The Spiritual and Practical Preparation needed for the 2019/2020 New Financial Year
(Please note: this article is being updated daily with the special Prophetic Lives we have been doing during the week of 24 June to 28 June - check out under the appropriate section below)
As we are about to step into a new financial year, it is good to take time to prepare not only practically but also spiritually for the new financial year.
Some would argue that God has no part to play in business, however, God is the one who not only created business, but also anoints people to do business.
Many forget the fact that Jesus himself was a business person. I love how Ed Silvoso explains this in his book “Anointed for Business”:
”Jesus did not merely do carpentry as a hobby. He had to learn a trade in order to make a living, and this required that He run His shop at a profit. His daily business routine likely included the calculation of the cost of goods and labour, the interplay between supply and demand, the establishment of competitive pricing, the measurement of potential return on His investment, the estimation of mainteance costs and the replacement of equipment. Even though it may be unusual, even uncomfortable, for us to picture Jesus working to make a living, this is precisly what He did for most of His adult life.
In fact, Jesus was not a small-time carpenter who worked only when He was short on money. Early in His ministry His neigbours described Him as “the carpenters son” (Matt 13:55) and “the carpenter” (Mark 6:3). If His faither, Joseph, had already passed away, then Jesus, as the firstborn male, would have been running the family-owned business. His brothers would have been junior associates, and His mother and sisters would have played supportive roles. This was not a small shop but one large enough to provide a living for this family of eight or more.
Labour was a central part of Jesus’ early life. According to Jewish tradition, as a rabbi He had to master a trade and exercise it honestly to support Himself to be able to teach for free. Jesus’ instruction to others that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” which was quoted by Paul (see Acts 20:35), indicated that He had the means to acquire goods to be given away since He definietely practices what He preached.”
So God knows all about business. Jesus was himself a business person, so knows first hand what those in business are facing. If that is the case we can ask Him about the best way to run a business. The question is then, how do we do that.
The Spiritual - 2 Chairs
I would like to suggest than that we need to start to reframe our mindset as we step into this new financial year, to one where we believe and know that God can speak to us about our business, and can give us incredible insight into how to run the business.
Bob Beaudine in his book “2 Chairs” asks three key questions to ponder when looking at our businesses from God’s perspective.
Question #1 - Does God know our situation?
The answer is Yes!
Question #2 - Is it too hard for him to handle?
The answer is No!
Question #3 - Does He have a good plan for you?
The answer is Yes!
Pondering these questions allows us to have a mindset change to begin the process of trusting him not only with our salvation (ensuring our entrance to heaven) but also with the day to day activities of life.
Bob goes on to explain that the answer is always “2 Chairs”. He encourages you to literally set up two chairs in your office or your home or wherever. One for you and one for God. As you sit in one of those chairs and picture God sitting in the other, you have the opportunity to ask God what is on His heart for you today. Bob explains that if you talk for one minute, God gets to talk for four. If you ask God to reveal His plan for you, He will. But most of the time He doesn’t give it to you all at once. More likely He will igve it to you day by day because you couldn’t handle it all at once. It would be too wonderful, even a bit unbelievable!
The actual “2 Chairs” is great for visual people. You may not actually set up 2 Chairs but have a place where you picture in your mind that God is there with you are you are having a conversation with him.
To explore this concept further I would encourage you to pick up a copy of Bob’s book or check out this interview I did with Bob about his book.
(This is also available on our Business Blessings Radio podcast that you can listen to as you drive, exercise etc - available on iTunes and Stitcher).
The Spiritual - Let’s talk about Sin
Sin is not a popular term in people’s books these days. Yet to God it still matters. Key to spiritual growth and breakthrough is taking the time to regularly meet with God in relation to anything that God considers is hindering you from going deeper with God or receiving what He has for you.
Many people are fearful about coming to God because they know that they have done things that God would be displeased with. They picture him as some big ogar in the sky ready to smack them down for even the slightest of wrong doing.
However, can I encourage you to take a different look at this. God himself sent His son Jesus to deal with the sin issue. He went through the agony of watching him die on the cross so that when we come to Christ he can provide a way for that sin to be dealt with and remove it from our lives as far as the east is from the west. I don’t know about you, but that’s a long way!
