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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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I can dream and in my dreams I'm Christmasing with you...

Yesterday was a busy day -- in prayer, and wrapping things up for Christmas Eve Communion, food shopping, baking pies, ironing table linens, getting the china out, and all that good stuff.  Worked til' I dropped last night.  Savanna did do some cleaning while we were at work -- she wanted to have her friend Grace over to spend the night.  This works out nicely as we'll just reunite her with her family at Christmas Eve Communion.  Michele and Marcus came over last night too and watched the Steelers game and I made homemade hot cocoa with a recipe that a friend, Jeannie Tedder, gave me.  It's better than cocoa that you get in the stores.  And, it's real simple:

Homemade Cocoa
1 and 3/4 cup of instant milk powder
1 cup of powdered sugar
1/2 cup of coffee creamer (powder)
1/4 cup of cocoa

Mix ingredients.  Store in container - may be stored out on counter, in refrigerator or freezer.  When preparing, mix 1/3 cup of cocoa mix with 3/4 cup of hot water.

Try it, you'll really enjoy it -- we did last night, with some light whipped cream on top! 

Yesterday we were recording a Christmas song for a church greeting and I got the bright idea to record a song that I did all the years of my high school in the music department.  "Merry Christmas Darling" was my song back then.  A high school friend, Jill Hurley Acree, mentioned to me earlier this month that when she heard this song on GLEE, she thought of me right away.  I decided to sing this and put it on facebook for my classmates as a nostalgic look back.  Larry recorded it on his I-phone and we put it on my fb wall yesterday to the delight of a few of my school chums who were busy but not so much so that they didn't check fb yesterday!   If you want to hear the song, go here.  (I'm not embedding it here because it does funky things to my blog page.)

Tonight we have Christmas Eve Communion at Celebration.  It's one of my favorite times, ever!  We do it differently than most churches.  It's not a service.  It's a time when the people can stop by anytime during a 3 hour window of time.  Our church is beautifully decorated for Christmas with huge trees and tons of lights, and for Christmas Eve we light a bazillion candles in the sanctuary.  Larry and I are waiting at the altar the entire time.  When people come in some choose to have communion right away, others wait a while and find a place to gather with their family and pray in the sanctuary.  When they are ready they come to us and we serve them individual, personal communion and pray a prayer of blessing over them/their family.Some stay 5 minutes and are on their way somewhere, or coming home from somewhere.  Others stay a long time.  Some people come in jeans and sweats.  Others are totally dressed up for a night out.  I love having the opportunity to see a majority of our people and be with them at least for 5 minutes on Christmas eve -- to hug all of them and tell them how much we love them.  It's a great blessing.

This time of year takes a lot of work, but you know -- I just love it!  An amazing time of faith, family and friends.  That's what it's all about -- centered on JESUS.
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Melissa said…
Ah I miss that part of ministry...Christmas eve communion. We did the same thing as you all concerning the service. Loved that one on one with each family.
Merry Christmas Deanna! Love you!
10:40 AM
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