We are in our series entitled Faith for Finances. Today, we are discussing, Faith for Finances: It’s Time for a Paradigm Shift. Glory to God.A paradigm shift has to do with mindset. A paradigm shift is a radical change in underlying belief or theory. That’s the definition: a radical change in underlying belief or theory.As we discussed previously, we do the things we do because of how our thinking has been shaped. Our thinking has been shaped by authority figures, their words and their opinions of us and also, by our social environment. Our social environment would be who we let speak into our lives from our peer groups or our co-workers or church members, etc. Our thinking comes from repetitious information received over time. Whatever you continually feed upon, that’s what grows. So, we have to watch what we let go into our “eyegates” and our “eargates.” For example, we can’t look at everything on TV and think it won’t have an effect on us. We also have to watch what we allow to come out of our mouths. We have to always measure against the Word of God as to what is true or false and then handle it accordingly. We drop it if it’s false, we keep it if it’s true. Finally, our thoughts are shaped by our life experiences. So, whatever life experiences that you have that correspond to the stuff that you’ve been hearing repetitively, you tend to go along with. For example, if you’ve been taught that all short people are mean and you meet a short person and they’re mean to you, you tend to believe what you’ve been taught. However, the question that we have to ask ourselves is, “Who told you?” Who told you what you think about yourself or what you think about a particular situation that you’re in? Then we ask, “What was their motive?” Why did they tell that to you? Would they benefit from it in some way? Finally, we ask, “Did they tell you the truth?” Some authority figures tell us great things. Some things that they told us were with a good motive and were the truth. However, some things we’ve been told were self-serving lies. We have to always test what we’ve been told, and consequently believe, against the Word of God.Our core scriptures for this lesson are 3 John 2 and Joshua 1:8:”Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” 3 John 2″This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Joshua 1:8So, we have to meditate on the Word of God and we have to make our own way prosperous. It’s not just going to happen. A lot of people are just super lazy. They think that blessings are just going to fall on them from out of the sky and that they don’t have to do anything to get them. However, the Bible says we make our own way prosperous. We follow God, we meditate on His Word and then He instructs us. He tells us things to do, we go about and we do those things, and the next thing you know, we’re prosperous. Also, because we’re doing it God’s way, we have good success. We don’t have all that hullaballoo that the world has… messing up their peace… can’t sleep at night. I remember Deion Sanders saying how he had the best bed money could buy, yet couldn’t get any rest. Before he knew Jesus, he would lie in that expensive bed, but get no rest. Without Jesus, you can have success, but it won’t be good success. It will have sorrow with it. Godly success is accompanied by peace. As we’ve seen on bumper stickers, “No Jesus = No Peace. Know Jesus = Know Peace.” When we follow after His principles, we have peace along with our progress. We have good success.So, it’s time for a paradigm shift.Romans 12:2 says,”And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”We don’t listen to the world. We are not to be conformed to this world. The prefix “con” here means “with,” so you’re being formed with the world, in line with the world. We’re not to do that. We’re not to be conformed to this world, but transformed. The prefix “trans” means “across” so you’re going away from what they’re doing. You’re not lining up with them, you’re going across. You’re getting away from them. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You have to renew your mind. You’ve got some junk in there that does not belong, it doesn’t line up with the Word of God. “Pre-Christ” in your life, you got some stuff in there that you gotta get rid of. Specifically, with regards to faith for finances, the majority of the world is not financially secure. I think everyone would agree with that. A statistic that I’ve heard, and I’m not sure if this is correct, but a statistic that I heard is that 98% of the population is either dead or dead broke by the age of 65. I’m hoping that it’s not 98%, because that is a huge, huge number. There’s only 2% left. However, whether 98% is accurate or not, we do know that the majority of people fall into the category of being dead or dead broke by 65. We don’t want to be a part of that number, whatever it is. We don’t want to be conformed to the world’s way of doing things, because we don’t want to be dead or dead broke by the age of 65. We want to be in that 2% or in the minority that are doing things God’s way and walking in the blessing of God. So be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. What we need is a transformation in our decision-making process. We need to make decisions based on God’s Word and not on anything else. That’s what we need to fix: how we come to the decisions that we make, how we make choices. We need to obey God and we have to change the way we think on purpose. It’s not going to be an automatic thing. We have to re-learn some things. We have to purposely take out the junk and put in something that is good. It’s a purposeful action; it’s not something you do half-asleep. You have to be mindful of what you’re doing. I was listening to a sermon recently and the pastor was talking about this replacement principle. He spoke about how a lot of people just want to be good in life and they say, “God, make me good. Take away the bad stuff.” However, it’s not that simple. He explained that we can’t just expect God to take something out. We have to replace it with something else. He used an illustration where he had a container with some liquid in it and he began to put rocks into the container in order that the liquid would come out and roll over onto the sides of the container. As I watched this illustration, I realized that we have to put in something heavier than what is already inside our containers. In science, we learn about displacement, which is required for this replacement to occur. In this example, when the heavy rocks were placed into the container, the liquid was no longer in place. It was displaced by the rock. The liquid in this case would be the bad thing and the rock would be the good thing. So you get rid of the bad thing by displacing it, by putting something into your container that’s heavier than what’s already inside. I hear the Holy Spirit saying, “This Rock is Jesus!” Hallelujah! God’s Word, praise God, is heavier than any of the junk that the world has used to shape our thinking and it can displace it! That’s good news.We can change. We just have to make sure that we’re willing to do it on purpose.Isaiah 55:7-8 says,”Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.”We have to forsake our ways, just like the wicked must forsake his way. We have to forsake what our flesh thinks is right and what our so-called friends think is right. We have to forsake it. If it’s not lining up with the Word – that’s the measuring stick – if it doesn’t line up with God’s Word, we gotta junk it. We gotta get rid of it. So, we need to forsake that, forsake the unrighteous thoughts, and return to the Lord, who will have mercy and who will abundantly pardon. We, also, need to adopt God’s thinking process, His decision-making process. His thoughts are not our thoughts. We have to take on His thoughts. His ways are not our ways. We have to take on His ways.2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says,”For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”A stronghold actually could be a good thing if you have the right stronghold in place. A stronghold is a mental thought pattern; it’s a way that you think about things. That’s a stronghold. It’s what’s deep down inside of you. It’s what you hold to. It’s your default. Those are strongholds. So, again, some are good, some are bad. The bad ones are the ones contrary to God’s will. So, we have to cast them down. We cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.Romans 7:22-25 also illustrates that we need to follow God’s order. In this passage it says:”For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”Then in Ephesians 4:23-24, it says,”And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”So, you may be thinking, “What does all this have to do with faith for finances?” Everything. The mind is the battleground where the devil will send defeating thoughts to us. Our thinking controls our actions. If we meditate on what the devil has told us, we will then act on it and bring about failure. We must renew our minds with the Word of God. We must have a paradigm shift to the Word of God.We’ll pick up here on next time and then move onto the how-to of this series.God bless you and until next time, this has been Patricia, walking through the scriptures with you.

