Deanna Doss Shrodes

Today at Celebration we're going to be featuring our children's ministries and highlighting all God is doing in KidZone.  In the past few months they have more than DOUBLED in attendance!  Amazing things are happening in there.  Can't wait to see what they are going to share today under the leadership of Pastor Adam and the Kidzone staff. By the way, thanks for the prayer regarding Kayte getting along with Max and Maddie.  We have been socializing them more and last night the three of them were actually in the same room twice without any leashes, and getting along relatively well.  Still not totally smooth sailing but 100% better than their first exposure to each other. I'm in for a crazy week this week and am just not going to stop to think about it or it will depress me.  I have jury duty this coming week.  Some say, "have fun with it and enjoy doing something different."  Well yes, and at the same time I can't just table all my work for a week and c

Yeah, this really makes you wanna send your kid to public school in South Bend, Indiana, for sure... Still LMBO!!!

Happy endings are good.  :) Gayle took Molly Brown (little dachshund we rescued on Wednesday) to the vet yesterday and her tumor as removed.  Thankfully it was benign.  She is healing up and will soon be good as new!  The dog is adjusting well although their cat doesn't care for the dog so Gayle slept with the dog out in the trailer last night. In case you're just catching up here, we have the Jack Russell (who some believe may also be part rat terrier) at our house and Dustin has claimed her and named her Kayte.  She's doing just great all except for the fact that she doesn't get along with Max and Maddie.  They would have no issues with her (I think they would love to play) but she's very threatened by them and comes unglued when they are around and gets very mean.  Right now it's kind of stressful as we have to keep them gated and separated at all times so they don't kill each other.  Kayte becomes very aggressive and M & M defend themselves. So

What an eventful day  yesterday.  I bike in the mornings on Wednesday because we have church that evening and if I don't go in the morning, I wouldn't be able to go.  When I was coming home in from my ride yesterday morning I looked down and noticed a little dog had followed me right on  into the living room!  I hadn't even heard her because I had my earphones on.  She was a little black and white Jack Russell.  Before I could even bend down to pet her, lo and behold there was ANOTHER dog -- this time a brown miniature dachshund!  Where in the world did they come from?  We had no idea, but we went out and started talking to neighbors and discovered they had apparently been wandering around the neighborhood together for 3 days!  They were panting...and so thirsty.  The dachshund also had a huge (tennis ball size) lump on her neck.  I noticed they were scratching a bit so after feeding and giving them water, I told Dustin to help me put them in the tub.  We bathed them real g

Twenty one years ago today our lives were forever changed in an amazing way!  A little after midnight at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Camden, New Jersey, I gave birth to Dustin!   He absolutely rocked my world with his big chocolate eyes and his smile, and his little pointy chin.   When he was born I had all kinds of dreams about what kind of person he would become.  I have to say he has exceeded them all!  When he turned 18, I realized how amazing parenting can be when they grow up and turn out right.  I wanted to have even more kids but my husband said we were done.  He was just too tired to have more.  People ask me, "why in the world do you want more kids?" and I just have to say, "Meet my kids...they're incredible!   Why would I not want more of this?" Dustin still melts his momma's heart with his big brown eyes and his smile.  But more than that he loves God so much , and his favorite thing to do is to sing and play to Jesus, and share His love

If there's one thing I learned during the neighborhood prayer blitz on Saturday it's that people LOVE dogs. Every house but two that Sue and I went to had dogs.  I had as much fun meeting the puppies as the people!!  There was one lady who had six or eight of them!  Another house where we rang the doorbell but no one answered had so many dogs we made a game out of counting all the different kinds of barks to try to figure out how many dogs were behind the door. When we came back to the church and compared notes with all of the other teams, they all remarked about how almost all the houses they went to had dogs.  This was true whether we were in high, low or middle income neighborhoods.  Sue and I went to one house that was probably a 4 or 5 million dollar house and we went to some poor areas too.  No matter where we went there was one thing in common:  DOGS!!!  DOGS!!   AND MORE DOGS!!! Months ago I suggested to our leadership team at Celebration that we have a "bl

