November/December 2011

2011 CLASS Christian Writers Conference:   

Joe and Jennings, Teen Track participants

• Made new friends; renewed old acquaintances
• Built networking relationships
• Got new publishing credit in Transformed
• Know God planned to meet me at the Ranch
• Uplifted by the music and ministry of Russ Taff
• Blessed by Sandra Aldrich
• Received new direction for my writing
• Felt inspired to go home and write
• Glad I made the investment in my writing career

            

 

Autograph party

 

This checklist could go on and on. The 2011 CLASS Christian Writers Conference was a great success for everyone who attended. Each person could probably make his or her own checklist as to the things they most received. But I think every person who attended would agree this year's Ghost Ranch experience was a blessing and he or she received more than expected.

 

Our faculty was so generous, dynamic, caring, and helpful. All attendees were encouraged to push forward with their writing projects and strive for the excellence of Kingdom writers. 

 

 

Caleb Breakey coaching teens

A special blessing this year was our new teen track. We expected the teens to bring fun, excitement, and high energy to the conference. But we had no idea that they would step forward as spiritual leaders and be a shining light for Jesus in everything they did. We will surely see these young peopledoing great things for God in the future.

 

 

It's hard to sum up a week where God's presence was so overwhelming and each day started with a confidence in knowing you were where He wanted you. In the words of one of our attendees, "I felt God's Spirit at work throughout the conference. It was as much a spiritual retreat as a writers' conference. On my first morning back home, I read a quote that

Social Networking Course

reminded me of the wonderful spirit of everyone at the conference.  

It was: 'The faintest whisper of support or encouragement uttered by a Christian in the ears of his fellow believer is heard in heaven,' John J. Murray (from Turning Points devotional 11/07/11). Heaven must have been buzzing that week!"

 

If you missed the conference this year, we're sorry! But you can start making plans for next year. Save the dates October 31-November 4 and watch for registration to open March 1. Don't let the next one go by without being there! God has special blessings just for you at the 2012 CLASS Christian Writers Conference.

 

Linda Gilden, Author and Speaker

 

     

 Planting Legacy Seeds

 

"Rose, did they have washing machines when you were a little girl?" My granddaughter was totally serious with her question.

 

"Oh, yeah," chimed in my grandson. "Did they have cars?"

           

Washing machines? Cars? Next thing I knew they would be asking me if I had to chop firewood and haul water from the well!           

Their innocent questions made me realize there were a lot of things I never discussed with my four grandchildren. Yes, washing machines and the introduction of cars to the world were two of them.

 

Their questions provoked other questions: Are there really important things I have never told my grandchildren? What do I want them to know? When they look back on days with their grandma, what will be their fondest memories? What will they remember as the message I taught with my words and my life?

           

Being a writer, I believe we should write down special messages for our children and grandchildren. Words that will teach and minister to them when we are gone. Words they can read and reread and know how important they were in our lives.

           

As my children and grandchildren have grown, I tried at each stage of their lives to leave tiny bits of my legacy for them. Yes, it involves writing. But the most important thing is, no matter how old your children and grandchildren are, they feel unconditional love in all your words whether written, spoken, or sung.

           

Here are a few suggestions for planting legacy seeds within your family.

           

1) Write down your thoughts and innermost feeling about your faith. Obviously, we want to live out our faith every day. But it is also important to tell them over and over again how much you love Jesus. Write it down in a place where they can read it and reread it.

 

If you need help getting started, purchase a journal that asks questions and you write the answers. I had one of these when my children were younger. I often caught them reading the journal!

           

2) Tell stories about your childhood and how you grew up. Stories leave room for embellishment - true! But make your stories those that are filled with truth so your children knew what it was like to grow up in a different world.

           

3) Tell them stories about their childhood and the things that made you proud of them. I wrote these down in composition books that I kept for each of my children. They made great gifts as they expected their first children.

