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...
Our kids were "raised in the halls of the church" quite literally. At one point when the boys were babies we had cribs in the church office. When Savanna was born we continued the tradition of "raising our kids in the ministry" and she used to do hospital visits with us all the time. Her favorite ones were when she would get to see the newborn babies.
I'll never forget her favorite little baby doll, Tieler. She named him Tieler because when we pastored in Maryland, one of the ladies in the church, Anna Anderson, had her baby boy Tieler and we went to see them in the hospital. Savanna was with us on the hospital visit and she just loved him to pieces and so she ended up naming her new doll Tieler. She took that doll everywhere.
When we went out she would push Tieler in a stroller. One time she accidently left him in the car after we came in from shopping and cried and cried that we needed to go back and get him but it was pouring down rain - thunderstorming. I didn't want to go back because of the mess outside but she cried her little eyes out and said, "Mommy, Tieler is in the car by himself. It's raining and he's scared! He needs me!" Yes, of course I immediately went out in the rain to get that doll. I remember one night she moved his little wooden cradle right next to her bed and I asked her why and she said, "so it will be easy for me to hear him and get up with him in the middle of the night." So sweet. Precious memories.
Savanna is out of school for the summer and yesterday she was assisting me with some church work. I asked her to create a graphic for our new preaching series at Celebration Church. This is the first one she ever did and I think she did quite a job on it! She did it all by herself without any input from me. Just click to enlarge and see it at full size.
I'm a big believer in involving kids in the work of the ministry, giving opportunities for them to serve wherever possible. For our family it's proven to be a very positive thing. By the way, speaking of family - Larry and I brought a tag team message on Sunday, "How to Raise an Abnormal Family." It just went up on the podcast.
Larry and I are preaching the "God is Able" series during the entire month of July. If you are in Tampa we invite you to join us...and for that matter even if you're not in Tampa, you're still invited to come on down...you never know what God will do! It's going to be a month of miracles!!
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