So nine days ago the season finale of Sister Wives was broadcast.  The season wrapped up with Kody and Robyn's wedding.   From all outward appearances this was a joyous occasion as TLC featured footage of people celebrating to their heart's content over this latest hallmark moment for the Browns. It's taken me this long to mentally process the finale, and settle on what I am going to say about it.  Some may wonder why I watched Sister Wives, and furthermore why I'm writing about it. TLC among others are endeavoring to soften the public's view of various lifestyle choices and make them seem legitimate.  I also watched the Sister Wives interview on Oprah and noticed that although Oprah didn't shy away from tough questions, there was a vibe of sympathy for the Browns who are being investigated and may face time in jail.  There is an endeavor to put a kinder gentler face on this issue and I believe there is a need for people to speak truth about it in respons

Margaret, Candy, Chris, Savanna and Taylor  hitting the streets at the Prayer Blitz yesterday Yesterday was great and I can hardly wait to see what will happen today!  We had a prayer outreach where a bunch of us from Celebration went out into the community to simply knock on doors and say, "We're from Celebration Church and are out in the neighborhood today to just introduce ourselves and ask if there is anything we can pray with you about..." Amazing things happened!  In one case, Candy and Chris saw a lady walking in a neighborhood with seven children.  Yes, seven!!!  Some were even babies, and she had no stroller or anything.  They found out she not only needed prayer, she also needed food.   Candy invited her to pile everyone in the car and let her take them to Celebration to our recovery service which is also a  food and clothing ministry.  She agreed.  She  and the children came and got a meal and groceries for the week, and most importantly when she heard th

Although my schedule has been busy the past few weeks I'm making time to bike for 35 minutes a day, every day but Sunday. It's one of my favorite times of the day. So far all I can squeeze in is 35 minutes but that's better than nothing. This week amidst everything else going on that I normally have to do in balancing several jobs we had a memorial service.  We also celebrated Candy's birthday on Thursday.  She wanted to go to the Acropolis where they have belly dancers.  The belly dancers were not there that night but fortunately there was an older man playing a guitar and singing traditional greek music and the servers periodically danced while throwing what seemed like a bazillion napkins on our heads.  We dined on saganaki, souvlaki, gyro, baklava and coffee and more!  Yum! So good.     This weekend we have a prayer outreach at Celebration and much more.  I know it will be a good weekend.   I spent a lot of my day off cleaning at the house and there's stil

Yesterday we had a memorial service for someone who passed away who was affiliated with our church.  People recalled things the deceased said and did.   It got me thinking about the fact that we all have stuff we say all the time...our unique "isms".    These are some things that come out of my mouth at least once a week, some every single day.  I'm sure my friends could add more obvious ones than I am just not thinking about at the moment. "Absolutely!!!" "It's amazing!!!" "If you don't ask, the answer's always no!" "If you just do the right thing long enough, it will catch up with you." "Are. You. Serious??!!!!!!!" "That tastes so good it would make a tadpole slap a whale!" [To my kids]  "I brought you into this world..." "What-EVER!!!!" "Oh my Lord!!!" "Hmmmm........." "Ab-so-freakin-lutely!!!" "I love you." &quo

The other night I went out with two of my dear friends for a girls only night which is my best form of therapy.  :)  Oh what a time.  Sharing our hearts, even some tears, and a whole lot more chuckles. We closed down the restaurant (it's becoming a habit ) and the staff even commented, "we've really enjoyed listening to you ladies laugh tonight..."   We did savor these insanely good ice cream desserts pictured above, but more than that we enjoyed the company of one another.    There is nothing like the sweet fellowship of like minded, loyal friends.  It's more comforting than ice cream. "Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."  ~George Eliot

Savanna and Maddie I wanted more children after Dustin turned 18, but my husband declared us done in that department.  It was probably just as well as I sometimes have a hard time keeping up with the children I do have.  On the other hand, does ANY parent really stay on top of it 100% all the time?  Who really IS ever ready to have a kid, or more kids? At any rate, it's not an option for me anymore and I have thrown my energy that I would have thrown toward another child toward our two dogs.  I really consider them to be my new babies on the scene and can't thank Larry enough for insisting that we add them to our family.  I don't like being away from them, and think about them all the time when we're apart.  I give them both plenty of TLC each day and can't imagine life without them.  Every day I hold them both and pray a prayer over them for health and long life.  They are so easy to  love.

