John Stanko

After I posted last week that I needed money for my upcoming trip to Kenya. a generous donor called to  say they would match every dollar you give up to $3,000. What a blessing that is! The deadline to give is next Sunday night, May 19, because I depart the next day. You can give through my Facebook link if we are friends there, or you can give through my website or by sending a check to PurposeQuest, PO Box 8882, Pittsburgh, PA 15221-0882. 

What we raise from this campaign will empower me to conduct leadership training like I did in 2016 and 2018 (the church's leadership team is pictured here) and also support our other partners in the good work they are doing. It enables me to cover all my expenses as I go and that is a great relief. As I write, I have received $1,186 so if we are going to reach the $3,000 goal, I need your help. Please give today and make the investment to double your blessing through this matching grant. Thank you and God bless you!

I am heading over to Kenya in two weeks to conduct some leadership training and to connect with our partners. My first visit will be to Bomet where I will conduct two more leadership two-day seminars, which will make my fifth and sixth seminars in the area. We usually have around 100 to 150 at each so that means we are approaching 1,000 leaders trained in the times I have been there. I am raising $3,000 for those events, which include a video projector, seminar notes, and books. You can give through my website for donations or by sending a check to PurposeQuest, PO Box 8882, Pittsburgh, PA 15221-0882. You can also give through my Facebook page.

In the last several weeks, I have sent money for our little Mary, who is in her second year of secondary school, so she is not so little any more. Pastor Francis reports that she is doing well and her performance bodes well for her chances of going on to university. I also sent money for the Upako teachers, who attended a professional seminar over the Easter break. We are blessed to have teachers who serve the Dr. Stanko Academy on a full-time basis.

Pastor Peter wrote to announce that he opened his seventh area library recently. Here is his report:

We are well on course to empower Kenya through Education and now we have our seventh library in Ruaka. It's a combination of kids' exclusive library, movie room, and larger library. Thanks for being a faithful partner along with all our supporters. May God bless you in abundance.

Pastor Peter

I sent $300 toward our library expenses.

Then we got this report from Belver concerning the WEEP Project that provides sanitary supplies for young women in various schools. April was the first month that PurposeQuest began supporting WEEP with $650 per month:

In 2015, my son, John III, visited Kenya and heard that many young ladies missed a week of school every month because they lacked the necessary sanitary products to accommodate their monthly needs. He found this situation unacceptable, so he began his own nonprofit organization named the Women's Equal Education Project (WEEP). He engaged a team of ladies in Kenya to assist and began sending money every month so the supplies could be purchased. The ladies then went into certain schools, conducted a training session (I include pictures of John III in the class as the WEEP team trains), the young ladies registered to receive product every month, and then they could be assured of their sanitary supplies. The result: young women were properly using appropriate sanitary products and could attend school every month without interruption. What a blessing.

The program started in St. Theresa Secondary School with 100 girls, no small beginning, and today services almost 300 young ladies every month in that school. In addition, the program has expanded to include the following schools with the number of young ladies registered following:

• Riruta Satellite Secondary School - 60
• Riruta Israel Primary School - 50
• Kids Empowerment Primary School - 36
• Bethany Primary School - 70
• Zeal Covenant Primary School - 22
• Light Christian Primary School - 38

That's a total of 570 women every month who are provided their sanitary products, and 352 women have "graduated" from the program.  All this takes place for a cost of $650 every month.

I have agreed to send the team two $325 payments every month to continue their important work. Will you help? You can make a contribution toward WEEP's work through the PurposeQuest website (just mark WEEP in the memo) or by sending a check to PurposeQuest, PO Box 8882, Pittsburgh, PA 15221-0882. My thanks to John Stanko III and his team in Kenya for their vision and commitment to this ministry. It is touching hundreds of lives and making the difference between academic success and failure for many women. I am trusting the Lord and the PurposeQuest donors to help continue building on the foundation that has been established.

Old Testament Joseph had two dreams and immediately told his family, but they were not too happy to hear they would all be bowing down to him in the near future. Joseph's eagerness to share with those who would and could not understand God's choice of their brother and son as the family ruler cost him more than a decade of his life in Egypt as a slave and administrator before God brought the dreams to fruition.

Contrast Joseph with Mary, the mother of Jesus, who didn't have a dream but rather an angelic visitation followed by divine appointments with the shepherds and then Simeon and Anna in the Temple when she took Jesus there to be dedicated.

