My first column for Home School Enrichment magazine has been selected as the cover story for the July/August 2010. Below I’ve copied in the original text I submitted to the magazine. The final published version benefits from the editing talents of Jonathan Lewis, so I recommend you get the print version or check out the Digital Edition when it becomes available.

Raising Entrepreneurs by Russ McGuire

God has blessed me with a very successful business career. I currently enjoy serving as an executive in one of the 100 largest corporations in the country. However, God has given me an entrepreneur’s heart, and it is through starting small businesses that He has given me real insight into the fundamental factors required of any business to be successful. More importantly, in small businesses we have the opportunity to clearly and freely exercise obedience to God’s revealed will for our lives as stewards of all that He has given us.

Let me be clear. In none of my business ventures have I been perfectly successful – not in the terms by which the world measures success, and certainly not in perfect obedience to God – like you, I’m a sinner. However, God disciplines us for our good, as Hebrews 12 teaches us. “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. … he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:7, 10, 11 ESV)

God recognizes our growth by giving us greater opportunities as Jesus taught in the Parable of the Ten Minas. “Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.’ … The first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made ten minas more.’ And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’” (Luke 19:13,16,17 ESV)

Therefore, it has been important to me that my son learn how to be successful as a Christian businessman, and I have partnered with other homeschooling parents to teach entrepreneurship to our children.

Our initial effort was to take a year to study “Seven Disciplines of Biblical Business Success.” In this class, we studied seven disciplines of business: strategy, innovation, marketing, serving customers, operations, finance, and leadership. For each, we also studied a Biblical discipline required for success: humility, creativity, honesty, servanthood, excellence, stewardship, strength, and compassion. Along the way, we formed teams and each team developed a business plan for an entrepreneurial idea. We applied the lessons in writing the business plans. At the end of the class, each team presented their business plans.

Immediately following completion of the class, my son, Kevin, and I took our business plan for an Online Social Network for Christian Homeschooling Families and began to lay the foundation for executing the plan. This past Fall, we recruited two other homeschool students to participate as interns helping run the business and we launched the initial version of Hschooler.net. Brian is responsible for product development, Austin manages marketing, and Kevin manages revenue generation.

The business is beginning to grow. Although it is not yet profitable in monetary terms, the rewards in terms of our sons learning how to run a business, and more importantly, how to apply their Christian faith in real life actions and decisions are immeasurable.

Over the next several issues of Home School Enrichment, I hope to share with you the lessons that we’ve been learning and how you may be able to teach your children how to become Godly entrepreneurs.

Basic Principles

For starters, we need to understand the concepts of work, business, and success.

Many Christians wrongly view work as a curse of the Fall, but in reality, work is a blessing. It was enjoyed by Adam and Eve in Eden. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. … Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him’” (Genesis 2:15, 18 ESV). We will also enjoy work for all eternity. “They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. … and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands” (Isaiah 65:21-22 ESV).

Although it is true that work has become a burden due to the Fall (Genesis 3:17-19), God calls each of us to our vocation (e.g. 1 Corinthians 1:1). Gene Edward Veith, Jr. in God At Work (Crossway Books, 2002) makes the point that “Though human beings tend to be oblivious to the spiritual significance of the ordinary things they do, and though their work is tainted by sin, the Christian, walking by faith and resting in Christ, can live and work as a channel for the gifts of God. … The whole purpose of every vocation is to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ (Matthew 22:39).”

Wikipedia defines a business this way: “In economics, a business (also called firm or enterprise) is a legally recognized organizational entity existing within an economically free country designed to provide goods and/or services to consumers.” Or, building off of the above discussion of work and vocation, a business is an organized entity that is a channel for the gifts of God (including skills, talents, and resources) to be applied in meeting the needs of the people He has created in His image.

Does God desire for us to have success in business? I believe He does. Jesus often used examples of successful businessmen as positive parables teaching about God’s Kingdom and our relationship with God. (e.g. The Parable of the Faithful Servant in Luke 12, The Parable of the Shrewd Manager in Luke 16, The Parable of the Ten Minas in Luke 19, The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20, and The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25). Joshua 1:8 is not specifically about business, but it speaks of God’s desire for us to have success in what He has called us to: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (ESV) In Proverbs 3, Solomon teaches his son to look to God’s commandments, strength, and discipline and not lean on his own understanding “So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.” (Proverbs 3:4 ESV)

As these passages imply, success is measured differently by the world and by Godly measures. Business success is measured by the world in terms of revenue growth, market share, and profits.

However, Biblical business success starts with trusting in God and being obedient to His commands.

In Roadmap to Success (Bridge-Logos, 2005), Steve Marr wrote “God wants you to succeed. He has a plan for your life, a plan for good and not for evil. He desires that you will seek His will, understand His timing, pursue your passion, establish a clear and unwavering mission, and stay strong in His strength to accomplish all that He has ordained for your life.”

Dennis Peacocke, in Doing Business God’s Way (REBUILD, 1995) observed “The way God runs His Creation qualifies Him as the most prominent and productive businessman of all. When Christian business professionals see this reality and begin to operate their businesses the way God does His, then it will radically change them, what we call Christianity, and the entire world in the process.”

