Public Communication ... with Integrity

Communication is key to any society, it's how we talk, relay information, and keep everyone informed. Especially in a country as large as ours, we wouldn't have a clue what goes on without the media. For this reason media is one of the areas of society that has to be transformed by the Word of God before our nation as a whole will be changed. Just like I talked about with government I am not implying that we need everyone in the media to be Christians, I am also not implying that we need more Bible preachers on t.v. What I am implying is that we need our media to be run by Biblical principles. Specifically we need our media to be run with integrity.

Communicating the Truth or Selling a Product?
Too often we have news networks who simply want to gain more viewers or sell more newspapers. They aren't looking to transfer information as much as they are looking to sell a product. For this reason they aren't looking for the truth but often end up looking for a conspiracy. People love a conspiracy, people love to watch bad news, and for this reason our media loves to twist and stretch stories in order to make it more interesting to the viewers.

The first thing that we need to demand from our media is truth. We need to demand the same as our courtrooms do: The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We need to demand integrity from our media as they communicate the news to us. This is true in regards to all aspects of the news whether it is politics, entertainment, sports, or just general events.

Where is the Focus?
The Bible tells us to "hate what is evil, cling to what is good" (Romans 12:9), but for some reason human nature tends to seek out and cling to the evil, to the bad. This thought came up with the recent school shootings in Connecticut. People were wondering why we show the shooter so often rather than the victims. We often make the shooter famous but don't show the victims or the heroes.

Mr Rogers, the former kids show host, was quoted talking about his mom and how she taught him to "look for the helpers." This is what we need to do and this is what we need to demand from our media. In the wake of a crisis the media needs to start looking for the helpers. they nee to focus on the ones doing good rather than on the criminal. That is what we need to be showing the nation as an example.

Also we need to demand from our media more stories about the good that people are doing in the world. If someone murders a bunch of people then it makes national, and usually international, news within minutes, but if someone saves a neighbor from a fire it often barely makes the local paper. If someone helps a homeless person get a job and place to stay it is even less likely to get any media attention. Again let's get the heroes in the paper and in the news rather than the criminals.

By changing the way we communicate we can change the way people respond to events. By focusing on the heroes we can create more heroes, but by focusing on the criminals we will create more criminals. Let's demand more from our media. If you are in the media then please be one that is an agent of change. Use your position to change the spreading of information in our country.

Biblical Economics

Here we are, continuing our series on The Book That Transforms Nations by Loren Cunningham. For a summary of what we have already talked about take a look at my last post. After moving from family, to church, to government we are on to the economy. A part of transforming a nation is bringing Biblical principles into the economy, into the way the nation handles finances. Money is a touchy subject with people and many people don't realize how much the Bible has to say about this subject. If you are one who has never looked to the Bible for financial advice you should check out this post 250 Verses About Money.

It's hard to imagine having the ability to change an entire nation's economy. We all know how we are in a recession, and we know how much debt our nation is in. According to the U.S. National Debt Clock we are well on our way to approaching 17 trillion dollars in debt. So the question is: What part can I play in turning our economy around? Of course we can advocate for more responsible decisions from our politicians and we can make educated decisions in voting but sometimes it feels like there is nothing that we can actually do, especially between election years. However, there is one thing that all of us can do. Each one of us can make the decision to revolutionize our own finances.

There are many programs, classes, and books out there meant to help individuals and families to get their finances in control but the class that my wife and I took is Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. If you find yourself sinking in debt and barely making it to each paycheck it might be worth it for you to find one of these classes but here are the basic principles, all taken directly from the Bible:

Dave Ramsey's success is based on what he calls baby steps. The principle is that we take little steps towards financial peace, take it slow and steady. The baby steps are as follows:

Baby Step #1: Build an emergency fund of $1000

Baby Step #2: Pay off all debt except your house

Baby Step #3: Continue building the emergency fund to 3-6 months of income

Baby Step #4: Invest 15% of income for retirement

Baby Step #5: Start college funds for your children

Baby Step #6: Pay off home early

Baby Step #7: Build wealth and give!

The idea is that you have a budget and you stick to it, and every extra dollar that comes in goes toward the step that you are on. So get started doing your part to revolutionize the economy, revolutionize your finances. As Dave says "Live like no one else today, so that tomorrow you can live like no one else!"

Review of How to Change Our Nation

All of my most recent posts have been excerpts from the first draft of a book that I feel God has inspired me to write. Stay tuned as I do believe that it will eventually be published and you can see it in it's final, complete form. However in looking back through my posts I realized that I had begun a series which was never completed. As these posts are all among my top read posts I feel that it is important to continue this series, it is clearly something that people are looking to. If you have not read the posts then please go back and get caught up on this series:

I started with an introduction to the series which is based off of Loren Cunningham's book The Book That Transforms Nations. This book lays out seven areas to which we need to apply Biblical Principles in order to bring a widespread turnaround to our nation. You can read the post here: Bring Change to Your Nation

Then I wrote about the most foundational of the seven areas, the family. The enemy knows that the family is the most foundational area of society and has unleashed a major attack against families. I discussed this attack and also brought several verses regarding how our families should look here: The Devil is Attacking Our Families

The second most foundational area of society is the Church. God has established the Church to bring about His Kingdom here on earth and the enemy has, in many cases, successfully divided the church against each other. We need to come back to the original vision in recognition that we are one church working together for the Kingdom of God: Biblical Church

After getting our families and the Church back on track then we need to start looking toward the government. As discussed in the post we don't need to have a government that forces everyone to be Christian. On the contrary, a Biblical government would have freedom of choice as one of it's main components. Even the Theocracy in the days of Joshua stated "Choose this day whom you will serve..." Joshua 24:15, but we need to demand Biblical principles from our government, from our politicians: Bible-based Government

This ie where I ended in my discussion on the seven areas. As I mentioned above I feel it is important that I continue this series. So as we move forward I will be discussing how we should be applying Biblical principles to the Economy, Public Communication, Celebration, and lastly Education. I feel that each of us are called to at least one of these areas and we need to understand that to be called to the Lord's work doesn't just mean being called to the church. Being called to the Lord's work means doing what He has called you to do, whether that is in Politics, in service, in business, or whatever it might be.