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."  Dr. Suess I have few regrets in life, but I'm about to disclose one of my biggest. I caved to what I would now consider bullying and sold my personal  values for continued opportunity and a small amount of money.  Before the days of blogging, I had an article published on one of my websites.  An editor of a magazine I was writing for called me about a particular piece, upset.  I had no idea this was coming - otherwise I never would have responded as I did.   She was alarmed at the frankness with which I wrote this particular piece, one that contained interviews with pastor's wives who had been abused,  and demanded that I delete it.   My writing was too forthright for her tastes and her exact words were, "if you are going to keep writing for us, we demand that you delete that, right now."   She was alarmed by my frankness and also fel

Listening to this song .  It's like my "song of the month."  I get dressed to it.  I bike to it.  I listen to it when I need a faith lift. Riding a bicycle.  Do it at sunrise or sunset.  It's wonderful for your mental health. Arby's chocolate turnovers .   Available for a limited time only, so go quick!   You can join this facebook group, to help "save the Arby's chocolate turnover."  Do it! Laughter. So good for the soul. Being yourself.  Refuse to settle for anything else.  There will always be people trying to squish you into their mold.  Stay true to the original you. 

Since June 27, 2010, there has been a revolution at Celebration Church.   It happened within three months time. That Sunday is significant for a few reasons but I'll only share one here today. Since that time, 15 new families have been added to Celebration Church.  These are not people who came once or twice and faded out.  They are not casual attenders.  We're talking "all the time people."  Most of these people have only missed one, or two Sundays if at all since that Sunday.  Tonight I have a list of all those people's names, to share in detail with our leadership as we celebrate what GOD HAS DONE. We can't thank and praise Him enough for His favor. This month is pastor appreciation and in addition to the board members talking to the church every Sunday morning about this, (and doing a fantastic job!) I also taught on this subject yesterday at life coaching and shared with the women unique things about the pastoral role, and how they can be of most

Life coaching today... lots of "next level" stuff coming... I'll probably have tons to report Sunday night or Monday in an update here... still lots to wrap up for the weekend. I had a great Friday off - bike riding, spending time with my friends, and gearing up for an extremely busy weekend in ministry but I feel a great one coming on... Do your thing, Jesus!

There's a game that I downloaded onto my phone, called, "Would You Choose To..." and you vote on things such as: Would you choose to... Be super hairy or...be hairless Go shirtless for the rest of your life or...go pantless for the rest of your life  Be kicked in the face by an angry donkey or...be roundhouse kicked in the face by Chuck Norris  So while I'm bored and waiting in line (after having checked my mail) I can flip through this game and make choices and see how I rate with the rest of the millions of people who have also voted on these things.  It's fun friday and I thought I'd make up my own today, just for fun.  That's right, forget about reality my friends, and let your mind wander a few moments into these scenarios... Would you choose to... Pastor the same preacher killer church for 30 years straight, or hang over a snake pit for 30 years?  Wait, isn't that the same thing?? Never be allowed to to wear a bra ever again, or alway

Walk through this scenario with me... A man named John Smith commits a crime. John Smith is tried for that crime, found guilty and sentenced by the judge to 20 years in prison. You are a witness to this. Some days later John comes and asks you, "so, what's going to happen to me?" and you simply respond, "Well John, the judge said that you are going to serve 20 years in prison." Have you just judged John?  Actually no, he was judged by the judge.  You never judged him, you simply repeated what the judge said. In another related scenario, let's say  a mutual friend who knows you is aware of the case asks, "so, what's happened with John Smith?" and you say, "Well, the judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison..." Did you judge John by telling your friend this?   No, you are simply repeating what the judge said . There's a lot of talk these days about judging. People decry how wrong it is to "judge" and if they

 (Photo by Rachael Rice ~ taken at 2010 Spice Conference at Celebration Church )  "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."  Philippians 4:8 It would be real easy for any of us to focus on what our spouse does wrong, and at times, all of us do.   And when we do it very long we see what a demoralizing, get-us-nowhere exercise this is. Yesterday morning I was given a wake up call (literally) about something I haven't given my husband credit for.  How in the world have I missed giving him props for this?  In the middle of the night last night he got up, stumbled in the dark to the bathroom and I could hear him peeing in there.  He flushes, washes his hands (yeah, my husband is an avid hand washer, also a relentless teeth brusher, which we'll come back to..) and he comes back to sleep.  I peacefully go back

