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Influence: Building a Platform that Elevates Jesus (Not Me) Paperback – November 27, 2018

by Kate Motaung (Author), Shannon Popkin (Author)

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“Your platform isn’t big enough.” If you’re a writer, speaker, or ministry leader, perhaps these five words have squelched your desire to share the message burning within. In today’s digital world, speakers and writers are expected to grow their own following--or platform of influence--before gaining access to a microphone or book contract. But as a Christian, is there a way to gather followers and still follow Jesus? Is it possible to both build up your stats and take up your cross? How can you reconcile promoting yourself when you’re called to humble yourself, or elevating your name when you're commissioned to elevate Christ's? Authors Kate Motaung and Shannon Popkin know what it’s like to wrestle with these questions. In Influence: Building a Platform that Elevates Jesus (Not Me), you’re invited to a platform-building coaching session with the carpenter from Nazareth. Join Shannon and Kate in this challenge to acknowledge the tension, set aside fears, examine hidden motives, and embrace the high calling of serving Christ. By utilizing the practical tools, exercises, and discussion questions provided, you’ll emerge with new confidence, awareness, and decision-making clarity--ready to step out and shine the light of Jesus from the platform God has strategically placed beneath your feet.

Print length

168 pages
Language

English
Publication date

November 27, 2018
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.38 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

1726685799
ISBN-13

978-1726685795
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Platform is the word that makes every new speaker or writer's heart quake. (And lots of us down the road are still shaken!) Tackling everything from social media to pre-sales, Kate and Shannon look at platform-building practices with a biblical lens that will calm our trembling heart. This book helps to transfer our confidence in our messages to Christ once and for all. Influence has given us a Scriptural foundation on which our platform can be safely built."

Amy Carroll
Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker and writer, author, and Next Step Coaching Services speaking coach

Cheri Gregory
Author, speaker, and Write Beside You writing coach

"Today's author faces pressure to promote her own work. This is difficult for most writers, who'd rather craft books than sell them, and even more so for the Christian called to self-forgetfulness over self-promotion. How can we play our part in the contemporary publishing world without losing our soul?

In Influence, Kate Motaung and Shannon Popkin place platform building where it belongs--in the context of character and calling. Recounting their own failures, successes, and lessons alongside biblical insights, they help us navigate fear, comparison, and other perils while encouraging us to humbly share our gifts. This is a timely, helpful book reminding us that platforms are best built for the service of God and others."

Sheridan Voysey
Writer, broadcaster, and author of The Making of Us: Who We Can Become When Life Doesn't Go as Planned and Resurrection Year: Turning Broken Dreams into New Beginnings

"With wisdom and grace, Kate and Shannon serve as our wilderness guides, leading us through the deep valleys, treacherous terrain, and hopeful hollows we all face on the journey from fearful wanderer to front-line warrior. Real-life stories, powerful analogies, and penetrating questions energize and equip us for each new adventure while keeping our focus and priorities firmly fixed on Christ and eternal results. Read it. Share it. Live it!"
Marnie Swedberg
International Leadership Mentor, Marnie.com

"Influence is a book I didn't know I needed until I read it. Kate and Shannon give permission to use our gifts for God's glory and then show us how to focus on making a name for Jesus instead of making a name for ourselves. The authors exposed my pride, fear, and selfish motives, but through their wise mentoring and refreshing honesty, I'm emboldened to step into my calling as a woman of influence."

Leslie Bennett
Revive Our Hearts, Women's Ministry Initiatives

"Influence is a much-needed resource for authors who want to steward their God-given message with prayer, impact, and purpose. In my work with hundreds of Christian authors and publishers, their main focus remains constant: They each desire to share the Gospel in a way that honors God first and foremost over themselves.

Often the business side of marketing and selling books can create a real tension in this space between stewarding a message well and self-promotion. What I love most about Influence is that it offers a sigh of relief along with a balanced approach on how to address this tension with grace and confidence."

