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...
First let me say, don't you just love these candles? Juleen Stramiello - one of our church members - does Home Interiors and these candles are such. You can use them over and over because they have a little hole in the top that is for a tea light candle so they don't actually burn down. They were the perfect centerpieces for our launch party. Candy Rivera did a great job of adding to these candles with other things and made the place shine. In addition to tinsel everywhere (which they kids threw ALL OVER THE PLACE especially on the dance floor all night) there were noise makers which they also blew continually.
Okay, now that I'm done talking about the centerpieces, let's go back to the beginning.
The day began with rehearsal and I expected things to be a little chaotic because of all of our new equipment that we were breaking in on launch day but lo and behold rehearsal was actually done ten minutes EARLY. Amazing!
People were packed into our new café. We had LOTS of people who were there for the very first time on our property. (We had to word our "welcome" in the worship service very carefully and not ask who was new to Celebration Church, because technically we were ALL at Celebration for the first time yesterday.) Everyone was commenting on how awesome the facility looked as they walked through and excitement was so high. Three people came forward to give their lives to Jesus. THAT NEVER GETS OLD!
Went out to lunch with some of our leadership and just basked in the moment. We talked about the amazing day and the guests that joined us -- many who said they would definitely be back. One of our new guests was Alex, the guy who owns the company that did the logos on all of our doors. He and his wife came and they LOVED IT and said they would be coming back. He’s the coolest guy EVER. After church he told my husband he wants to have lunch with us today. Can’t wait. We did not know Alex before this launch – he was simply hired to do a job for us but we came into relationship through that and now Celebration is going to be his church. Isn’t God good?
I talked with another couple in our guest relations area this morning and they told me they came because they had received one of our candy bars at an intersection. The husband said, “that chocolate bar idea was AMAZING! We were riding down the street, stopped at the light and all of a sudden Hershey bars were coming in our window. We had been looking for a church and this was the perfect opportunity that quite literally fell into our lap!” They said they were crazy about the service and would definitely be back.
More photos as the week goes on...we are exhausted but it's a great exhausted. Have a ton of guests to follow up on today. Yay!
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