Vision Vitamins

By Charles Scott
Don't spend most of your time on the voices that don't count. Tune out the shallow voices so that you will have more time to tune in the valuable ones.
- Jim Rohn

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Everything depends upon execution; having just a vision is no solution.
- Stephen Sondheim

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There is nothing so fatal to character as half finished tasks.
- David Lloyd George

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News and Trends from Mission America:

Church Affilitations
Baylor University researchers found that only 10.8% of Americans have no ties to a congregation, denomination or faith group. Previous surveys had put that figure at 14%, overlooking about 10 million people involved in some form of organized religion. Other surveys have also overlooked millions of evangelicals, because respondents who belonged to nondenominational groups or
mega-churches often report they had no denomination and were wrongly counted as unaffiliated. 33% of Americans are evangelical Protestant, just under 25% are mainline Protestant, 20% are Roman Catholic and 5% are black Protestant. 2.5% are Jewish and 5% belong to other faiths. The rest, though not involved in religious groups, are not fully secular. 60% of the unaffiliated believe in God or a higher power, and 33% pray at least occasionally. 11% believe Jesus is the Son of God. (The Globe and Mail 9/11/06)

Hispanics
There are now 44 million U.S. Hispanics (15% of the population) with an estimated spending power of $1.2 trillion. Nearly 4 million have annual incomes of $75,000 or above, per the U.S. Census Bureau. (Brandweek 7/14/08)

• People now give less than 2-3% of their income to charitable causes. It was 3% during Great Depression.
• The most recent Barna research shows only 5% of Christians are tithing.
• Megachurches make up less than 1% of the total number of U.S. congregations.