In How to Prosper in Business Without Sacrificing Integrity (Cross Training Publishing, 2002), Rick Boxx asks “God has a plan for your business. God’s plan is a plan designed to prosper you without sacrificing integrity. Wouldn’t it be much easier to work with God towards the goals that He has in mind, rather than to work against God?”

And Myron Rush wrote in Management: A Biblical Approach (Victor Books, 1983) “If the Christian enterprise is to accomplish the tasks for which God has raised it up, its leadership must apply the principles of management outlined in God’s Word instead of those promoted and practiced by the secular world. That means we must direct our attention to God’s Word for answers concerning how His work is to be managed.”

As these men observe and Proverbs 3:4 states, it is not wrong to seek success in the sight of both God and man. Therefore, in my own business endeavors, and as I teach my son about business success, my first priority must be on faithfulness to God, but within that faithfulness is great liberty to seek market success creating value for my customers and wealth within my business. Proverbs 13:22a says “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.” I pray the inheritance I leave will be one of faith, wisdom, and wealth.

Christianity Today is reporting that James Dobson has used three of his recent radio broadcasts to encourage Christian parents to pull their kids out of public schools in specific states.

The article quotes him as saying “What I was saying was that this godless and immoral curriculum and influence in the public schools is gaining momentum across the nation in ways that were unheard of just one year ago. It’s as though the dam has now broken and activists representing various causes, including homosexuality, are rushing through the breach in ways that are shocking.”

He specifically calls out California, Connecticut, California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont, Washington, D.C., Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, and Alaska.

“The shocking thing is that this threat to kids is much, much broader than the homosexual movement. It doesn’t stop there. It is aimed at the very core of the Judeo-Christian system of values, the very core of scriptural values. I’m telling you that is not an overstatement.”

Read more at Christianity Today.

Over the past few weeks we’ve added a couple of fun features that seem to be attracting attention.

We’ve added the ability for Hschooler members to create simple, one question polls. When their friends answer the poll, the results are displayed as a pie chart. Each member can create two polls for free and can take as many as they like. To create more than two polls costs 50 Tuits per poll.

Some of the polls that members have created so far include:

• Favorite sport overall
• Favorite type of food
• Favorite NFL team
• Denomination

We’ve also made it possible for Hschooler members to create more sophisticated “fun quizzes”. These quizzes ask the participant a series of questions about themselves, and based on the answers, the quiz makes an association. You’ll see what I mean by the examples below. Each member can create one fun quiz for free and additional ones cost 100 Tuits each.

Some of the fun quizzes created so far:

• What Star Wars Planet Are You Most Like
• What Super Hero Are You Most Like?
• What animal are you?
• Which of Jesus’ apostles are you most like?

As with all features within Hschooler.net, parents with family accounts can turn this capability off for any of their family members. By default, new polls and quizzes are only visible to the friends of the member (or less if the creator chooses), and parents can also change this to allow broader or less broad visibility.

Log in to Hschooler and visit the Quiz Center (under the Tools menu) to try it out now!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth at the MPE Conference this weekend.

It was great to meet those of you who are already Hschooler members and to hear how much you love the service. It was also great to introduce hundreds of families to Hschooler and to hear their enthusiasm for how we are addressing the challenges of safely raising families in a world that is increasingly reliant on online social networks.

I hope and pray the service we are creating can be a blessing to many!

Apparently, the new interest in Hschooler.net following the MPE conference was overloading our server. We’ve just completed upgrading the hosting, increasing capacity by 50%. We’ll keep an eye on it to see if this is enough. We apologize for any problems you may have encountered today because of this capacity problem.

Friday and Saturday, April 16-17, we will be at the Midwest Parent Educators Homeschool Conference at the KCI Expo Center in Kansas City, Missouri.

If you’re in the area, come visit us in Booth #1108!

See you there!

If you look at the list of suggestions submitted by Hschooler.net members, you’ll quickly see that the most requested feature is Chat or Instant Messaging. It has been suggested by four different members.

We want you to know that we aren’t ignoring these requests.

However, there are a couple of major issues that we need to deal with before implementing Chat or IM on Hschooler.net.

The first is fairly tactical. The web, by it’s nature, is a static, page-based medium. You load a web page and it sits there waiting for you to do something. Since the web was introduced back in the early 1990s, many advances have enabled the web to become more dynamic. Flash and Javascript are probably the two most important technologies in enabling a web page to be interactive without being reloaded or without going to a different page. However, it’s tricky to implement these technologies, especially in a way that doesn’t either overload the web browser or overload the web server.

Thankfully, others have developed Chat/IM plugins for the platform we use for Hschooler.net. However, these are designed to work with newer versions of the platform than we’re currently running with Hschooler.net. I expect we’ll upgrade the platform this summer, which will allow us to try out different Chat/IM plugins and hopefully implement one that meets our needs.