           

4) Make note of scripture that you pray for your children. Write the prayers you pray to go along with them. These, too, make great gifts when they are adults.

           

5) Read stories you have written about your children to their children. They will love hearing what Mom and Dad were like when they were young.

           

6) While they are young, even infants, sing praise songs as you hold them. They will hear your love for Jesus and it will calm them even though they won't understand why.

           

Whatever your means, leaving a legacy and passing our faith on to our children is important. Take time today to plant a legacy seed in your family.

 

  

   

 Speaker, editor, writing coach, and author of Mommy Pick-Me-Ups (New Hope),

Linda Gilden is the director of the CLASS Christian Writers Conference

and on the teaching faculty and board of CLASSEMINARS.

 

  

Positively Speaking 

 

 

At the moment life ends, the opportunity to build a legacy ceases. No longer will we be able to encourage our friends or affirm our love to our family members. No more books will be written and no more speeches delivered. We are granted an undetermined number of days and, with each one, we have the privilege to impact. What will be the nature of our legacy?

 

I recently attended the 25th anniversary convention of the American Association of Christian Counsellors (AACC). It was a convening of psychologists, counsellors, pastors, leaders, coaches, and students with a stellar line up of speakers. The most poignant moment for me occurred at the final banquet where lifetime members of AACC were honored. All were published authors and most had acquired a post-doctorate degree in their area of speciality. Each had contributed in some significant way to the rise of biblical theology being paired with psychology, thus strongly influencing modern counselling practices. If I listed their names, most of you would find their books on your bookshelf. Each has left a legacy that has pulled our culture towards a deeper understanding of God and self. Their legacy is profound.

 

However, a few days after returning from the conference, my 91-year old father-in-law passed away. In contemplating his life, I realized that although he had never scribed a book or acquired a doctorate degree, his legacy was no less significant. He was a leader to his family and to his community. His example testifies to the statement of William James, who is known as the father of American Psychology:  

 

"The greatest use of life is

to spend it for something that will outlast it."

 

Legacy comes through influence. Scripture attests to many means of impacting others but these I saw from afar in the leaders at AACC and which I witnessed up close in my dad through marriage. These will always leave a positive legacy:

1. Prayer - Prayer changes things, it moves the heart of God, it brings us to our knees. Leave a legacy where you are known as a leader who develops "calloused knees."
2. Words - Be a leader who chooses words carefully so as to build up rather than tear apart. "Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing" (Proverbs 12:18).
3. Pour into the next generation - Look beyond yourself to see the potential in others and be a leader who encourages, equips and call outs greatness in others.

 

Legacy is not defined by what we do, it is defined by the fact that we did something that positively impacted another and prompted them to move forward. It's active. It's powerful. It's giving away love and acts of kindness. It's stepping into the calling that God has put on our life and doing our very best. When we do this, we can be assured the legacy we leave will be both broad and deep.

 

 

     

   

Award-winning author, speaker, corporate trainer, and spiritual director,

Rosemary Flaaten, M.A., B.Ed., is the founder of Professional Women's Network,

providing small group Bible studies for working women.She is the author of

A Woman and Her Workplace: Building Healthy Relationships 9-5 (Beacon Hill). 

 

  

Marketing for a Greater Good  

 

"People will forget what you said,

people will forget what you did, 

but people will never forget

how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

 

As I researched the word "legacy" for my column, I found it quite interesting to see many publicity and marketing firms use the word "legacy" in their business name. Perhaps it's popular because building a legacy goes hand-in-hand with marketing. How will people remember you? And more importantly, will they pass your message to the next generation? A legacy is for the greater good-so, to leave a legacy we must evaluate how we function.

 

Take special care with:

• Service-focused content. Messages and products have value.
• Authenticity. Be true to the you God has created you to be.
• Genuine love. Expressed in truth, not flattery or a tone of patronization.
• Branding. Your essence-your personality-your style.

