The PF Women Team at our Annual Team Retreat ~ 2018 Today on Seth Godin's blog, he said: It's tempting to decide to make a profit first, then invest in training, people, facilities, promotion, customer service and most of all, doing important work. In general, though, it goes the other way. Yes, it does. If you are waiting to make a profit before you do these things, in my experience you're not going to make a profit. So many organizations, ministries and churches are struggling with financial issues. I know your pain. As anyone who follows our story knows, our ministry was in a ton of debt four years ago when I came on as director. Since that time, we've gotten out of debt and turned a profit every year. God has done amazing things through out team, for which we give Him the glory! I find that what Seth is saying here is absolutely true, with one disclaimer. For Christian leaders, spiritual disciplines must always be first. Before we started i...
Yesterday afternoon I met my friends, Sharon Kiser (author/speaker) and Pastor Sheri Hawley (co-pastor, Garden Grove A/G) for lunch at the Empress Tea Room here in Tampa.
They drove from their place to meet me here. Sharon has been wanting to come back to the Empress ever since I had her speak for us at our Northside mother/daughter tea. She fell in love with the Victorian room at the Empress. But more than that, we’ve been wanting to get together just to spend the time. It wasn’t a far trek for me, but I was ever so grateful that they came. There was no business agenda, it was pure relationship and connection that we met for, although I never meet with friends like this without talking a lot of shop.
Well, we sat and had tea for four hours. Yes, four hours. Some might find that hard to believe…uh, what in the world would you have to talk about for four hours? First, women always have a lot to talk about. But women in ministry REALLY have a lot to talk about! Honestly, we could have stayed four more if we all didn’t have responsibilities to get back to. When I have a long lunch like this occasionally I never regret the time spent because it energizes and refreshes me so much, I get double the work done later.
Relationships are really a survival key in ministry but more than that, they are the key to thrive. Yes, I am all about the power of the Word, the power of prayer, but you know, there is power in relationship and fellowship too. It’s amazing how when I get together with friends like this, we go from laughing, to crying in a heartbeat. We always have a few “in the trenches” stories to swap and laugh hysterically over them, and new things to share about what God is doing in us.
Today I shared about what God is currently doing in my life, and to my surprise, Sharon just sat and wept she was so happy for me! What a blessing to have people in one's life who are TRULY happy when a window of heaven opens up over you. Honestly, I’ll blog more about the facts of what God is doing in coming weeks. But since it’s still all being still finalized, and every “I” dotted and every “t” crossed, I would rather wait til’ I can post all the facts. You can’t imagine how awesome it was to see two friends so happy for me, and then having them join hands with me and pray for God’s anointing, provision and protection upon me at this juncture in my life.
There is a tremendous amount of power in relationship. Ecclesiastes 4:9.10 says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls down and has no one to help him up!”
I am so blessed with so many friends, and people who care. They say if you only have one great friend in life, you have more than most people on the planet have. Well, I have been blessed with so many that I love and who love me, that I don't even have time (nor they) to spend all that we want to spend together. It's difficult to keep the relationships going sometimes, but oh what a wonderful "problem" to have. I love God-problems!
God problems are good things like...
Running out of chairs at church.
Having so many new children/youth at the church it's hard to get enough workers to help lead them.
Having someone donate money to the ministry but having so many worthy projects you aren't sure where to put it.
Having lots of new people get saved and figuring out how you are going to manage discipling them all.
Running out of room in the sanctuary.
Bring it on Lord! God-problems. WHAT AN AWESOME THING.
Thank you Lord, for the God problems that you bring into my life. Thanks for people who help me up…people who care…people who rejoice when good things happen for me…people who aren't jealous but who, from the bottom of their hearts think, "GO GIRL!"...people who are far better friends than I ever dreamed of having in my life.
I pray that I can be the kind of friend they deserve.
My prayer is that you make ME a God-problem in their life...that I'm such a blessing and their only problem is figuring out how to arrange their schedule to spend more time with me.
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