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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 inve
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Highlights from our day off...

Today was Fun Friday and it started by Teeb bringing me breakfast in bed. (Awwwww...) He's great that way. I am so thankful for all the times he does that especially on our day off. He knows I am strictly "OP" right now (on program) so he brought me a 4 point egg sandwich and tea.


After a bubble bath and getting myself ready to go out we did need to go to University Community (hospital) to see the Powell's , members of our congregation who just had a baby. Sheri had the baby today - a beautiful boy - Tobey Ryan Powell, 6 lb, 12 oz, and 19 and 1/2 inches long. We've always loved it when the new babies are born and I just can't wait to hold them. I raced to wash my hands to hold him and Larry had snuck the hand sanitizer real quick on the way in the door and grabbed him before I could! (But I still held him longest, thank you very much...)

We had a good visit with them. Here's a picture of Joel with Tobey. Sheri didn't want to have her photo taken due to the fact that, well, you know - going through all that you don't exactly feel like getting your picture taken! She was feeling rather nauseous still and having some reaction to the anesthesia but she is recooperating well and Tobey is just calm, cool and collected (never even cried when we were there) and just precious.

Larry wanted to go somewhere special with me after our hospital visit for the rest of our "Fun Friday" and so we went to Liang's Bistro. We went there the first week they opened years ago and were not too impressed. So we have never gone back. Then Adam and Brenda told us the other day it is their absolute favorite place and one they often have their dates at. At times we've had the experience of not ordering "the right thing" at a place or just having gone on an "off day". Then someone recommends it so highly and we decide to re-visit. I am conscious of the fact that in business sometimes this happens as well as the church. We've had an "off morning" before at the church and I can remember one time, I think it was a year or so ago when everything went horribly wrong (sound system screeching, keyboard cutting out) saying, "folks, church isn't usually like this...please chalk this up as an off day and come back and visit us again" - thankfully we had some visitors give us a second chance! :-) LOL Anyway.............

We went and re-visited Liang's Bistro today. I'm so glad we did. It's a place that specializes in Asian Cuisine. I had a yummy cup of egg drop soup (one of mine and Savanna's fav's) and Larry and I shared some orange chicken with rice that was OUT OF THIS WORLD. Adam and Brenda were right! I said, "Um, Lar...this orange chicken could become a craving..." I guess when we came the last time, we just didn't order the right thing. This happened with us the first time we went to Chili's years ago. We ordered something and neither one of us liked it and so we said, "not again!" Then one of our staff members at the time, Pastor Sam (who we still love dearly & keep in touch with...hi Sammy if you're reading this...) told us, "no, no, no, you just didn't order the right thing...try Chili's again and order THIS..." and so we did and now we LOVE Chili's!

I came home from Liang's with fear and trepidation to check the weight watcher points tracker. I didn't know where we were going before we left and I didn't take my weight watcher book with me. I have most of the points for the foods I eat memorized. But I have not ever checked the points of orange chicken. I was a little nervous. Well, it was 14 points! Yikes! That was all I had left, and that didn't count the rice or the soup (which was 5 more points total.) So, basically what it amounted to was, I used all my 14 for the day, plus 5 of my bonus points. That's not so bad considering. And besides that it was a wonderful date. We had a nice waiter and Larry and I had a lot of laughs together about various things.

We were going to go straight to the Groves Shopping Center in Wesley Chapel afterwards because Larry had to return some merchandise to Best Buy but we got a call from Jordan that he had to leave to play a ball game tonight so we had to go pick up Savanna. (She's not allowed to be by herself, obviously she's still too young.) We picked her up and went back out. Next to Best Buy is Ross (yippee-aye-aye!) and Larry got me a new dress that I am craaa-zzzzyyy about for the incredible bargain of $14.99 (did you hear that??! $14.99 yessireebob!) as well as a few pieces of "coffee" type dishes (not a whole set - they didn't have it - just a few key pieces) that will go well with my kitchen theme.

Toward the end of our date we got a phone call that there was a death in one of our church families. They had to take Sharon's mother off of the ventilator this morning and later on this afternoon she passed on. It's difficult for the family of course however they are relieved to see her out of pain. It's ironic to me how many times we deal with birth and death on the same day in ministry. There have been so many times we've done a funeral and the same day gone to visit someone in the hospital who just delivered a baby.

Life goes on, and a pastor's work is never done.

Comments

Tara Sloan said…
I'm so glad you and Larry had such a fab day! Work that dress girl.. I'll bet you look fierce!
9:50 PM
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