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Showing posts with the label Traditions

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...

He's All Growed Up! (Sigh)

He's 23 today. Twenty-freakin'-three. [sigh] Time stand still? Please stand still. Changes are hard. Even good ones. And they just keep coming. And there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing. Lord knows I've tried. And like most other things in life, it's out of my control. (And that's probably a good thing, most times.) At least he's turned out perfectly wonderful. The best a parent could ask for. I'm talking about one, Dustin Michael Shrodes, if you didn't know by now. He's our youth pastor now, by the way. Just in case you crawled out from under a rock and didn't know. Or you are reading my blog for the first time and have no idea who the main characters in this real life scenario are. Please meet my absolutely perfect first born son: You can read some day-to-day happenings of his early years in a hand written blog I kept and shared here a while ago. You'll love it, I promise, if you have any sentimental...

3 ways to entertain without a nervous breakdown

Fear of entertaining seems to be an issue that's not so uncommon.  I talk to many people who have told me they have never welcomed guests in their home. Some want their domain to be strictly a private refuge, others don't know where to begin and feel inadequate when it comes to inviting people over. Dessert table at our leadership Christmas party at our home last year. We welcome people into our home often, in fact tonight the Celebration women will be coming to our home and Sunday night we're having all of the newcomers over.  We usually invite anyone who is new to the church over every other month, and have a "getting to know you" time.  It's not uncommon for us to have anywhere from one or two people to 70 people at the house.  A few New Year's Eve's ago, we had over 100 people here.  It was organized chaos! Some of the kids dancing on New Year's Eve last year in our family room.  At times I do something with all of the china and the t...

Traditions are a splendid thing

Traditions!  Love 'em! We have several the day after Thanksgiving.  More recently Savanna and I have been getting up at 5:00 AM and going out shopping for black Friday.  First we shopped, then went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast, then shopped again and got home at about 10:00 am.  Vanna and I are serious bargain hunters and we got 70% off on most of our merchandise.  Believe it or not we spent the most time at Salvation Army.  That's our favorite store.  Seriously!  And yes , they had black friday sales! Things took off like a rocket when we got home because the main thing we do on this day is the Christmas decorating of our home.  We decorated the  church with a team of amazing folks from Celebration this past Monday - Wednesday and now it was time to focus on our home.  Our house is the gathering spot for a lot of things during this season for the church.  I have a women's gathering here, we have our leadership and their...