A major driver of prosperity in any neighborhood is a vibrant core of small businesses.

Small businesses offer a range of benefits. For example, business owners often know their customers because they’re neighbors. The presence of small businesses such as a coffee-and-donuts spot or a hardware store creates foot traffic in an empty strip mall that would be empty otherwise. A collection of small businesses in a community also draws the attention of larger franchises or industries.

As the nation commemorates National Small Business Week, business owners and communities can make a point celebrating the continued possibilities small businesses offer such as innovation and economic growth. Businesses help communities sustain themselves by working alongside leaders working to increase or revive a neighborhood’s economic health.

Small businesses contribute to the tax base and invest in community projects like sports teams and nonprofit fundraisers. They also create jobs. According to the U.S. Labor Department, “more than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and they create two out of every three new jobs in the U.S. each year.”

 Getting small business to open their doors begins with cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset among young people. Programs that help entrepreneurs should be aggressively promoted and issues that cripple small businesses challenged at every opportunity. 

Small businesses typically represent the dream fulfilled for the determined entrepreneur, who envisioned a dry cleaner or a restaurant franchise, a construction company, a hair salon, a car wash, a furniture store, a pool-and-spa supplier, a car dealership, a small deli, and a host of other businesses.

At Dallas Leadership Foundation we salute the small businesses that contribute to a community. Productive, community-supporting small businesses serve among the mix of building blocks that help a neighborhood swing from lethargic and dying to thriving and booming. Shopkeep offers 10 positive ways a small business can help a community in this article.

For more information about how Dallas Leadership Foundation works with neighborhoods, go to dlftx.org.

 A photo essay on the How Housing Matters site is worth the read about how The Connection's supportive housing programin Connecticut prioritizes stable housing for families. Once a family has a place to stay, and the pressure of living in a safe place is minimized, that stability plays an essential role in helping families stay intact while moving forward economically. According to the essay:

Case managers typically work with families for 12 to 18 months, though the duration can vary. The goal is to stick with families until their DCF case is closed, they are stably housed, and they have a steady income. Housing is the first priority. Although many families have other needs—often around employment, substance abuse, or mental health—The Connection believes you can’t really focus on those other problems until you have stable housing.

 What’s happening in Connecticut should stir thought. The pressure is real for families struggling with housing needs, as bestselling author Matthew Desmond told the Dallas Morning News recently:

“You reach the point, in cities like Dallas and nationwide, where the majority of working families spend at least half their income on housing costs. About one in four of those families is spending over 70 percent of their income just on rent and utilities. That's us. That's our reality.”

Desmond is the author of “Evicted,” which won the Pulitzer Prize this year.

Nonprofits that help families obtain housing or improve their homes continue to need ongoing support because families are facing housing needs every day.

Learn how Dallas Leadership Foundation helps families improve their homes and works alongside community leaders in Dallas neighborhoods by visiting dlftx.org.

Imagine the sound. A violent earthquake announced the resurrection of the Son of God early in the morning.

“After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” (Matthew 28:1-7)

After a brutal crucifixion, Jesus rose from the dead in a glorious and mysterious work of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One of the signposts of the resurrection’s occurrence was an earthquake, a sound that rattled bodies and souls. 

The resurrection of Jesus should affect us like that way even today. Body and soul. We never heard that earthquake at His tomb in Jerusalem or saw the angel who moved the stone and sat down on it like it was a pebble.

We can still hear the voice of Jesus, though. We can still heed His voice within our hearts. Those who already have received Him by faith can hear Him and respond in obedience — whether He requires growth in our relationship with Him or urges manifesting His love by serving others.

Those who don’t know Him yet also can also heed His voice to give their lives to Him, a voice which can be a whisper to the soul or a plea heard through a friend. His voice is real when it is heard because He is the only Person on the planet who can forgive sin and give eternal life and peace.

That earthquake in Jerusalem is a part of history. But the voice of Jesus continues to speak every Resurrection Sunday and beyond as He calls men to Himself from heaven and not from the tomb.

Because He has risen. Just as He said. 

It's Good Friday, and Golgotha often is mentioned as the site of the crucifixion — that grand moment in history when the God the Father gave Jesus to bear the sins of the world so that human beings could access a relationship with God by faith. 

But how many of us know that the Bible links Golgotha to another biblical site that reveals God’s eternal, methodical steps toward the rugged cross?

According to many scholars, Golgotha and the ancient site of Mount Moriah may be the same area. In other words, scholars believe that Jesus may have been crucified near Moriah or at its summit.

Moriah is the place where 2,000 years before Jesus died, the Hebrew patriarch Abraham ascended the mountain with his son Issac. When Issac questioned his father about a sacrifice, Abraham told his son that God would provide the lamb. Abraham bound his son, the beloved heir God had promised Abraham and his wife, Sarah.

As Abraham was preparing to kill Issac, God stopped him, acknowledged Abraham’s abiding faith in Him, and gave a ram as a substitutionary sacrifice. The Book of Hebrews says that Abraham received his son back from the dead.  Abraham’s words about a lamb that God would provide, however, wouldn’t come true until thousands of years later.

God would use a lamb to speak to His future goal when He instructed Moses to institute the Feast of Passover. The enslaved Israelites sprinkled the blood of a lamb over their doors and were protected as God judged the gods of Egypt. Jews are commemorating this unforgettable deliverance by Yahweh around the world this week.

 Panoramic view of Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount), courtesy of Wikipedia.

But in Jesus -- Yeshua Ha-Mashiach -- God provided the perfect Lamb, the true Passover Lamb. The blood of Jesus frees those who believe in Him. And like Abraham and Issac, God the Father received Jesus back to Himself when He raised Jesus from the dead on Resurrection morning, which Christians will celebrate on Sunday.

Mount Moriah was also the site where David bought a threshing floor. Years later, David’s son Solomon would build the first temple to God on Moriah. Solomon’s temple was destroyed by the Babylonians and restored after the Jews were freed from Babylonian captivity. King Herod later remodeled the structure. This second temple, however, was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

During His earthly ministry, Jesus compared Himself to the temple in Jerusalem and promised that He would tear down the temple in three days and raise it again.

He did.

The site of Abraham’s obedience, the Jewish temples, and the place of Jesus’ sacrifice to redeem the world — is also the site of another event. Jewish tradition says that Mount Moriah — now known as the Temple Mount — is the site of Creation itself.

According to Hebrew for Christians, the Jewish sages believe that God created the world at Moriah, and that the “foundation stone,” the Even-ha-Shetiyah, is there. In fact, the ground itself at Moriah is where God created Adam, the sages say. This means that at the very site where the Second Adam would die for all of the sons and daughters of Adam is also the site where Adam was born.

The Bible makes it clear: Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:3).

It was an amazing citywide workday for the second annual Transform Dallas event. We served more than 15,000 people! A huge thank you to everyone who prayed, participated, and donated to the event. We also send out a thanks to all of those we we were privileged to serve. Thank you for allowing us to spend time with you on Saturday. To see more photos from the event -- like the one of two volunteers who prepared pillow dresses for missionary children -- go to our Facebook page!