The second issue is more strategic. What sets Hschooler.net apart from other online social networks is our focus on creating a safe environment that is honoring to God and is family-centered, recognizing the God-given authority of parents. As with other tools in Hschooler.net, it’s important to us to give parents the ability to set the boundaries for their family members. Some family members may not yet be ready for IM/Chat, while others clearly are and should be given significant freedom.

But with Chat and Instant Messaging, there’s more than just the trustworthiness of the family member involved. We’ve all heard horror stories of Internet chat and instant messaging problems that threaten the safety of our families. None of us at Hschooler.net want to have our service become part of another horror story. We believe that giving parents the option of complete visibility into the conversations their family members are having through Hschooler.net is an important part of maintaining our mission and our differentiation.

That means that, once we find an existing package that provides the functionality that we think our users want, we will still need to invest significant development time into making our Chat/IM implementation Hschooler-ready.

In the meantime, we appreciate your patience! Please continue to send us your feedback, suggestions, and ideas.

There’s a new book out that you may find interesting. Windows PCs in the Ministry by Steve Hewitt (Thomas Nelson, 2010) starts with this description: “This book will present a variety of ways to use technology to enhance and expand ministry using Windows programs and Internet services.” And that it does - the Table of Contents alone is 5 pages long! I know Steve as the editor of Christian Computing World, which I’ve been reading off and on for almost 20 years, and have been contributing to for the past year.

But the real reason for this post is to celebrate what Steve has to say about Hschooler.net in the book.

Pages 78 - 119 deal with social networking, so it is a major theme in the book. Steve starts the section by saying “Social networking has established a strong foothold in our society, and one that will undoubtedly continue to grow.” The first subsection is “Problems, Concerns and Warnings” setting the tone for much of the chapter. Steve delves into major social networking services including MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. He describes the ways in which these popular services can be used for evangelism and for connecting with other believers. He also deals with the concerns and issues with each. He also provides an entire section on “How Can I Protect My Children on Social Networking Sites?” This is a great resource for parents!

Next, Steve delves into “Christian Alternatives for Social Networking” providing profiles of nine different Christian social networking services. He closes this section with a subsection titled “Warning to Parents” which starts this way: “If the purpose of allowing your children to use a Christian social networking site instead of Facebook is for security, you need to give this some thought. On many of the sites I visited, I found less security than on Facebook.”

The very next subsection is “One Christian Social Networking Site Gets Two Thumbs Up.” Guess who he’s talking about… Yep, Hschooler.net.

“After expressing my concerns about security for young people using social networking sites, even Christian social networking sites, I can recommend one site for those that want a site centered on security and safety for their family.”

Thanks Steve!

I hope and pray that we can continue to improve our service’s ability to meet the unique needs of Christian families.

Recently, I’ve subscribed to newsfeeds from Crosswalk. Jim Liebelt in particular has written some really interesting articles, especially for parents who care about the impact of the Internet on their families. I thought I’d point you to a few of them:

• Jim observed that it’s a “Good Idea to Limit Kids’ Media Screen time“
• Jim also observed that “Video Games Tied to Aggression“
• He reported that “Facebook Users Average 7 Hours a Month“
• And “Tech-savvy ‘iGeneration’ Kids Multi-task, Connect“
• Jim also shared that “Teen Blogging Declines While Popularity of Social Media Sites Increases“
• And to cap it all off: “Teens Do Better With Parents Who Set Limits“

I look forward to continuing to keep up with Jim’s observations on media and our kids.

We’ve added a new feature to Hschooler.net - the ability to create photo albums and upload photos to share with your friends!

While this is an exciting new feature that we expect to be very popular, we also realize that photos are a sensitive type of content. Parents are rightfully concerned about both whether their kids are uploading unsafe pictures (e.g. pictures that expose too much personal information or pictures that are embarrassing to the kids or their friends) and whether their kids are viewing pictures with inappropriate content. Given that our focus at Hschooler is creating a fun and safe environment that recognizes the God-given authority of parents, before introducing Photos, we knew we had to build in safeguards for this feature.

To address the first concern (kids uploading pictures), Photos is a feature that must be enabled by parents. Until it is enabled, a user can’t upload any photos. That means that the Photos feature is only available to members that have upgraded to a Family account. We believe that’s the right decision for creating a safe environment. By the way, as with all tools in Hschooler, parents can set boundaries for how broadly their family members can share Photos. A parent might decide that a younger child should only share photos with family members until she can demonstrate that she’s using good discretion.

To address the second concern (what kids can see), parents can also set boundaries for whose photos each family member can see. For example, a parent might set the boundary so that a student can see photos from “trusted friends” but not “all friends”. (By the way, if you ever see any inappropriate content in Hschooler, please click the “Report this” link in the top left corner of most windows in Hschooler.net.)

Every member that has Photos enabled gets 10MB of free storage for photos. We encourage members to set their digital camera to take lower resolution photos, or use a photo editing tool (like Photoshop or Paint.net) to reduce the resolution so that they can store dozens of photos in that 10MB. Once the first 10MB are filled with photos, additional storage can be purchased with Tuits - the virtual currency within Hschooler.net.

Check out the video tutorial for Enabling and Managing Photos and the video tutorial for using Photos.