Once the app is downloaded, you have little time to take a sigh of relief, and then again start focusing on making things easier for the them till their goal is achieved.

According to the AppsFlyer, an app marketing company, the global uninstall rate for apps after 30 days is 28%. Entertainment apps are most frequently deleted, whereas apps based on Finance is least frequently deleted. No matter which app category you belong to, your strategy should be to remain in the mobile phones of users for a long time, and not just sit around but to fulfill your purpose as well.

If we analyze the encounters of users with an app step by step, it can help us unveil the critical factors that influence mobile app audiences, so that we can work upon those and achieve our purpose. Here are the details:

Step1. Finding Your App in Appstore

For this, we have to first find out what exactly users type to search an app. Based on a research, it has been found that 47% app users on iOS confirmed that they found the app through the App Store’s search engine and 53% app users on Android confirmed the same.

What have been their search queries? Interestingly, as the per the data provided by the TUNE research, 86% of the top 100 keywords were brands.With little scope for non-branded categories, most of the keywords were either of games of utility apps. Common keywords in the non branded category are: games, free games, VPN, calculator, music, photo editor, and weather.

Leaving brands aside, if we analyze the user-type of a Non-branded category, we will get two types of users:

1. Users are informed, and they know what they are search

2. Users are exploring possibilities, have no precise information in mind.

If you are a mobile app development company, targeting non-branded users, then your efforts must be directed to creating apps that compel these two types of users. To do so, we have to analyze once they are on an app store, what keywords they use to search. Regina Leuwer, with expertise in marketing & communications, bring some light to the subject. She reached out Sebastian Knopp, creator of app store search intelligence tool appkeywords, who shared with her the data of unique trending search phrases. And according to that data, in 2017, there were around 2,455 unique search phrases trending in the US.

Now, if we study these data to get information, we will find that name of the app is critical to attract the attention of the users.

If your app belongs to non-branded category, then make sure your app name is similar to the common search queries but also unique in comparison with your competitors. So that when your app name is flashed, they click it on to it, finding it purposeful and compelling both.

Step 2. Installation

Remember your users are on mobile devices has limited resources, from battery to storage and RAM to Internet. Everything is limited. So better create an application that is easy to download or say get downloaded with 5 minutes. One critical advice here:

1. Keep the application file size small.

If you are a developer, use APK Analyser to find out which part of the application is consuming maximum space. You can also reduce classes.dex file and res folder that contains images, raw files, and XML.

Step 3. Onboarding

After the user has successfully downloaded your mobile application, don’t leave anything on assumptions. Guide them properly. This you can do through an onboarding process, where users can learn the key functionality and where to begin with the mobile app. Below are the 3 things you need to keep in your mind when creating an onboarding process for your users.

Short and Crisp: The entire guidance of features and functions should be completed within few seconds, with easy options loud and clear option to skip.

Precise Information: Don’t introduce them to the app. They already know what they have downloaded. The objective to inform about the key functions and features.

Allow Users to Skip: Let the tech-savvy users skip the intro. Your app is to meet their requirement and not to have a friendly session.

Step 4. Purpose and UI
Here, the stage is set for your app and it is the golden chance for you to impress your users. What is needed here is the collaboration between purpose and UI of the app. It totally depends on the problem-solving capability and ease of use of the mobile app. Interface design plays the critical role, allowing the users to access features of the apps easily and quickly to perform the task for what they have downloaded the app. When it comes to interface design, make sure that the design is interactive and task-oriented. Here are some factors that you must take care off while creating mobile app interface:

1. Usability: The Mobile phone is an epitome of convenience and if your users find it difficult to use your app, then there is no way there are going to make the space for it in their mobile phones. From screen size to the color of the app, there are many factors that are equally critical and need attention.

2. Intuitive: To create an intuitive User Interface, you have to read the mind of the users, and develop a model based on that. The next should be precise, clear and ‘obvious’ in an interface.

3. Availability: Key features should be hidden in the drop down menu or even if so, it should be obvious for the user to look into the drop-down. An intricate work of design and research is required to make essential features available for the customers and they don’t need to navigate here and there.

If you need more help with the user-interface and innovative ideas for a mobile app, write to me [email protected] and I promise to get back to you with interesting mobile app designs.