 We can't count on our products and messages being of good enough quality to sell themselves. Today people look for brand messaging. If you get enthusiastic about the message, rather than the "sale" you will make the right kind of impression.

 

To have a successful brand is to build a legacy that causes you to be remembered. On a business level, that is key to achieving referrals. On a spiritual level, it's important to fulfill your purpose-impacting the faith and spiritual growth of others. Your legacy, when plugged in to what God wants, leads to a certain level of respect that you can't work up any other way. People say you earn respect, but truthfully, respect finds you when you aren't even looking for it. It's what happens when others see the value of the integrity and message of your legacy.

 

6 Tips of Social Marketing for a Lasting Legacy:

 

1.  Write a message that matters and post it online at your blog, website or public document sharing site.

 

2.  Link to your message from your Twitter, Facebook and Linked-in accounts. Make a splash, and a ripple. The message is like throwing a rock in the water. The extra mentions are the ripples that happen as others respond and repost to their circles of influence.

 

3.  Provide audio/visual messages via YouTube, podcasts, online radio, etc. What better way to leave a lasting legacy than to post a live version of you in a lasting (archived) way!  

 

4.  Show you care by appearing on the sites of your followers' blogs and social networking sites. Interact in a way that lets them know it's not merely a "drive-by pop-in" but a true act of caring interest.

 

5.  Make a statement, then ask a question that opens discussion. Respect the input of others and then segue to new thoughts to keep the conversation alive. People get to see your heart in this way, but they also get to see a little more of their own hearts as well.

 

6.  Network with those you come in contact after the initial meeting. Organize a mailing list of those who attend your events or read your written messages. Send them a "value-added" physical or e-newsletter via an e-blast server. There's nothing worse than having a powerful program with a group and then feeling like you'll never interact with them again. Stay in touch-but don't hound them with hard-sell advertisements. Minister to them, and be remembered.

 

Kathy Carlton Willis gets jazzed fiddling with words as publicist, author, speaker, and more. She shines, whether

she's shining the light on God's writers and speakers, or reflecting God's light during her speaking engagements.

 

Robin Stanley, Speaker, Writer, Writers Coach

 

 

 A Legacy of Grace

 

 

"C.S. Lewis said that 'we should bring to God what is in us, not what ought to be in us.' The 'oughts' will keep us from telling the truth."

 

Do you want to leave a lasting legacy? "Bring to the Lord what is in you," and let Him transform the landscape of your life. Then you'll have something valuable to pass on.

 

In his book, The Weathering Grace of God, Ken Gire contrasts Colorado's landscapes: the eastern half lies flat and arid while the western half rises tall and majestic with its Rocky Mountain vistas. Written within site of Pike's Peak during a personally grinding, terrain-altering season, Gire plumbs the depths of his own life weathered by grace, using the mountains as a metaphor. "Smooth, even terrain . . . and bumpy, uncertain terrain. Life as we would like it . . . and life as we are given it."

 

Which landscape would I pick as a picture of my life? The same one he did. The same one you would. But here's the rub: "Nobody comes to eastern Colorado for vacation. They all come to western Colorado." Why? Beauty. Tranquility, inviting, filling. But the peace you feel there hasn't always been so evident. "Once this was the most terrifying place in all of Colorado to live."

 

Gire meditates on the origins of the range. "Gripping contractions within the earth pushed great formations of rock to crown its surface." He wonders whether the majestic beauty of the Rockies was worth the "terrifying upheavals that produced them." He responds with an unqualified yes.

 

The unanswerable questions of his personal upheaval temper the depth of his heart on the page. Gire doesn't draw conclusions; he draws us into his God-space and offers us a seat. In the stillness, we stop striving to know why and begin to know the One who does. He sits with us in the mystery of silence and awakens our senses to the wonder and miracle of renewal.

