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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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Start with the end in mind

Earlier this week a friend e-mailed me and said, "hey, real quick...where can I find something on your blog that you've written with advice about how you prepare your messages?"  I thought about it and realized I've never done a blog post or series of posts on that topic.  Never thought about it!  I had nothing to give her as far as a blog post but immediately thought, "Wow, great idea for a blog series!" 

Today has been such a busy day.  Amidst several meetings and projects, I'm preparing a message to bring at the House of Prayer Church in Tampa this Saturday.  I'm not even blogging til' after 9 pm, so anyone who knows me well realizes it must have really been a busy day!  (I usually blog pretty early and not much gets in the way of blogging.)  :::smile:::



Tonight my goal is to finish the message and that will give me another 24 hours to tweak it as I pray over it.  This will be a short blog post as I still need to do that, but I thought I would give the first word of advice from me on this subject and that is to START WITH THE END IN MIND.


Of course you are going to pray your guts out and ask God to give you a word for His people, but I don't personally start at the beginning of a message.  I don't create an outline and then an introduction followed by point 1, 2 and 3 and an altar call as lots of people advise.  I start at the end.  I ask, "How do I want this to end up?" or more importantly, "How does God want this to end up?"  I pray about getting a vision for the close.  I always give an altar call but it doesn't always look or feel the same.  I ask the Lord how he wants the ending to go, and then I go from there and build the message from the front end, out.


If you know where you're going, it's easier to develop a plan to get there.  Make sense? 

So the first question you ask yourself is, "what is my altar call going to look like?"  Then envision a plan to get there.  More on this later as I go back to finishing my message...
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Comments

Anonymous said…
Good advice. I've been working on a sermon for a while now that the Lord gave me. I have lots of odds and ends but the first thing I had was the ending too. Good then. I am on the right track.
10:23 PM
Dr. Deanna DossShrodes said…
Yes, makingapearl you go! May God bless you as you prepare...love ya
11:16 PM
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