After Gabriel announced she was pregnant, Mary did not tell anyone as far as we know, except Elizabeth her cousin, who was also with child in her old age. Mary was wise enough to know not to share what God had revealed to her to anyone except a person who could understand, and that person was Elizabeth--who had her own experience with a miraculous conception. Joseph was not as wise and paid a price.

After her visit from the shepherds and to the Temple, we are told that "Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19), and "then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:51).

The point is this: Be careful with whom you share your purpose and ideas for creative expressions. Not everyone is going to understand or be able to nurture and support the dreams and God ideas you have. Don't share them with just anyone unless you are looking for someone to talk you out of what you think you have heard. Then it should not be too hard to find people who will tell you "you're crazy" and who will remind you of your limitations and past failures.

Who is in your circle of confidants? People who will stimulate and challenge you to be more than you are today, or those who have a vested interest in you staying right where you are? The choice is yours and it may make the difference between years of wandering and days of living the life God has assigned you to live.

Choose wisely.

I have written lately that we need to change the way we do church, which is the title of a book I am revising to re-release this year. Part of the change is to stop measuring what we normally measure, which has been attendance and the offering total. I had an associate write and ask for clarification on this, and this is what I wrote him today:

*****

You had made a comment about more writing about what we should measure if not money and attendance. Here are today's thoughts from Seth Godin:

Don’t steal metrics

A thoughtful friend has a new project, and decided to integrate a podcast into it.

Talking to a producer, he said that his goal was to make it a “top 10 podcast on iTunes.”

Why is that the goal?

That’s a common goal, a popular goal, someone else’s goal.

The compromises necessary to make it that popular (in dumbing down the content, sensationalizing it, hunting down sort-of-famous guests and doing a ton of promo) all fly in the face of what the project is for.

It’s your project.

It’s worth finding your metrics.

A church will measure what is important to it, so the key is first to identify what is important and then find a way to measure it such as kids returning a second week after visiting once, number of "Amens" during a message (a form of feedback; the Cleveland Orchestra measures standing ovations), the number of givers instead of the offering amount, how many more people gave to missions this year over last year, etc. This is hard work, and sometimes almost impossible to measure, but we must try and then allow our metrics to shift and morph over time.

The old standard of behinds in the seats and dollars in the offering tells us something about what we value. When we change our values, God will then help us find ways to measure what is important to us instead of spinning results to convince ourselves things are not as bad as they really are. We need to change the way we do church!

Here is one final thank you from our year-end efforts to help our orphans, this time with their school fees. Here is a note from our friend and caregiver Alice (along with a picture of four of our orphans while on Christmas break at home with Alice):

Dear John,

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were good ones and that you found time to relax and enjoy God's goodness at this time of year. Now it is time to resume our normal rhythm and routine of life, and the same is true for the orphans we help care for in Kenya. I will be going over with a group of 21 people in February and will show them firsthand what we are doing there, but here is a report from Alice, who tends for the children (who are becoming young adults) at Each One Touch One Orphanage (the picture is of Phyllis and Gladwell as they head off to school this term). The reason the children look so good is because of Alice's tender care, and we shudder to think where the children would be without her:

Dear brother John,

I share all my writing goals below so you understand how I structure my goals and work to be fruitful and productive; what can you add to help our readers set their own goals and be more fruitful?

1. New Year's morning, the first thing I did was edit my daily devotional (today from my book A Daily Taste of Proverbs); then I copied and pasted it to Facebook; then I posted it to LinkedIn and Twitter; I do that Monday through Friday and draw material from five of my daily devotionals. It helps me to jump start my writing day and keeps me in touch with my followers all over the world.
2. On New Year's Eve, I set up my manuscript for my Corinthians commentary (written and 115k words); I will edit that in January and have it ready to publish in March (It would be February, but I am going to Kenya in February).
3. On New Year's, I began editing my next book (my 'Go and' series from the Monday Memo) titled 'Go and Obey'; my goal is to have it finished in January for publication in March/April.
4. This week, I will sketch out my revisions for my 2009 book "Changing the Way We Do Church" I will start to edit and write new material in January, but most probably won't get much into that until late Feb/early March.
5. After I finish Corinthians, I have three more volumes of my New Testament commentaries (written but need to be edited), which will be done, with God's help, by Dec 31, 2019; here is the link for the commentaries that are complete (Romans is done but in final stages of publishing).
6. Someone gave me the idea this past week for a book I will title "Put Me in, Coach!" That is on the horizon for 2019.

