When praying, remember ACTS! Here is how to pray the ACTS prayer method:
ADORATION
Regardless of what we’re going through, we can always remember our God is a BIG GOD. He is outside time, space and matter and yet He is also by our side at all times. He created all things great, including a very organized universe full of planets and stars hung in beautiful alignment. He created all things small, like every living plant, animal and human and the earth’s wondrous ecosystem to sustain them. All this and He has set his sight upon you. He loves you and wants to have a personal relationship with you!
CONFESSION
We’ve all made mistakes. We might lose our temper or say words out of contempt. We might struggle with pride and think about ourselves too much. We might be spiritually passive, never caring to grow in our relationship toward God, preferring instead to chase the temporary thrills of this world. Anger, unforgiveness, rejection, shame, fear, pride, and a rebellious, unteachable heart can all lead to a broken life. If we don’t see it in Jesus, we’re not to see it in us. Turning away from these missteps and confessing them to God is the first step toward freedom from them.
THANKSGIVING
What are you thankful for? How has God blessed you? Sometimes we fall into the trap of focusing on what we don’t have or how we’ve failed. We might even focus on past or present hurts so much we give our power over to them. That’s when we allow those wrongs to become a part of us; part of our identity. The Enemy would love for you to be weighed down by those injustices your entire life. Life in relationship with Jesus shatters these chains, leading to freedom and peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4). What has God given you that you can be thankful for? Let Him know.
SUPPLICATION
Supplication is a fancy word that means the act of asking for something with a humble heart. You’ll notice it comes last in this list. After adoration, confession and thanksgiving, your heart will be better positioned for supplication. Too often, people turn to God only when they want something, reducing Him to a cosmic Santa Claus. Yet Jesus clearly taught us to pray “thy will be done,” not “my will be done.” Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.” Though many use this passage to pray that God gives them what they want, it truly means you will come to desire what God desires.
Growing up Catholic, I never understood the value of proclaiming life over a situation, yet we see this time and time again in Scripture. Therefore, I would like to offer a second version to this document: PACTS (where the P stands for “Proclamation”.) Enjoy!
There are currently 27.9 million small businesses in the U.S., and yes, if you’re a church, you’re counted in that mix. 70% of local spiritual seekers use the Internet to find information about local churches–and they all use search engines. That means, local SEO one of the bigger factors in your church’s exposure to the local community.
So here are five things you can do to optimize your website and attract local seekers.
1. Claim your listing profile
It’s as simple as logging into Yelp, YellowPages, Google Places, Bing Local and Yahoo Local and claiming (or creating from scratch) your business listing. Yes, you’re a church. You’re also in the business of connecting the lost with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Do it today. Follow instructions through the verification steps, which might include phone calls or some sort of address verification.
2. Ask for reviews
Most listings sites encourage listing owners to tell their communities to review your organization. So practice it constantly. Do it on an everyday basis. The more reviews you have (whether good or bad, but hopefully more good than bad) will make your organization more visible to future seekers.
Tip: On your business cards, exit door posters, receipts, thank you pages, invoices, or email newsletters, make a note and say “Hey we’d appreciate it so much if you gave us a review on YellowPages / Google / Bing / Yahoo [whatever].”
3. Upload pictures
All local listings have picture featured for your organization’s profile. Take advantage of this. To ensure they see great pictures, upload your own. You don’t have to hire a professional to take photos, but make sure the photos you upload are solid and represent your church properly.
4. Have a full mailing address in text
Your email address is important and it should be in plain text. Some organizations seen on listing sites have placed their email address in an image–which doesn’t work so well with church-seekers wanting to easily reach out. It’s a small barrier, sure.
Tip: If you have the option, just leave your email address off your listing but make sure your website’s address is offered. If a shy seeker needs to email you, they can at least email you through the contact form on your website.
5. Concentrate on local location keywords
Say you operate a local Baptist church. Instead of just promoting your organization as a “Baptist church”–try local keywords instead, e.g.:
Baptist church Denver
Baptist Denver
Denver Baptist church services
church Denver
As you’ve already noticed, these keywords won’t serve your purposes if you’re wanting to connect with someone looking for a church in New York. But Denver citizens are looking for good, Bible-believing Baptist church? So try inserting your geographical location along with your keywords.
Go forth and conquer
So there you have it: five local SEO tips to further you along on your journey to cast a wider net. Follow these tips and you will grow in community visibility and reach more people.
Don’t forget: if you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Client: Joshua Memorial Foundation Product: Nonprofit that teaches water safety awareness and supports other nonprofits in the same. Campaign: Web development, web design, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing
Background
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states the number one cause of accidental death for children 1 to 4 years of age is drowning. The Joshua Memorial site provides information about water safety and drowning prevention. The foundation’s main objective is to prevent drowning accidents through early childhood education and the promotion of infant and toddler water safety training courses.