Lindsey Hartz
Marketing and Launch Consultant for Christian Authors and Publishers at Lindsey Hartz Creative

"Influence is the book every Christian needs who influences or communicates through writing, speaking, or a social media platform. Shannon and Kate's honest, biblical, and refreshing perspective on the industry provides a professional compass for both new and seasoned writers and speakers. Their message reflects my own passion and struggle with ministry and marketing. Their book lets you know you're not alone in those feelings and provides a practical, biblical roadmap to share your message in today's generation. Influence is something I will read again and will share with those I coach and teach!"

Brenda L. Yoder, LMHC
Influencer and author of Fledge: Launching Your Kids Without Losing Your Mind

About the Author

Shannon Popkin loves to invite women to live like God's Word is true. She is a wife and mom, a speaker and teacher, and a leader of small group studies. As a writer and speaker, Shannon combines her love for humor and storytelling with her passion for Jesus.

Shannon is from West Michigan and is happy to be sharing life with Ken, who makes her laugh every single day. Together, they have the joy of parenting two college students, a high schooler, and two adorable shih tzus. Find more at shannonpopkin.com.

Kate Motaung is the author of A Place to Land: A Story of Longing and Belonging, Letters to Grief, The Five-Minute Writing Prompt Journal, The 31-Day Writing Prompt Journal, The 90-Day Writing Prompt Journal, and A Start-Up Guide for Online Christian Writers, and Letters to Grief, and co-author of Influence: Building a Platform that Elevates Jesus (Not Me).

She is the host of Five Minute Friday (fiveminutefriday.com), an online community that encourages and equips Christian writers, and she blogs at Heading Home (katemotaung.com). Kate is the owner of Refine Services (refineservices.com), a company that offers writing and editing services.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (November 27, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 168 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1726685799
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1726685795
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.38 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,227,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,350 in Christian Business & Professional Growth
- #3,007 in Book Publishing Reference

Customer Reviews:
88 ratings

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Kate Motaung
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Kate is the author of A Place to Land: A Story of Longing and Belonging, Letters to Grief, The Five-Minute Writing Prompt Journal, The 31-Day Writing Prompt Journal, The 90-Day Writing Prompt Journal, and A Start-Up Guide for Online Christian Writers, and co-author of Influence: Building a Platform that Elevates Jesus (Not Me).
She is the host of Five Minute Friday (fiveminutefriday.com), an online community that encourages and equips Christian writers, and she blogs at Heading Home (katemotaung.com). Kate is the owner of Refine Services (refineservices.com), a company that offers writing and editing services.
Kate has degree in Bible, theology, and cross-cultural missions from Kuyper College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and an Honours degree from the Bible Institute of South Africa. She loves writing creative nonfiction and memoir. Kate and her South African husband have three children.
See more on the author's page
Shannon Popkin
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Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Shannon Popkin loves to invite women to live like God's Word is true.
She is a wife and mom, a speaker and teacher, and a leader of small group studies. As a writer and speaker, Shannon combines her love for humor and storytelling with her passion for Jesus.
Shannon is from west Michigan and is happy to be sharing life with Ken, who makes her laugh every day. Together they have the joy of watching their three young-adult children become the amazing people God created them to be. They also love hanging out with their two adorable shih tzus, who (unlike the kids) have no plans of moving out.
Find more at www.shannonpopkin.com.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5

88 global ratings

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Lila

A Good Place to Start for Beginners, but not practical for everyone else

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 12, 2023

Verified Purchase

This wasn't what I expected. I was hoping for more practicality on how to build a platform that elevates Jesus, maybe kinds of posts or frequency of posts or something. But this is 12 chapters of pretty much the same thing: mindset about humility and reminders that God will bring your audience anyway. The very Calvinistic tendency overshadowed the message and left me with the questions I brought into it about how to handle a platform. The discussion questions at the end of the book were the most helpful part, in my opinion. But they really forced me to come up with my own answers, something I could have done without the book anyway.

I would recommend this book for a very small and specific audience -- for beginning Christian writers and speakers who have already honed in on a specific message that they want to convey but haven't really started building their platforms yet.

Since I have been trying to build a platform for 6 years now, this wasn't super helpful to me, although a good reminder (but I didn't need 12 chapters to remind me -- a blog post or an email would have been a more preferable format).

