You can watch it on KATU’s website. Austin wears the #10, and his television debut is 30 seconds before the end of the eight minute segment.

I welcome the opportunity to do some freelance work for your team at Answers in Genesis.

My 2005 attempt to join the team may be seven years out of date (we shut down the toll free number for example) but the PORTFOLIO tab can still give you a good idea of my skill set. Screens were smaller in ’05 so you may need to un-max your browser window for the swf to snap back to 1:1.

Here are a few of the websites I’ve put together. In each case I designed the graphics, templates, and navigation for the site. I either built the site myself or led the team that put it together. I programmed all of the FLASH elements you will see, took many of the photos and optimized all of the designs for fast download times.

• Steffen Systems ($8,000 product information site)
• The Bale Handler ($1,500 added to above)
• Sawyer Power Tag ($2,600)
• Balladeer Productions (our failed start-up with Paul Varnum)

Those realize these sites were all built with Dreamweaver using HTML on Tables… which among web developers is like pulling into the gas station riding your dinosaur… I have built a couple of WordPress sites… for comparison

• Clear & Practical Accounting ($1500 basic WordPress with custom graphics)
• Pirates & Pixies Photography ($3100 WordPress with Photography Galleries, PayPal integration, and client ‘how-to’ training)
• Shieldwrap: mobile shrink wrap (a site for my brother James)

This is James’ last few days at Answers, so “Let’s talk!” I have my cell phone with me (503.302.8875) and if we’re both at our workstations my skype ID is Thomas Jeffrey Steffen. Email still works too: Tom@SteffenGroup.com.

James called me at 12:30, I scavenged my server, created the new jpg, wrote, edited and tested the links in this post and had it live at 1:05… 35 minutes

As the chief accountant for the firm or organization, the CFO institutes and operates a system of accounts and external financial reports, preparing and filing tax returns, countersigning checks, and preparing and implementing the budget.

Internal cost accounting, data processing systems and procedures, acquisitions analysis, and financial planning, internal audit responsibilities and the receipt, custody, investment, and disbursement of corporate funds are all essential functions that require an experienced accountant to keep your growing business profitable.

Why would I consider a virtual CFO?
Many small businesses cannot afford their own full time financial officer. This work gets left to the owner, who usually works longer hours than any of their employees! The “tyranny of the urgent” often pushes these financial tasks deeper and deeper down the busy entrepreneur’s to-do list.

I would be honored to serve as your part-time CFO. I enjoy helping businesses succeed. You’ll get the benefits of my experience without adding the expense of a full-time salary. To learn more just call the office (503-873-3663) or send me an email.

When you borrow money, the fruit of your labor builds the lender’s wealth, rather than your own. Our culture used to consider this a curse. Now we’ve simply changed the vocabulary and grown comfortable with our chains.

“So now today we are slaves here in the land of plenty that You gave to our ancestors! We are slaves among all this abundance!” Nehemiah 9:36

At Steffen Group, we always encourage taking aggressive steps for freedom. IF incurring short term debt is warranted, we recommend doing so with your eyes wide open. ‘Call a spade a spade’.

Seven Year Mortgages

Prior to World War II, banks did not offer mortgages with a term longer than seven years. Why? Consider this: $100,000 borrowed at 8% for 30 years costs $264,155. On thirty-year plans, borrowers pay nearly three times what they borrow. Imagine what the yield could be if that $164,000 were invested!

Be Your Own Bank!

Live Below Your Means. Take a longer view. One generation, willing to work hard and save can build lasting wealth. Imagine being free to give help, time and resources to your family and community. Imagine providing homes for your grand-children with interest free loans. When you’re not in debt, you have freedom.

“The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.” Proverbs 22:7

The Proof Is In The Figgy Pudding
At Steffen Group, work is measured by what it actually produces; we call it fruit. Fruitful work produces more than it consumes. Measuring fruit instead of potential is an essential part of marshaling. It affects how we bill you, how we advise you, and how we compensate our team.

