NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL

ENTREPRENEURS

This year has taken a toll on many businesses. With Coronavirus looming at every turn and the numbers of those infected rising daily, many companies have had to search for other means of survival in a declining ecomony. Restaraunts, movie theatres, and most corporate companies restricted their employees to work-from-home social distancing and some furlowed their staff and forced them into unemployment. During this pandemic, many stay-at-home mothers had no choice but to get creative and pursue another stream of income through entrepreneurship. Perhaps you were already a small business entrepreneur and your business has suffered greatly during this pandemic. If your small business is suffering and you were not able to get financial relief through government grants - you are not alone. The year 2020 has taken a toll on us all. Here is an excercise to help you deal with stress and worry in your business. This will help you keep what’s most important in perspective. Take a blank piece of paper or open a new document file and write down everything that is causing you stress or worry right now. Don’t stop writing until you’ve captured as many things as you can possibly think of. You may fill up the page, but that’s okay. Get it out of your head and put it down on paper. Now go back through the list and put a line through everything that can be ignored, at least for now. Yes, cross it off. Before you leave something on the list, make certain that it is something that has to be dealt with now, and has to be dealt with by you. Ask yourself, “What would happen if I ignored this particular stressor for the time being?” There is a very good chance that the answer is either “Nothing” or “It might just go away” or “Someone else will deal with it who is just as able to do so as I am.”

For those things that are left on your list, answer the following questions:

1. What is this stressor/setback TEACHING YOU that you could someday teach someone else and/or that is helpful to your development as a leader of this business? 2. What is this setback MAKING POSSIBLE FOR YOU NOW? What opportunities is it creating? For example: 3. If you lost a customer, how could you take the resources—time, money, and personnel—that would have gone toward serving this customer and put those toward something else that will help your business? 4. If a valuable employee quit, what growth opportunities might this provide for another employee who would like to “step up” into that employee’s role? What weakness did the departed employee have that a new employee whom you hire into the role might not? Once you have completed this exercise, you will find that you have freed up the energy you would have spent worrying about these stressors so you can do something more productive with it.

CUSTOM TRADITIONS: IDOL WORSHIP OR NOT?

LIFESTYLES

I, the LORD, hate and despise your religious celebrations and your times of worship. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.- Amos 5:21,22

It’s that time of year. So many homes have been decorated with their beloved Christmas trees and other decor that brings in the holiday spirit. The tradition or ritual is that sometime after Thanksgiving or on that day, it is okay to put your Christmas tree up. You can put up your real evergreen tree or a fake one. I grew up in a home where my parents always had a Christmas tree and to be honest, most black families did. Chrismas time was a time of gifting and celebrating with family. We’d pull names and give each other gifts and my brother and I would stay up on Christmas Eve to open our gifts at midnight. It was a great childhood memory. It was part of a culture that we didn’t know where it’s origins derived. It was just something that our parents did at Christmas time and now we did it for our children and grandchildren.

Christmas is a big time of year in the church. It is said to be the day that Yeshua Hamashiach was born. We know that this isn’t true - but somehow we get sucked into the rituals of Christmas. There are Nativity plays, Christmas songs about an infant Hamashiach, we put up the tree, decor, buy and give gifts, have family gatherings all in the name of Jesus. What does God have to say about some of the rituals we do in the name of Christ? Does he even care about a tree that we decorate for a season of remembering His son’s birth on? I believe the answer is yes. In His Word, there are many instances where God has punished Israel for their idol worship. He has destroyed their false idols many times as well. Does God speak to the prophet Jeremiah about what we call the Christmas tree? Let’s take a look and read the Word of the Most High.

“Do not learn the way of the nations

or be frightened by signs of the heavens—

though the nations are terrified by them.

The customs of the peoples are useless:

it is just a tree cut from the forest,

the work of the hands of a craftsman with a chisel.

They decorate it with silver and gold,

and fasten it with hammer and nails so it won’t totter.

Like a scarecrow in a cucumber garden,

their idols cannot speak.

They must be carried

because they cannot walk!

Do not fear them

for they can do no harm

—nor do any good.”

~Jeremiah 10:1-5

The Most Hight referred to the tree as an idol! It has been decorated with silver and gold and fastened so that it won’t totter. The customs of the people are useless and it is just a tree from the forest. Sounds just like a Christmas tree to me. We know that there weren’t Christmas trees in the time of Jeremiah, but there was certainly some time of similar custom. A precept of Jeremiah is Isaiah 41:7, the prophet points out the use of the tree to make wooden idols. Whatever it maybe the truth is that Christmas itself is rooted in paganism and idolotry. Saints, we must be careful with following the customs of men. Especially when we do not know what we are practicing.

So, where did the idea of the Christmas tree come from? Since these are not the traditions of Christ, what ritual are we following?

It has been said that the origins of the tree are Babylonian during the time of Nimrod, the first Babylonian king (1 Kings 14:23). Although that is not proven, we can say that the holiday is absolutely pagan and idolotrous and has nothing to do with Yeshua Hamashiach. We must use wisdom in all things that we do. It was things like this that caused Israel to be diminished and scattered as a people when God gave them the blueprint of things that would separate them from their land and their protection.

“All of it goes to Him, every bit of it. I’m a firm believer of the scripture that says without me you can do nothing, but with me we can’t be stopped. When God is for you who can be against you?” - Bishop Rance Allen

RANCE ALLEN INTERVIEW CONTINUED

Bishop Rance Allen: What would it be?

LITO: It would be best hair. That silver curly hair that lights up the room. Talk about the hair, what is the secret to that great hair? Tell us.

Bishop Rance Allen: Well I started to turn gray at the early age of sixteen and by the time I was maybe twenty-six, going on thirty I said I don’t want to be dying my hair black all the time, because I thought it was going to be too much of a problem. So, I said I’m gonna let it go gray and see what it looks like. So, I did that, and my wife’s beautician saw it and said to me, ‘now if you’re not careful all that gray hair might turn all kinds of weird colors’. So, she said you need to let me treat it for you. She started treating it and she is the one that even to this day, who makes it look this nice silvery looking gray.

LITO: And now it’s your brand, it’s a part of your brand. We all know you have silver hair.

Bishop Rance Allen: It sure is. I’ve had people ask if they can run their fingers through it; others have tried to pull it to see if it was a wig. It’s a part of my persona.

LITO: What advice would you give to up and coming artists? Those who are trying to be where you are today and sometimes may get a little frustrated along the way. What do you say to those artists who are sitting at the award show maybe in the back row; they’re outside passing out fliers and they’re saying God did you call me to do this? What do you say to those artists?

Bishop Rance Allen: Well, because they’re human I would say; and the frustration is part of the package, but when you get past that, you have God on your side and God on your side makes anything bearable. You can come through it and I would like to say to them also, to make sure Gospel music is what they want to do. That will end a lot of the frustration and the confusion, if you’re just certain that Gospel music, giving God glory through your talents and gifts is what you want to do. And if you know that, and take just a few scriptures, like the one I mentioned before, Matthew 6:33. Put His kingdom and his righteousness first; you can’t just sing Gospel, you’ve got to live a life that represents Gospel and then all these other things that God has for you, they will come in time; and you’ve gotta be patient. You have to count all that time that you’re waiting, count it as joy. Really take that time to write some beautiful music, take that time to come up with some words that can change men’s’ lives; come up with some music that can make even the world dance. You’ve got to make use of your time in a godly way, and I promise you, if you stick it out God will come for you, he will come through.