 

Gathering insights from poets and preachers with eyes to see and pens to tell-including Tozer, Muir, Van Gogh, Longfellow, Lewis, and Steinbeck-Gire lets us in on the process of reclamation. A process that, through seasons of time, reveals life growing out of the life that went before it (Muir).

 

Consider the lives of David and his son Solomon. Solomon lived a life of privilege and reigned during a time of peace. His life was smooth and predictable-eastern Colorado. The landscape of David's life, on the other hand, was more like western Colorado-full of upheavals, including his relationship with Bathsheba. However, "The epitaph of David's life was that he was a man after God's own heart. The epitaph of Solomon's life was that his heart was not totally devoted to the Lord."

 

By reading the Psalms, you'll see that David took to the Lord what was in him. "It took a thousand years, but the beauty finally came." It's recorded in the first book of Matthew.     

"The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David . . . (v. 1).     

"And to David was born Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah (v. 6).     

"Through the union of David and Bathsheba came the Savior of the world." Now that's a lasting legacy. A legacy of grace. "It is who God is. It is what He does." He really does make everything beautiful in its time.

 

 

Robin Stanley comes alongside writers and speakers through relationship-based coaching and representation.

She is the founder of o3-free and serves on the board of directors for CLASSEMINARS, Inc.

 

Relational Skills 

 

 

Being the "marriage and family" type people Andrea and I are, when we think of the word, "legacy," we immediately think of our children. They look like us, act like us, and in truth, are the two people we pour into the most. We're responsible to raise them in the ways of the Lord, and we take that commitment seriously. More than anything else we do, speaking engagements, books, teaching, etc., none of that amounts to a hill of beans if we do not raise our children well.

 

When speaking to fathers, we emphasize that any one of us can be replaced at our job, and very few of us can't be replaced with someone who's better at our job than we are. But you're the only person on earth who can be your child's dad. More than anything you do, your children are your legacy.

 

As our girls grew and became more social, Andrea started picking up on patterns in their commentary when we asked them how Sunday School was, or what kind of day at school they had:

           

            "It was fine...but Mary Beth wouldn't stop talking all day long!"

 

            "I don't like Abigail very much - she's so bossy."

 

It wasn't long until we noticed the trend of their conflict was mostly with the sanguines who wouldn't stop talking and the cholerics who were bossy.

 

Both of our girls are melancholy-cholerics, and they were unknowingly being over-sensitive to the sanguine and choleric weaknesses. Because of it, though, they were forming bad opinions of these other children. (And once you're on a melancholy's "bad" list, it's exceptionally hard to get off of it.)

 

Since Andrea and I discovered the Personality Training Workshop, our girls have heard the terms sanguine, melancholy, choleric, and phlegmatic used in our everyday speech. We believe that knowledge of the personalities is essential for getting to know others and seeing them as God sees them, and that is a key component to loving others as Scripture commands us to.

 

We helped them understand the very basic strengths God gave each personality. Sanguines encourage, melancholies get things right, cholerics help everyone work together, and phlegmatics are great friends to everyone.

 

We then graduated them to understanding the personality weaknesses and why it annoys them. Our girls are eleven and nine now, and can identify personalities from the visible clues we've taught them.They can reconcile with other children at school or church because we've helped them understand the other children's personalities.

 

It's important to teach our children Scripture, Math, English, and so forth. However, relational skills are equally, if not more, important when attempting to "train up a child in the way he should go."

 

If our children are our legacy, then we must teach them how to love, and how to point others to Jesus Christ,. Learning to love others means interacting with them in ways that are meaningful to them according to how God made them, and that means teaching your children the personalities.

 

 

 

Joshua Williams, WinePress Publishing

The Self-Publishing Partnership

 

Industry Specialist Joshua Williams

 

 

As authors and speakers, we understand the impact our lives can have on generations of people we'll never know personally. The team at Wine Press Publishing embraces this truth and partners with authors to maximize their message and widen their reach.

