Spend 24 hours with Florence! CLASSEMINARS is launching a new program that allows you to receive personal coaching and inspiration from Master Teacher and award winning speaker, Florence Littauer. Join Florence in her home in Henderson, Nevada for four sessions of intense coaching that will help you take your speaking ministry to a higher level.
     Fly into the Las Vegas airport on Thursday, and enjoy dinner with Florence Thursday night and share with her about your ministry and what your dreams and goals are.
    On Friday, you will deliver two messages, your personal testimony and your hallmark (or signature) message.  Florence will provide a personal critique and coach you in techniques that will help you make your presentations more dynamic and powerful. Following a final session on Saturday morning you will be treated to lunch at Florence's favorite spot, The Bellagio Hotel. Saturday afternoon you can head home filled with confidence and ready to change the world!
     The cost for this incredible opportunity is $1500 per person. This includes four sessions with Florence in Henderson, three gourmet meals at Florence's home and lunch at the Bellagio Hotel on Saturday plus two one-hour phone follow up sessions. It does not include airfare or lodging. This program is limited to three participants per session. For more information or to reserve your Friday with Florence, e-mail CLASSEMINARS, or call the office at 702-882-0638.

  DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
       

"Cast the net to the right side of the boat,
and you will find some." John 21:6

     "Children, you have no fish, have you?"
     The disciples answer "No," and often, so do we. Some of us, we've been fishing all night, fishing all our lies, and we have little to show for it. We work hard ar out jobs, our relationships, but often it seems like our nets are empty We're making a living, but are we making a life, the life we really want?
     Jesus offers a solution: "Cast the net to the right side of the boat." Try something new. Something different. Do you seriously believe that you can keep doing what you've always done, the way you've always done it, and that somehow the results will be different?
     "Cast the net to the right side of the boat." Jesus offers us permission, the power, and the possibility to do things differently. What would fishing from the other side of the boat look like for you? Perhaps a new job, or a new way of doing the old one? Maybe a new relationship, or a new way of acting in the old relationship?
     If your nets are empty, if life seems unfulfilled, try the other side of the boat. Look at it this way: What do you have to lose?

    


Louis Lotz is the Pastoral Leader of Central Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, MI and author of The Sweet Life, A Taste of God in the Ordinary.

*Used with permission, Words of Hope, RCA.

  SPEAKER'S TIPS

     Do you want to be the first to try something new? Do you always want to be the first to hear news? Are you seeking God in your life above all else and want to tell others about Him with every breath (or stroke of your pen)?
     If you answered yes to any of the above questions we have the perfect thing for you! The CLASS Christian Writers Conference.
   CLASS Christian Writers Conference (formerly Glorieta CWC) is going to take writers to a higher level than ever before.
   

November 4-8, 2009, writers will come together at the Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM, for wonderful days of "Writing at the Ranch."

• Learning labs include "New Writing Strategies for a New Generation of Readers" with Jerome Daley and a career track led by Karen Porter.
• Workshops by professional writers will cover every genre and concentrate on helping new and advanced writers take their writing to the next level.
• Editors from major publishing houses will discuss how your ideas might work for them.
• Bill Gaultiere will be leading special times of devotion and spiritual growth. There will be times of worship and a campfire sing-along. And even a little free time for reflection and enjoying the beautiful setting of the ranch.

  

 


    If you are sanguine and want to make sure there is plenty to do with plenty of people, we're going to have fun for sure!
    If you are choleric and need the bottom line, we'll make sure you leave with a to do list like you have never imagined.
    If you are melancholy, you will be able to get every little detail and discover new markets for your work.
    If you are phlegmatic, there is beautiful scenery for you to view as you sit, rest, and absorb the classes you have taken that day.
    Pray about how you can benefit from the CLASS Christian Writers Conference. Neither you nor your writing will ever be the same after "Writing at the Ranch."
   

  MARKETING MOMENT

A New Guide to Social Media Marketing

Is is time to step up to that next level as a communicator?
Have you graduated the Basic CLASSeminar and have you been speaking professionally for at least 2 years? If so, you are ready for Upper CLASS.

Applications are online at the CLASSEMINARS website,
or contact Gerry Wakeland for further information.

 

- Dr. Elise D. Schneider

 

by Steven Johnson

     Every genuinely revolutionary technology implants some kind of "aha" moment in your memory -- the moment where you flip a switch and something magical happens, something that tells you in an instant that the rules have changed forever.
     I still have vivid memories of many such moments: clicking on my first Web hyperlink in 1994 and instantly transporting to a page hosted on a server in Australia; using Google Earth to zoom in from space directly to the satellite image of my house; watching my 14-month-old master the page-flipping gesture on the iPhone's touch interface.
     The latest such moment came courtesy of the Kindle, Amazon.com Inc.'s e-book reader. A few weeks after I bought the device, I was sitting alone in a restaurant in Austin, Texas, dutifully working my way through an e-book about business and technology, when I was hit with a sudden desire to read a novel. After a few taps on the Kindle, I was browsing the Amazon store, and within a minute or two I'd bought and downloaded Zadie Smith's novel "On Beauty." By the time the check arrived, I'd finished the first chapter.
     Aha.
     I knew then that the book's migration to the digital realm would not be a simple matter of trading ink for pixels, but would likely change the way we read, write, and sell books in profound ways. It will make it easier for us to buy books, but at the same time make it easier to stop reading them. It will expand the universe of books at our fingertips, and transform the solitary act of reading into something far more social. It will give writers and publishers the chance to sell more obscure books, but it may well end up undermining some of the core attributes that we have associated with book reading for more than 500 years.
     There is great promise and opportunity in the digital-books revolution. The question is: Will we recognize the book itself when that revolution has run its course?
    
The Dark Matter
     In our always-connected, everything-linked world, we sometimes forget that books are the dark matter of the information universe. While we now possess terabytes of data at our fingertips, we have nonetheless drifted further and further away from mankind's most valuable archive of knowledge: the tens of millions of books that have been published since Gutenberg's day.
     That's because the modern infosphere is both organized and navigated through hyperlinked pages of digital text, with the most-linked pages rising to the top of Google Inc.'s all-powerful search-results page. This has led us toward some traditional forms of information, such as newspapers and magazines, as well as toward new forms, such as blogs and Wikipedia. But because books have largely been excluded from Google's index -- distant planets of unlinked analog text -- that vast trove of knowledge can't compete with its hyperlinked rivals.
     But there is good reason to believe that this strange imbalance will prove to be a momentary blip, and that the blip's moment may be just about over. Credit goes to two key developments: the breakthrough success of Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, and the maturation of the Google Book Search service, which now offers close to 10 million titles, including many obscure and out-of-print works that Google has scanned. As a result, 2009 may well prove to be the most significant year in the evolution of the book since Gutenberg hammered out his original Bible.
     If so, if the future is about to be rewritten, the big question becomes: How?  Read the rest of the article.

Communicating
with Power

The CLASS Live Internet Radio Show, brings together men and women of excellence under one platform to encourage and empower others across the globe to be the best in their family, business,
and ministry.


Showtimes:
2:30 p.m. Eastern
1:30 p.m. Central
12:30 p.m. Mountain
11:30 a.m. Pacific

You can hear the show right from your computer on
CLASS Radio,
or you can listen from the radio page on the
CLASS website.

Arrive a few minutes early, and set up an ID account (just takes a minute) so you can join the text chat too.

All shows archived
so you can listen or download at your convenience.

Are you looking for a speaker for your next event? Contact
CLASS Speakers,