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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...

What's happenin' in Grand Cayman!

We got here late yesterday afternoon and checked into the hotel (Ramada Grand Caymanian) and had about 45 minutes to an hour before our speaker team had the responsibilities of setting up at the church.  I am rooming with my friend Pastor Tammy Young who is also a speaker on the tour and we chose to run outside with the hour we were given before set up and roll up our pant legs and head to the beach since we are literally right on it a few feet outside the sliding glass doors to our room!!!  I'm REALLY amazed at these accommodations we've been given.  I never expect anything grand especially on a missions trip. What an amazing surprise.  We quickly took our opportunity to go outside and walked on the dock which we had all to ourselves, then found a hammock and laid in it while the sun was setting.  We just talked and BREATHED, after all that it took for us to tie up our many responsibilities back home and just get here.  This tour is comprised of a speaker ...

Gonna fly now...

Leaving today, to minister on the Hope Tour.  Thank you for praying for all of us. We are believing for many miracles and women's lives changed forever.  This speaker team is gonna ROCK the Caymans!  Special thanks to all of you who have supported me specifically on this mission.  I will blog as I have ability to from there.  If I'm not able to, I'll be posting here Monday night. You are loved...

Pride and Joy: Julie Lechner

"After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what will be our proud reward and crown as we stand before our Lord Jesus when he returns? It is you!  Yes, you are our pride and joy."   I Thessalonians 2:19-20 The above scripture is the one I closed out our 2011 Life Coaching retreat with this past weekend.  I shared with the women that after my natural children,  they -- my spiritual children, ARE my pride and joy.  Larry and I take very seriously the call to be the father and mother of a church.  When our spiritual children grow, there is NO greater joy.  We can't take the "stuff" (the material things) of this life with  us -- when we get to heaven it will be people around the throne of God with us who are our treasure.  After telling the ladies this, I got the idea of doing a blog series where I would introduce some of them and give them opportunity to share their personal stories. The first person I'd like to feature here on the Prid...

DO YOU EVER...

Spend time praying at the altar and somebody comes behind you are starts praying for you, and begins rubbing your shoulders and you just never want that prayer to end...??   (Thank you, person who did this for me a few weeks ago...) Eat a whole plate of food and then think, "you know, I really didn't like that..."?  (I have and I always hate it when I do that.  How dumb is that, really?) Have somebody comment on your facebook status and you really have no idea why they posted what they did and instead of telling them off or deleting it you just leave it and shake your head?  (I had this happen a year ago when Maddie broke her back.  I posted a plea for everyone to please pray for our puppy who had just broken her back and was possibly going to have to be put to sleep.  Right underneath it a missionary posted, "Help!  We need another $1,500 in pledges to get to the field!  Act now and help us!  Here is our account number..."  I wond...

Are they that naive?

Sometimes I wonder if people think my husband and I communicate at all.  I have found this seems to be a common thing with pastors and spouses, and maybe even just with married folk in general.   A while back there was a problem I had to address with a woman in the church.  Before I dealt with it, my husband and I had fully discussed it as we do most everything.  Not only was he in full agreement with me, but he too felt an urgency that things needed to be addressed.  Although we were both in agreement, I was the one we agreed should address it.  She didn't receive it.  After giving me a few choice words she deleted and blocked me from her facebook.  However it was rather amazing how she instantly became my husband's greatest fan.  For the first time she started pausing at the door after church to tell him, "Wow, that was such a fantastic message!!" or posting things like, "Happy birthday to an amazing man of God!" on his facebook pag...

I stepped on his head!

Sometimes God shows us things in the natural to give us a picture of things in the spirit.  This past weekend on the life coaching retreat such a thing happened for us. Thursday night we had a session that was absolutely unexplainable and unforgettable.  To say that unity was at a level I have never experienced it all the years of ministry would be an understatement.  Friday morning we had another amazing session together, processing all that happened the night before.  After that we had about 7 hours of free time to enjoy at the resort.  During this time many of the women went walking on the trail, sat by the pool, swam, relaxed in the jacuzzi, etc. Sue, Michele, Candy and myself put our swimsuits on under our workout clothes and hit the trail to walk, after which we sat in the jacuzzi for a while and talked.   We were walking around the trail that surrounds this lake. Lake at Mike Ditka Runaway Beach Club, Orlando - photo by Rachael Rice Whi...

Get 'em God, get em!!!

I'm blogging today real late...normally don't blog for the day at 11:30 pm however today I came home and crashed and took a four hour nap.  This was after getting a solid 8 hours sleep last night.  I was just so tired from the weekend retreat, then our services today and choir rehearsal. Twelve people came to Jesus at our services today -- both kids and adult church combined.  God is so good.  This is what it's all about and it never gets old.  One man who has just come in and had his life turned upside down is Jeff.  He came last Sunday for the first time and shared that six months ago when our prayer teams were out in the community knocking on doors just to introduce ourselves and pray for people, one of our teams prayed for him at his home.  He was shocked that people were actually going to homes and offering to pray for people, and that they did it "right then, right there".  God has been working on him for six months to actually come to chu...