 

Joshua Williams, Industry Specialist at WinePress, touts numerous benefits to working with a self-publisher, with the most important being that the author remains in control of the entire project from beginning to end. "At Wine Press, the author calls the shots. Our goal is to partner with authors to evaluate their needs," he said.

 

The ability to retain the rights to your work and keep 100 percent of the profits after production costs is unique to the self-publishing process. "With traditional publishing, authors may be required to waive their rights and typically walk away with a five to ten percent profit margin."  

 

Other benefits to self-publishing include:

• Ability to provide a take home product for a speaker who already has a successful speaking ministry
• Avenue in which to "proof" a book with target audience to ensure its success before approaching a traditional publisher
• Full warehousing and distribution of books to major outlets such as Amazon, Christian Book Distributors, Ingram, and STL
• Refund policy which eliminates risk for bookstore owners since they can return books that do not sell
• Option for e-book publication and distribution

While self-publishing is a wonderful option, there are some pitfalls to be wary of. Joshua stresses the importance of "doing your homework" before choosing a self-publisher to ensure you get a return on your investment. "Before working with a self-publisher, research their standing and reputation in the industry. Their goal should be to support and serve authors, not to see how many books they can turn over." He recommends investigating the quality of titles produced by the company before making a decision. "If the company has a strong brand, retailers are more likely to purchase books from them."  

 

Visit WinePress Publishing for more information about self-publishing.

     

 

 

 Through the GEMS Ministry, Stephanie Garneau helps women discover the purpose, peace, and fulfillment found in God's design for their lives. Journey with her through Titus 2 womanhood on her blog, Sparkling to Reflect His Glory.

 

An Established Legacy    

 

   

My father, Theodore Roosevelt Murray, served in the Marine Corps. His military history had one interesting component to it. In 1941 while in basic training, his commanding officer came into the barracks and asked who among the soldiers would like to go to Hawaii. Many of the men were enthusiastic about a chance to go to the land of orchids and hula dancers.

 

When the officer came to my father's bunk he said, "You don't want to go, do you Murray?"

 

"Not particularly," Dad replied.

 

All of the men who deployed to Hawaii from Dad's company were killed in Pearl Harbor. After that tragedy, my father decided that God had saved him for a purpose. He attended seminary and became a minister in 1945. He served the Lord for over 50 years as a pastor and missionary. In 1964, he and my mother moved to establish a children's home in San Luis Potosi. 

 

The year before my parents moved to Mexico, I married Danny Penwell, a seminary student preparing to become a minister. He worked with several churches as pastor, and then decided to take a different route. He started to work in Christian publishing, and he remained there for the rest of his life. Danny was the acquisitions editor for AMG Publishers, and his great love was nourishing and assisting new authors.

 

Gloria Penwell and Madison Penwell

Danny and I have three sons and a daughter. Our sons, Derek and Daren, are ministers and serve in churches in Michigan and Kentucky. Both spend large amounts of time in Mexico visiting the mission my parents established. They take groups of people from their churches to complete projects and serve the home. Each take their families along on these visits, and Daren's daughter, Madison, is now considering working in the orphanage in Mexico after college.  

 

This year, Madison participated in the Teen Track at the CLASS Christian Writers Conference at Ghost Ranch. She's learning to share her love for the Lord through writing. What a joy it is to realize that a godly legacy was established before her birth. Along with her committed parents, she joins her grandfather and her great-grandfather in working for the Lord.

 

 

Gloria Penwell's expertise and love of the writing world comes from years of traveling with her husband, Dan.

Together they attended many writers conferences while Dan was acquisitions editor at AMG Publishing.

Gloria is the CLASS Christian Writers Conference Assistant Director, and she represented AMG

at the conference. She is an encourager who understands the writing life.

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CLASSEMINARS, Inc. 

Editor-in-Chief, Tama Westman
Associate Editor, Shonda Savage Whitworth
Editorial Advisors: Gerry Wakeland, Linda Gilden

 

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