Do you know how many friends you have on facebook? I don't know how many I have.  Honestly, even for the writing of this post, I resisted the urge to look.  I know it's probably a good number because the last time I glanced at the number which was a few months ago if memory serves me correctly I think it was in the neighborhood of 700 something.  But I couldn't tell you exact numbers to save my life.  And I really don't care.  I do know some people who check their number daily, sometimes more than once.  And whether it goes up or down means a lot to them.  So much so, that if the number goes down they work through process of elimination to figure out who deleted them.    I not only find the idea of calculating facebook friends to be a very exhausting idea, but the idea of it strikes me as insecure.  Something I've tried to live by and also teach my kids is that when something like that happens to you whether on facebook or real life, look at it as an opport

I knew it was going to be an unforgettable night on Sister Wives when I heard the opening statement tonight from Kody:  "I don't wanna be kissin' my girlfriend while my wife's in labor!"    WHAT?! I was going to do a commentary with my thoughts on last night's episode but once I wrote down the following quotes for my blog I realized, there is no need to expound.  The quotes speak for themselves, except you do have to imagine the fact that they are crying the majority of the time while saying all this.    Apparently I'm not alone in my observation that for all the talk they do about this "happy" lifestyle choice there is more crying on this reality show than any other I've seen.  After this post, one of my readers, Pastor Leanne Weber , made the following comment: "I am finding it hard to believe that this "choice" is a happy, wonderful alternative lifestyle when they show one of the wives crying just about every fram

Life has been crazily busy the past few months (no one really has a clue...I'm not whining, just speaking truth)  In keeping with that, we got up at 5:30 am yesterday to take the boys to bible school (DSOM) in Ocala.  Dustin's car is out of commission right now.  The school is an hour and a half away.  Being that the boys have class until 4 or 5 pm, Larry and I stayed the day when taking them.  We also ate at a little hole in the wall hot dog joint that Guy Fieri from Diners, Drive Ins and Dive's visited on the food network. It was awesome. Dustin and Jordan both passed their class yesterday in bible school! Did more weeding and trimming in my yard this weekend...and I'm sore.  I am trying to get the yard up to standard (expected in our neighborhood) in the next few weeks.  I haven't had time to keep up the past few months and it's been so hot it's really gone downhill.  I have a lot of catching up to do but it'll get there.  One day at a time. Bright

People talk about how living happily ever after and riding off into the sunset isn't reality.  They're right if they are referring to the fact that no marriage is perfect. There is one relationship, though, where we are guaranteed to ride off into the sunset, always satisfied for the rest of our lives. The other day I was riding my bike at sunset, my favorite time to ride.  The best moment for me is when I come to a certain point on my normal bike route, I begin coasting downhill, pasts a bazillion pine trees which smell absolutely wonderful, the wind whipping through my hair, and as I gaze ahead I see a beautiful sunset through the trees.  As I was on this journey the other day, a path I have taken literally hundreds of times I heard the voice of the Lord speak to me, "you know, you really can ride off into the sunset with me...for the rest of your life, and be perfectly content."   Yes, it's possible. I'm not mad at Larry nor have we just had an argum

I have been thinking recently about leadership teams I've served on as an adult and what made them effective...or not.  Sometimes you learn as much by an ineffective team as one that works.  On all of the teams where I have served I have been a leader of some sort though not always point person.  Right now in my life I have the best of both worlds as I am the point person for many things as co-pastor of  CC , however I am on the coaching team at NJ and not the boss.  I got to thinking about the subject of passion and drive in serving on a team.  There are times that I've shown up at a meeting on various teams I've served on, only to hear all the plans of something that have been finalized, with no input from anybody on the team.  Basically these could be called, "briefings" not "meetings".  There's no meeting of the minds, no brainstorming , no opportunity to let the creative juices of the team flow...you're just informed of decisions made,

Last night I started a new series in Fusion, called, "22 days of letting go."    We normally have fusion groups but last night God led me in another direction and we didn't have groups, we just hit the altars and God showed up in a big way with people laying down their "Ishmael's" and letting go. Last night's message was based on the story of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac. Genesis 16:1,2   Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar;  so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her."        Abram agreed to what Sarai said.  So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.  He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.  The flesh is capable of producing something that will satisfy for a while but in the e