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JS Loso

Don't be overwhelmed- dive into this book and put it into action step by step.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 7, 2022

Verified Purchase

I finally got around to buying and reading this book and it was all in God's perfect timing, of course! I am active in my writing and in the process of building my audience and determining how to do just that. It makes me wish I was writing before the internet and didn't have to navigate the crazy world of today.
Tap in Kate and Shannon to help readers focus on what is most important and understand that you can grow an audience while honoring God! These women share their first hand experiences of transforming an idea into a fully published book with the chaos of family, unpredictable changes as the book is birthed into the world, and the plethora of ever-changing emotions throughout the whole process. At the back of the book you will find questions for each chapter to help you apply this information to your current writing/influencing journey. This can be used individually or within a group.

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Shelley Singh

Resource for Christian writers and speakers

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 13, 2022

Verified Purchase

Learning to build a ministry or writing platform for a Christian communicator comes with unique elements. This study examines how to confidently embrace the calling for your life in building a platform to elevate the name of Christ, rather than a self focused platform.

This book will edify you by preparing you for a position to serve and build upon a solid foundation by being faithful in your calling and stewarding your gifts with grace in truth.

A great resource to build your ministry on humility and service.

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kim ball

I'm going to read this again each year!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 1, 2020

Verified Purchase

The book, Influence gave me insight and encouragement for using my influence for God's purposes and never for my own. I purchased the book at last year's Speak Up Conference for Christian speakers and writers after speaking to the author Shannon Popkin. She kindly discussed the purpose of the book with me and her and co-author Kate Motaung's intent for writing that Jesus always be the one that is elevated. I plan to use this book to refer back to in regularity so that I can remember my purpose in ministry is to influence others for Jesus. It is never about me. If we are ever elevated in our ministry, it is only so that the Christian speaker or writer can see the needs. The analogy of a lifeguard at the beach was used to demonstrate the need for a lifeguard to sit in an elevated chair to see the swimmers in the water and intervene and give guidance and help to those that are "spotted". I actually read this book within 2 days of buying it, underlining and marking numerous passages throughout. I want to continually remember my proper place in ministry and Jesus' place and not confuse it at any time. This book will help me to point people to Jesus and never to myself. I immediately bought this book for another friend in ministry and feel it would be a great gift for any Christian leader to constantly remember the reason for our influence and the proper way to view any platform we might have.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 25, 2021

Verified Purchase

“Influence: Building a Platform That Elevates Jesus (Not Me)” by Kate Motaung and Shannon Popkin is nothing like I expected. I was ready to dive into a plan to expand my platform as an author. However, it was an excellent book on how whatever we are doing for the Lord it must elevate Him and not ourselves.

This is hard to do but it reminds me of why I do what I do for the Lord. No matter how many social media posts, blogs written, advertisement paid for, speeches made, interviews done or whatever is used to market what He has me to write, it all depends on Him not me. In His timing and in His way the work I do for Him will reach those who need it.

Any Christian in business or ministry must read this book. Anyone who is walking with the Lord must read this book. Everything we do in this world must be all for God’s glory as we live His schedule and pray Big!

Let us “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6.

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Cynthia K DeBoer

The best book I've read on platform-building to date!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 28, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book was like drinking 10 Red Bull's for me. The jolt of energy it gave me was exactly what I needed to push forward in my platform building. I love to write. I have a book and want a book deal, but hate, let me repeat - HATE! - platform building! I just can't get past the feelings of self-promotion and egocentricism so I stop after the writing process and secretly hope some publishing fairy or computer hacker will stumble upon my private works of art and publish them FOR me!!!. That is, until I read "Influence." I suddenly realized I had it all wrong. Through memorable and applicable analogies, both Kate and Shannon posit very convincingly that it is actually God's desire for Christian writer's to put forth their best effort in platform building in order to best serve our readers. I have devoured so many books on HOW to build a platform, that I had completely missed the WHY. This book is an absolute necessity for every Christian writer who wants to maintain humility in an indurstry that insists on building bigger and better platforms. It changed my views on the matter entirely. I am SO glad I read this when I did! Thank you Kate and Shannon!

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