a miniscule portion of who are CBN-USA members. In addition to those that are members every member has their favorite 2 or 3 ministries or charities. At two apiece plus the ones who are members this represents well over 800. There is no way that the pages of any newsletter could give equal time to all of these. This is why, in both this newsletter and the Dayton Region Newsletter, you will not see mention of specific ministry organizations, whether they are members or not. You might see an article by someone in their organization or a featured member from their organization.

In addition, CBN-USA is a non-profit organization. That means, like many other non-profits, we have a limited amount of financial resources. When we turn down requests for donations it is not because we don’t like you, but because we don’t have the budget.

Individual chapters are free to consider individual ministry announcements. So feel free to request them there. We thank you for your understanding.

Bill

Announcements

DON’T FORGET RENEWALS ARE DUE!!!

FEB 2nd – Next Columbus Regional Event. More information to follow. Please watch the front page of the web site.

FEB 8th – Dayton/Cincinnati Business Showcase this is going to be huge!! Don’t miss it.

From Pittsburgh: CBN-USA Pittsburgh Downtown saw its largest group ever . . . 21 . . . on December 15th . . .and that was with a brand new location! Also, CBN-USA Pittsburgh South is forming. We have held two planning meetings and our first official monthly meeting will be Friday, February 2nd from 7:30am-9:00am. The location is a pizza shop next to the Panera Bread in the McMurray/Waterdam/Canonsburg area which is south of Pittsburgh.

Questions, comments, content. Please send to Bill Gaffney.