Isaiah 1:18 puts it this way:
“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
What a wondeful picture, God reaching out to us and saying come, let’s sit down together and work this all out. God wants to see you set from from sin. There is nothing that you have done that cannot be forgiven. Think about that. There is nothing that you have done that cannot be forgiven.
So if the God of the universe, the one who created absolutely everything, and providing us with everything that we need, says that He wants you set free from sin. Isn’t it worthwhile at least having a chat with him about it.
It can be as simple as God forgive me for my sin. Take time to ask Him to show you areas in your life that need to be cleaned up, than ask Him to clean them up and ask Him for the grace to go forward in a way that continues to please and honour Him.
The verse that I personally find very comforting is 1 John 1:9:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
We have a promise from God that if we take the time to confess our sins, he will forgive us, there are no ifs buts and maybes about this, it's done.
Why not even take a moment now to stop and ask God, is there anything in my life that you would like me to put right with you?
The Spiritual - Take a Fresh Look at the Bible
The statistics are clear that Bible reading is on the decline as a whole. However, I would like to encourage you that over this next 12 months you renew your passion for the Bible.
There is a lot I could say about this. Personally, as someone who has been a Christian for a long time and read the Bible through in the year a number of times, I’ve found that doing something different which your Bible reading “spices” things up, for one of a better word. It may be changing the version of the Bible you read, or as I’ve found using the Prayer of Imagination with your Bible reading whereby you take time and read the passage through 7 times in each reading and read the same passage for a week. It’s amazing the deeper insight that God gives you.
Whatever works for you, the key is that the one who created this world, who created everything that we need and placed it here for us has given us His key instructions. When we don’t read it we are missing out on the clear guidance and direction that He wants to give us each and every day.
During this next financial year, increase the priority of reading the Bible daily.
The Spiritual - The Prophetic
For many, the prophetic is something that they may know nothing about or are wary of. Personally, I have found that the prophetic insight is given by key people or direct words of wisdom for myself from God have opened up doors or changed circumstances beyond what could be explained in the natural.
Shawn Bolz describes the goal of prophecy is “to connect people to the empowering nature of God so they can become like him and display his marvelous nature to all the earth.”
When we are connected to God at a deeper level, hearing directly from his throne whether personally, through others, or through the word of God - it brings about changes that are way beyond what can happen in the natural.
As I have pondered this, I’ve sensed that in the last week leading up to the end of the financial year to do a daily prophetic Facebook Live on our Business Blessings Facebook page.
Each morning at 6:30 am for 30 minutes you will hear from key prophetic people who have asked God what’s on his heart for this new financial year and to give key tips on hearing the voice of God for themselves.
This is who will be ministering to us:
Monday - Ron & Justine Sims - Denominational Leaders Full Gospel Church - www.fullgospelaustralia.org.au
Tuesday - Phil & Lorellee Colley from Destiny Strategies - www.destingystrategies.com.au
Wednesday - Amanda Wells - www.wellsministries.com.au
Thursday - Sam Street - Business Leader in YWAM
Friday - David Balestri - www.marketplaceinvasion.com.au
To be apart of these Prophetic calls you can either register to be on the Zoom call itself at:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nqIeQjQxT5uIzOBcSaJN2w
or simply like our Facebook Page www.facebook.com/businessblessings and watch the Facebook Lives there. If you register on Zoom you will have a chance to interact more with the speakers.
Recordings of the Facebook Lives so far
The Practical - Revamp Your Business Plan & Review who your Customer is
The start of the new financial year is a key time to take a look at all aspects of your business and review them.
Co.starters has produced a Business Canvas that is a very helpful guide for you in not only starting a business but also revamping your current business.
You can download a copy at www.costarters.co for the work of Co.starters in Australia go to www.startupsinaustralia.com.au
The business canvas has you ask a series of key questions in relation to your business idea/business:
Who do you serve?
What is the problem your customer has?
How is your customer currently solving the problem?
What are the alternative solutions to the problem?
What’s the competition?
What do you offer your customer?
What does your customer get?
Why does your cusotmer want your product or service?
How do you solve the problem?
What gives you the edge oer the alternatives?
Why are you the best person to do this?
What is your story?
