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...
Every house but two that Sue and I went to had dogs. I had as much fun meeting the puppies as the people!! There was one lady who had six or eight of them! Another house where we rang the doorbell but no one answered had so many dogs we made a game out of counting all the different kinds of barks to try to figure out how many dogs were behind the door.
When we came back to the church and compared notes with all of the other teams, they all remarked about how almost all the houses they went to had dogs. This was true whether we were in high, low or middle income neighborhoods. Sue and I went to one house that was probably a 4 or 5 million dollar house and we went to some poor areas too. No matter where we went there was one thing in common: DOGS!!! DOGS!! AND MORE DOGS!!!
Months ago I suggested to our leadership team at Celebration that we have a "blessing of the dogs" day as an outreach. A few key leaders thought I had lost my mind. They've had more than a few good natured laughs at my expense. Well, on Saturday Sue pointed out to me a church sign from another local church and guess what they are doing? "The blessing of the pets"! Yep, they beat us to it. More power to 'em! I bet it's going to be a huge success and I wish them well. Sue is thinking of taking her cat to this other church and if I thought I could control Max, I might just take him and Maddie. (Max is quite literally a bull in a china shop at this point...) Instead of them blessing Max, he might knock over their pulpit and chew on the altars. So I'm not too sure.
I pray over and bless my dogs every day. I believe God cares about them. The bible tells us He cares about the birds of the air, so I know He cares about my Max and Maddie too.
One day I am going to sponsor a creative outreach involving dogs...I just don't know what it's going to be yet. My thought is that people love their dogs so much, and if you can do something to bless the dogs, you can reach the people. Any ideas?
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It's actually an annual event on the Church calendar.