What are your goals this year that will enable you to activate, stimulate, and rejuvenate your creativity?

Last Friday, I began posting statements and sayings on Facebook I have used in my purpose coaching and teaching over the years. Immediately, I sensed something was up. The response was quick and enthusiastic, so I posted another and then another, and before I was finished, I had posted roughly 100 sayings that are still receiving feedback, likes, shares, and questions. I thought I would share some of the way forward now that this online revival of sorts has finished while the effects are felt for some time to come.

1. The most popular post of all my quotes was this one: "Stop waiting for your church to recognize you; recognize yourself and then do what God wants you to do." Let me explain. I have found that many people are expecting their church to recognize their gifts and then find a way for those gifts to be expressed. This does happen but it's rare. There is only one pulpit and 52 Sundays every year to give a public platform to the gifts. What's more, often people's gifts are not consistent with a modern worship structure. One man I knew one time had a purpose to minister to the military. Most churches don't know what to do with that, so I advised him to start his own outreach ministry to the military, which he did.

Rather than being angry at the church or going to another church, I advise you to pray and be creative to find ministry expressions that don't depend on your church's programs or leadership preferences. If you have a ministry to child, buy a rocking chair, take it with you, and go rock children in a hospital ward. I just counseled a woman who was gifted musically to schedule three concerts over the holiday season. She did and I think one of them was at a family gathering. Her assignment for January is to write a song, then record it on YouTube. My point is that you cannot and should not allow your purpose, creativity, or gift to languish if others don't see it for what it is or what it can be.

2. The second most popular post was "By the authority vested in me, I give you permission to be a person of purpose in 2019. You may kiss your purpose." This is obviously a tongue-in-cheek adaptation from the standard wedding vows at a Christian wedding. I have found that I often have to give people permission to be who they are. Everyone wants to be normal but in reality, no one is "normal." Our purpose makes us abnormal, but we often hide who we are so we can act more like what we have been taught normal is. You don't need anyone's permission to be you, but when you are hiding who you are in fear, it sometimes helps for someone like me to say, "Go ahead, sing, dance, write, teach, build and do it the way you want it done. It's okay and it's God's will."

3. The third most popular was "Be you - everyone else is already taken." This brings us back to the normal issue. When we see someone else serving the Lord, we can think that we should be more like that person. We admire their gifts and want them, even covet them. I urge you to be who God made you to be, and there has never been anyone like you in the world. Stop trying or pretending to be someone else. If you like pizza for breakfast, eat it (not particularly healthy, but you get my point). If you like the color purple, then decorate in purple (mine is orange, but men don't wear orange, but I started to wear orange). I may emulate what I admire in someone else, but I am going to assimilate that into my personality and gifts. I want to be me and God wants that too.

4. The fourth post was "I no longer put my faith in my ability to hear the Lord; I put my faith in God's ability to speak to me." My experience has shown me that we have been taught not to "miss the Lord," so we agonize over the guidance process and wait for endless confirmations before we may then venture out. God is with us, not against us. He is not trying to trick us. I can honestly say I have never heard that the Lord wanted me to write any of my 40 books (perhaps that is reflected in the sales!). I had an idea and I trusted that I had the mind of Christ on the matter and proceeded. Now if you have written 41 books, I will listen to your advice of how to hear from the Lord, but if you have thought about writing for ten years, had three prophets confirm you were supposed to do it, and still haven't written anything, I won't be accepting your advice on how to hear and follow through any time soon. God is a great communicator and James was clear: If we ask for wisdom and don't doubt, we will receive it. We tell people to go for it, but be careful. That grooves fear into their mind, so they wait and tarry and delay.

There is a lot more I could write, but I have probably already written or talked about it someplace. Check out my website, my Vimeo video channel, my Monday Memo blog, my personal blog, my Twitter account (@johnstanko) or my LinkedIn page and you will find a ton of stuff that relates to what I wrote about on Facebook this past weekend. As you approach 2019, I encourage you not to set your goal to go to the moon if you haven't been out of your home town, for you are just setting yourself up for failure. Don't set a goal to write a 900 page novel if you can't be consistent with your journal. Build your faith muscles in 2019 by going a bit farther than you have gone before. Share your testimony on Facebook when you do and then set a goal to go a little farther.

If I can help you, let me know, but in the meantime, have a blessed, purposeful and Happy New Year! May this be the year of purpose for you.