Growing Fruity People
Recognize potential. Train potential. Marshall potential. Reward results. Remember “He who is faithful in little, will be faithful in much.” Our goal is to help our clients, our staff, and ourselves increase the ability to manage time, resources and relationships. Do you want more? Take care of what you have. Once you prove fruitful with what you’ve been given, you’re ready for more.

“All hard work brings profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”

Proverbs 14:23

People are important. The only thing more important is God Himself. (see Matthew 22:36-40) Therefore our relationships trump nearly all other concerns. We are all designed to reflect God in the way we relate to others.

So what does this mean in business?

1. No client is merely ‘warm market’. No employee is merely a human resource. Whether we’re having a good day or a bad day, we strive to treat each person not as an animal or a competitor but as an image bearer of the Creator. Not because they are important and precious to us… but because our Creator has placed infinite value on each life.

2. We don’t go ‘head-hunting’ to hire talent. We grow the leaders we need. God has blessed us so that we might bless others. So we seek to bring life, health and increase, building bridges for those who come after us. We train up our replacements. We mentor. We disciple. We live out a good pattern that others can imitate.

Does the question sound strange? In a culture addicted to immediate gratification, we’re here with a reminder that – a five year plan is not a long term plan. European cathedrals were built by generations of workers sharing a common vision. Knowing it would take decades to complete, they planted forests so their grandchildren would have wood for beams and furnishings. Now that’s long term planning.

Real Wealth Endures.

Wealth means much more than a fat bank account. Wealth is a legacy of resources, skills and relationships. Do you want to build real wealth? Plan with three generations in view. Take time to work in a way that passes on your methods as well as your results. Do things today that will still bear fruit 60 years from now.

The Wise Know The Whys

Know why you work. Tell why you work. Be explicit. This is an essential element in generational planning. Quarrying stone, carving gargoyles, and crafting stained class are all honorable vocations; but a single generation that looses the vision can consume the wealth that could have been a cathedral.

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, old and gray;
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must past this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide -
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”

The Bridge Builder
Will Allen Dromgoole

I believe in God, the Father Almighty
Creator of Heaven and Earth

I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord
conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
born of the virgin Mary
suffered under Pontius Pilate
crucified
died and
was buried
On the third day
He rose again,
in accordance with the Scriptures,
He ascended into heaven
Is seated at the right hand of God the Father
Will come again to judge the living and the dead

I believe in the Holy Spirit
the holy, catholic Church
the communion of saints
the forgiveness of sins
and the Life, everlasting. Amen

Known as the Apostles’ Creed because of its great antiquity and faithful summary of doctrines taught in the Bible, this creed emphasizes verbs – because our Creator acts in history.

At the time this creed was first written, Gnostics, Marcionites (and later Manicheans) were claiming that Jesus was not truly human. They denied Jesus had an actual physical body, becuase they though spiritual things were too sacred to touch filthy, sinful matter.  Christians know God created everything, so matter is not inherently evil.

We also cherish the Nicene Creed, written in 381 AD at Constantinople, it emphatically affirms the Deity of Christ, since the Arians denied Christ was fully God.

1. God is real (whether we acknowledge Him or not).
2. He has revealed Himself.

This is why we call the most printed, most read and most ignored book in history “God’s Word.” In its pages we find much more than stunningly accurate ancient history; much more than deeply moving poetry; much more than a moral code or the foundations of Western jurisprudence… we find our Creator, Provider, Lawgiver, Judge, King, Savior and Friend – Jesus.

Despite the protests of The Jesus Seminar, Islam and The Later Day Saints, we have become convinced that the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments have been accurately translated and transmitted down through the generations. Far from wishful thinking, mindless clinging or fear of a meaningless cosmos, ours is a rigorous conviction based upon compelling evidence and direct experience.

We agree with Martin Luther, the law student turned monk, that:

Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.

To the intolerant who want to label us as ‘narrow-minded, right-wing, homophobic, Bible-thumpers, we offer this thought:

Biblical balance is more practical than pragmatism; more thoughtful than rationalism; more experienced than existentialism and more romantic than sentimentalism. It is more stable than conservatism and more progressive than liberalism.

George Grant, The Micah Mandate