How does your customer hear it?
How does your product or service get to your customer?
How do you make money from your customer?
What are your one-time start-up needs (money, people, things, technology, activites)?
What on going needs are essental to keep you going (money, people, things, technology, activites)?
Working through each of these areas will help you to focus on the key areas that will drive growth in your business over the next 12 months.
The key focus area here is the first one - Who is Your Customer? - what do they look like, where are they, can you clearly define them, would you know them if you bumped into them in the street.
Recently at one of our Get Started Workshops a person attending had developed their whole business idea but had forgotten one key ingredient. She didn’t know who her customer was. Her whole body just sunk down when she released the error and started to work very quickly to change all this.
To help you work through these two key areas - we are hosting the Co.starters Get Started (or maybe I should call it Re-started) workshop online for the first time on Wednesday 26 June at 6 pm and then again on Wednesday 3 July at 6 pm. This masterclass will go for 3 hours and will be a time of solidly working on these ideas together in community. The cost is $47 plus $8 p&h as we need to send you a manual (for late registrations we will email the pdf files and also put them in the mail to you).
Check out two quick testimonies on this workshop:
Thought I’d through this one is as well, it is Pemba talking about his business - want to share this as you don’t have to start with a lot of money to get your business up and going.
To register for the Get Started (or Re-started) Workshop go to:
Other options for this workshop:
Gold Coast - 11 July 2018 - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/get-started-a-costarters-workshop-to-get-your-new-business-idea-underway-tickets-61718795579
The Practical - Unlocking Your Vision
I love what Steve Harvey has to say about Vision:
“If you don’t have your dream written down, your chances of it happening are reduced drastically.”
In January this year, I helped co-sponsor a series of “Unlock Your Vision” workshops with Myrna Widlend.
I did it because towards the end of last year, I had come to a place myself where I was just worn out. It had been a big year I had been working long hours, and on this weekend I did nothing, locked myself away, and watched youtube videos! But while I was doing that I listened to what Steve had to say himself. Check out these two videos:
What fascinated me with the series of workshops we did was how people were “unlocked”. Myrna has won International awards for her running of these workshops and truly helps people in a way that releases them to their destiny like no other.
The feedback from these workshops we did nearly 5 months on has been incredible. I keep mine vision board up near my desk and looked at it daily.
Saturday 29 June is our next one of these workshops - I’d encourage you to come because it is four hours of time that will really help you to focus on a key vision strategy for the next 12 months. These workshops are more than putting pictures on a piece of cardboard, the truly “unlock you”.
You can check out the previous article on did on these which have a lot of testimonies from the people who came here:
To find out more about these workshops that we have scheduled for the rest of the year go to https://unlockyourvision2019.eventbrite.com.au (Special price: if you put in #propheticweek in the discount price - I will give you a special discount for those who read this article!)
Conclusion
The one who created this whole place, the fantastic Earth we live on, has a plan and a purpose for your life. He is for you and not against you. He thoughts to you are numerous. He knows you so well that He has even counted the hairs on your head.
As we step into this new financial year, I want to encourage you to renew your mind. Take time out with your 2 Chairs, take stock to renew your relationship with God, listen to what He has for you. Listen to the bigger picture from others. Revamp your business plans and put that vision board in place.
Sometimes it is us who are holding ourselves back. I close with a story from one of my recent coaching sessions. I put a turnover figure up on the whiteboard as to where I saw the business going. The person struggled with even speaking out the number. Yes it was a stretch, yes it was a significant multiple of his current turnover, but it was after we had brainstormed about his business, put some structure in place around it and reviewed the strategy for how to get there.
Begin to lift your vision higher for this new financial year for when you do you will see the glory of the Lord!
Wes Leake is a People Builder. He grows people and their businesses through the Co.starters program that helps communities build vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems by equipping them with the best tools and resources needed to support starters of all types.
In summary:
- Register for the morning Prophetic Zoom Calls at https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nqIeQjQxT5uIzOBcSaJN2w
- Register for the "Get Started" or "Re-started" Online Workshop at: https://getstartedonline.eventbrite.com.au
- Register for the "Unlock Your Vision" Workshops at www.unlockyourvision2019.eventbrite.com.au