Challenge
What do you do when you’re a nonprofit just starting out and have a great new website but not enough online traffic? We can tell you what the Joshua Memorial Foundation, a Nebraska-based nonprofit specializing in water safety courses, water safety literature and drowning prevention awareness did. They asked for help with their search engine optimization.
Their site was fairly optimized when their SEO campaign began. Since we had designed and developed their Joomla-based web site, we knew it had been built to be “search engine friendly” and wouldn’t run into the roadblocks of a poorly developed web site. Still, their web site had the following issues:
Low link popularity and search engine saturation (pages indexed in the search engines)
Not enough conversion points
Low or no rankings for keywords that searchers might use to find their site
SEO Strategy
Over several months of optimizing their web site, we now see dramatic results. We targeted their web pages to go after local search terms like “water safety courses nebraska” and “water safety nebraska”. We also completed a link building campaign, which improved the site’s link popularity (or “votes”) for the site which results in more traffic and higher rankings. Use of social media, blog posts and article marketing has also been part of our strategy.
Results
The search engines are now referring half of the overall traffic to the site. Take a look at the numbers:
Unique Visitors +33%
Number of Visits +182%
Repeat Visitors +56%
Total Page Views +100%
Keyword:water safety courses nebraska Google Ranking (before SEO): Not in Top 50 Page in Google (after SEO): 1 Google Ranking (after SEO): position 5 & 6 (out of 289,000 results)
Keyword: water safety nebraska Google Ranking (before SEO): Not in Top 50 Page in Google (after SEO): 1 Google Ranking (after SEO): position 3 & 4 (out of 281,000 results)
Keyword: water safety book Google Ranking (before SEO): Not in Top 50 Page in Google (after SEO): 1 Google Ranking (after SEO): position 6 (out of 9,880,000 million broad results!)
Keyword:child water safety nebraska Google Ranking (before SEO): Not in Top 50 Page in Google (after SEO): 1 Google Ranking (after SEO): position 4 (out of 137,000 results)
Interested in seeing how we can help drive more qualified traffic to your website?
It is a fact that technology has become an integral part of our lives. Spreading the gospel in the modern world cannot be effectively done without taking advantage of the many tools that technology has given to us.
Perhaps the most powerful of these tools is the Internet.
When the Internet was first invented, it was meant to be nothing more than a convenient way for researchers to share documents over long distances.
Today, the Internet is the platform on which the citizens of the world share ideas, engage in business, and find entertainment.
Due its widespread availability and the rise of social media applications, the Internet is a powerful medium for the spread of different ideas. The Church should not be left behind in this world.
Never before has there been a greater opportunity to spread the Gospel than now. Through setting up a simple website and engaging the masses on social media, you can raise awareness for the great gift our Lord Jesus Christ has bestowed upon us: salvation.
However, despite all its power, the Internet still hasn’t become entirely accommodating.
As Christians, there are moral and ethical standards we strive to uphold. As such, it becomes favorable to have services available that are tailor-made for the Christian standard.
Enter Christian web hosting.
There are moral and ethical needs a Christian website might have which are not typically catered to by your average web hosting service.
Levaire’s web hosting service was started with exactly this in mind. We made a dream service for every church and Christian group out there so they could get the service they don’t get out there at a fraction of the prices they are charged out there.
Our Web Hosting Plans
Our Christian web hosting service hosts websites for various churches and faith-based organizations around the country. We are very flexible with the services we offer and try to customize hosting plans according to the client’s needs. Our hosting service comes in three tiers, catering to different subsections of our customers. Our standard tier, for example, fulfills the needs of most of our clients. The three tiers are, respectively:
Exodus
Our associated quote for this service is “the meek shall inherit…” This service is for those of our clients who do not have very demanding web hosting requirements or are looking to try our services but don’t want to dip both feet in just yet. Oh, or they probably don’t have much of a budget.
Some of the features we offer for the Exodus are:
A monthly cost of $14.95 (or a yearly cost of $170)
1GB disk space
40GB data transfer limit
A free setup of your website
100% uptime
30-day unconditional money back guarantee
Church
Evangelization starts here. This is both our most popular and our most balanced service option. At $24.95 a month (or $295 a year,) it has everything the Exodus tier has plus a few more extras. Some of these include:
5GB extra disk space at 2.5GB
Twice the data transfer limit of the Exodus tier at 80GB
A dedicated IP address
A free domain name
Revelation
This is our “Mature Kingdom ministry” package and is designed to cater to the clients who run large and/or multiple websites that can’t easily be handled by our other two packages. It costs $44.95 a month ($525 a year) and offers huge benefits. Some of them are:
Twice the disk space of the Exodus tier at 5GB
Twice the data transfer of the Exodus tier at 160GB
Unlimited subdomains
All our service tiers feature online giving capability using Qgiv. Email marketing can also be integrated at the client’s request using Aweber enewsletter templates.
