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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

A special moment...


Today was one of my favorite days of the year -- our church beach day/picnic/water baptism at Ft. Desoto Beach. Not many things make me as happy as floating on my pink noodle for hours until sunset and then sitting up on the sand as the sun goes down.

More than that, I love the water baptism and celebrating changes in people's lives. Today we baptized 16 people. Marcus Danielson was one of them. His Mom took this photo (above) unbeknownst to me at the time when I was sharing a tender moment with him right after his baptism telling him how proud I am of him. I still remember years ago when he was just four and he came running towards me on the beach during the baptism and leaped in my arms and said, "Pastor Deanna...guess what? I've got God in my heart!" He had prayed the prayer of salvation at children's church that morning. He wanted to get baptized that day but Michele wasn't sure he understood it back then and wanted to wait until he was just a little older. So, today was the day! What a great day. I'm so proud of him. He's come so far! And I couldn't wait to spend a few minutes and tell him that, so this is what Mom captured on this candid pic.

I'm exhausted! We ate lunch under the pavilion and spend hours and hours in the water and on the sand and what a blessing it was to be with everyone. By the way, we had a GREAT service today! From start to finish...God did great things. Can't wait to see what's next, but I'm enjoying the present SO much. Did I mention I love our church? We have the best people in the world. We took hundreds of photos at the baptism and I'll post more this week, but I'm so spent that right now I need to get to sleep. Going now...g'night.

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