Stop Stabbing, Start Sharpening

by Edie Melson in Leading Hearts magazine

IN SOCIAL MEDIA TERMS, IT’S A VOLATILE WORLD OUT THERE.

So often, what’s posted online seems more focused on stabbing and wounding than on encouraging and sharpening. Part of that is due to the medium.

Almost 100 percent of the time, online interaction lacks the warmth of a real-time, human connection. It’s an impersonal — anonymous — medium. While we may call those we connect with “friends,” many of them are just faceless names.

When we’re speaking online, it’s far too easy to be so focused on what we want to share that we forget the individual — hurting — hearts of those we’re communicating with.

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Edie Melson: Why You Shouldn’t Get Caught Up in Your Social Media Numbers

by Edie Melson in Leading Hearts Magazine

One of the most significant issues we have is a tendency to approach online reach with a have-to-do, legalistic mindset. Truthfully, because successful social media is all about relationship building, it works best when we treat it as an exercise in faith.

When we get caught up in numbers and percentages, we lose our way. 

Instead, we must remember that those we interact with are not numbers; they’re people.

If we begin to judge our effectiveness, the worth of what we have to say, by numbers, we’ve lost our way.

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Edie Melson Shares the Best Excuse for Saying “NO”

By Edie Melson @ediemelson in the Summer 2019 issue of Leading Hearts Magazine

No, not no to God. But in my years of ministry, I’ve discovered the need to safeguard my time and energy. I’ve also come to realize that can’t be done without learning how to say no.

We all only have so much time in a day. And if you’re like me, life is filled to overflowing. So that means constantly guarding our priorities.

There are a couple of areas where I’ve had to develop discipline in this regard.

NO to the Good Things to Leave Room for the God Things

I’m bad about seeing a need and equating that with a call to serve. The truth is, God doesn’t call me to fill every ministry hole. He has specific things He wants me to do at specific times in my life.

If I say yes to every opportunity I come across, then God can’t use me in the ways He has planned.

To help me evaluate what to become involved with, I’ve developed a few steps I go through before I say yes.

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A Word that Fills My Online Presence with God

by Edie Melson@EdieMelson  in Leading Hearts Magazine

SOMETIMES, ONLINE INTERACTIONS CAN SEEM LIKE AN ENDEAVOR WITHOUT BOUNDARIES. And I’m a person who appreciates boundaries. With them, I’m not hampered by limitations; instead, I find they give my life definition. Choosing a word of the year helps me let God define my year before it even begins.

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10 Easy Steps to Improve Your Social Media Network

When I teach social media, I encourage people to relax and not take on too much at once. So, let’s back up and start with the basics. Because social media can reach millions, it’s way too easy to think of it as mass marketing. In reality, it’s about one-on-one relationships. And that involves building a connected social media prescence.
Here are 10 Tips to Build Solid Social Media Relationships

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