We hope you will be able to find what you’re looking for in our services. For any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Originally an oath made to Greek healing gods, the Hippocratic Oath is taken by medical professionals around the world as an expression of medical ethics. An important change was made in 1964, however. Notice how the Hippocratic Oath has changed since inception.
Original Hippocratic Oath, translated into English
I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:
To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art.
I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.
I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.
But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.
I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.
In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.
All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.
If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.
Modern Hippocratic Oath, most used today
In 1964, Dr. Louis Lasagna, former Principal of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, drafted a modernized version of the Hippocratic Oath. Notice the references to abortion have been removed. This is the version of the Hippocratic Oath that is commonly used today.
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not”, nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
~ Genesis 1:26-27
“Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God God made man.”
~ Genesis 9:6
“I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life . . .” ~ Deuteronomy 30:19
“Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;” (God knows each person before birth.)
~ Job 14:5
“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”
~ Ecclesiastes 11:5
“But you are he that took me from the womb. You made me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon you from the womb. You are my God from my mother’s belly.”
~ Psalm 22:9-10
“Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” ~ Psalm 51:5
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” ~ Psalm 139:13
“Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations.”
~ Jeremiah 1:5
“Even every one that is called by my name, for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.”
~ Isaiah 43:7
“Listen, O isles, to me and hearken, you people from afar; the Lord has called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother has he made mention of my name.
“And now, says the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, ‘Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength.'”
~ Isaiah 49:1,5
“You have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:”
~ Matthew 5:21
“For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.”
~ Luke 1:15
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.'”
~ John 14:6
“But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace…”
~ Galatians 1:15
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.”
~ Ephesians 2:10
Abortion Quotes
“We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these life . . .” ~ Declaration of Independence
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein
“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
~ Blessed Mother Teresa
“Nothing we do to defend the human person, no matter how small, is ever unfruitful or forgotten. Our actions touch other lives and move other hearts in ways we can never fully understand in this world. Don’t ever underestimate the beauty and power of the witness you give in your pro-life work.”
~ Archbishop Charles Chaput
“Pro-choice and pro-life activists live in different worlds, and the scope of their lives, as both adults and children, fortifies them in their belief that their own views on abortion are the more correct, the more moral, and more reasonable. When added to this is the fact that should ‘the other side’ win, one group of women will see the very real devaluation of their lives and life resources, it is not surprising that the abortion debate has generated so much heat and so little light.”
~ Kristin Luker
“An abortion kills the life of the baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health.”
~ Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 1952 (see the pamphlet)
Capital Punishment Quotes
“We oppose the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of heinous crimes, but for what it does to all of us, it offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life.”
~ Most Rev. Joseph A. Fiorenza
“You can’t save a man if he’s dead.” ~ Unknown
Respect Quotes
“That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.”
~ William J. H. Boetcker
“I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”
~ Jackie Robinson
“Men are respectable only as they respect.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Suicide Quotes
“Here in the bathroom with me are razor blades. Here is iodine to drink. Here are sleeping pills to swallow. You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be. Every time you don’t throw yourself down the stairs, that’s a choice. Every time you don’t crash your car, you reenlist.”
~ Chuck Palahniuk
“Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.”
~ Charles Caleb Colton
“Settle down, precious. I know what you’re going through. Ten minutes before you got here, I was gonna jump too.”
~ Unknown
“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”
~ Ben Okri
“Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”
~ Phil Donahue
“Anyone desperate enough for suicide…should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try.”
~ Richard Bach
“To make yourself something less than you can be – that too is a form of suicide.”
~ Benjamin Lichtenberg
“No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.”
~ Cesare Pavese
“Nine men in ten are would-be suicides.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
War Quotes
“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.”
~ Bertrand Russell
“The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.”
~ David Friedman
“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”
~ Sun Tzu
“There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.”
~ Henry Ellis
“There was never a good war, or a bad peace.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
“War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.”
~ John F. Kennedy
“What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble?”
~ Benjamin Spock
“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”
~ Jeannette Rankin
“Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.”
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.”
~ John F. Kennedy
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
~ Voltaire
“All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers.”
~ Francois Fenelon
“An unjust peace is better than a just war.”
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
~ George McGovern
“If it’s natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?”
~ Joan Baez
“If we don’t end war, war will end us.”
~ H. G. Wells
“In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.”
~ Ernest Hemingway
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
