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What To Do First to Make a Profit

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...
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True church stories - #4

Back when we were pastoring our church in Maryland my husband and I were teaching a Sunday night series on sharing our faith.  As part of the series, we taught the people how to condense their stories of coming to faith to about five minutes, so they could be confident in concisely sharing their testimony with those they came into contact with on a daily basis.

Giving people an opportunity to try this out, we had everyone  who had faithfully attended the series write out their testimony and prepare to share it with the congregation.  For the remaining weeks, in addition to our teaching time, we would give opportunity for three or four people to come to the pulpit and share for five minutes a piece. 

All was going along just fine until one night when an older woman in the church got up to give her "testimony", and said the following:

"It all started back in 1975 when I began profusely bleeding from my vagina..."

Oh my gosh.  Did she REALLY say that?!  Yes.  Not once, but AT LEAST FIVE TIMES.  No kidding, this lady said vagina at least that many times in the first MINUTE of her "testimony.

"Something was wrong with my vagina..."
"And I was so upset about this problem with my vagina..."
"And I was praying for God to do something to heal my vagina..."
"And my doctor couldn't solve this problem with my vagina..."
"And my vagina was getting worse by the day..."

Meanwhile we could see the shock on the faces of those in the congregation and my husband was elbowing me whispering, "Deanna, get up there and do something!"

I said, "what do you want me to do?"

He said, "I don't know, play a song!!!"

And I said, "Larry, I really don't know any songs that go with this..."

Finally he didn't just elbow me -- he pushed me and I got out of my seat and went up and stood alongside this lady at the pulpit and just tried to bring some closure that was half way making sense.  I still to this day don't remember how I closed out the service.  It was kind of surreal.  I was just mumbling a bunch of stuff like, "well praise the Lord, isn't God good to solve this problem of a modern day woman with the issue of blood who pressed through the crowd???" and prayed a closing prayer.

Anytime we talk about doing a series on evangelism or teaching people how to share their faith my husband says, "and let's not give anybody the microphone this time to give their testimonies, ok?"  He is scared to pieces that the "V" word will take over the service again.

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Anonymous said…
ROTFL!!! It always comes from those you least expect. At my father's church, growing up, I remember a man who had an intestinal disease, similar to colitis. On Wed. night, during prayer request time, he would give details of his weekly experience. My father had to speak with him privately. To this day, when my brothers and I remember those days, we think of Jim's prayer requests. Nope...can't make this stuff up! :)
7:34 AM
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