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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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Bette Midler sightings and my guest post on Sisterhood...
what do they have in common?

Today my friend Sandy van der Meulen, who is a writer, speaker and women's leader wrote a post about me at her blog, Sisterhood.  She wrote this to introduce me as I will be guest posting on her blog tomorrow. Sandy's introduction post today doesn't just contain stuff about me though, it's on a much more important topic which is our shared passion for leading people to Jesus and helping them grow in Him.  Click here to read today's intro post.  I'd suggest subscribing to Sandy's blog as she has great stuff to share on a daily basis.  She is a blogger that I follow every single day.   In today's post she shares that she often calls me "Miss Divine" because I remind her of Bette Midler.  When we traveled to the Cayman Islands to minister together this past year she kept having me sing, "Wind Beneath My Wings" and even recorded me singing it on her iPhone.  Every time I did it we'd both bust out laughing almost to the point of cry...
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"Even though I didn't believe in them, it took a woman pastor to bring me back to God!"

I'm always making friends outside of our church.  Of course I want to introduce people to Jesus, but I befriend them whether they ever accept Jesus or not.  I believe that's what Jesus wants us to do, what His Word indicates we should do. Many of the people I befriend do come to Jesus, though.  I know that's not because of me, it's because of the Holy Spirit drawing them, however I do acknowledge that it's important to obey God in loving people, and being a positive impact on their lives. I'm so happy that  today my friend raised their hand. It was more than just the physical motion of an upraised hand. I've exercised with this person before and we've raised our hands, but today they were raised not in exercise but in total surrender to God.  They re-dedicated their life to Jesus during the altar time this morning!! This particular friend is someone who has been slowly moving toward a relationship with Jesus over the past year.  When I first m...
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Amazing things come to those who wait

We're doing this song at Celebration in the morning.  It's one of my favorites. God is going to blow into the place just like He's been doing for a while now, in a fresh way.  How do I know?  Because waiting on God tends to do that. There came a time in our church that we seriously waited on God for an extended time. We waited. And we waited. When we didn't know what to do, we waited. God will always answer when we don't know what to do and we wait. One of my favorite scriptures is II Chronicles 20:12 .  The passage talks about when Jehoshaphat was up against the Meunites who came to make war with him.  He had no idea what to do.  And here's what he said: "O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.” Sometimes I haven't known what to do. My husband hasn't known what to do. The church hasn't had any idea what to ...
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What part of YOU don't you understand?!

We’re serving an Acts 10:34 God!  He has a divine purpose for everyone and if you follow hard after Him, you’ll see it released!   Acts 10:34-35 says, "Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right."  Understand that as you seek the Lord with all of your heart, it is His greatest desire to fulfill your dreams.   Your God-dreams are never something you should have to apologize for.  People won't always understand the dream that God has put in your heart but don't ever let that deter you from pursuing it.  Let the Holy Spirit create through you, and don't ever apologize for His working in you.  Philippians 2:13 says, "for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose."  Would it ever be God's will for us to minimize or apologize for God's will unfolding? Yesterday my friend Pastor Craig...
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Some people just get ideas, others actually run with them

Which kind of person are you? We'll talk about that more in a minute.  But first...yesterday was an interesting day for me.  I spent most of my day at CTN, the Christian Television Station in Largo, as a guest on Homekeepers, with my friend and host, Arthelene Rippy .  She called a few weeks ago and asked if I would come over to be interviewed about my life coaching program for women.  We had a delightful time talking about it and she already told me she's having me back on to talk about my new book as soon as it comes out.  :)  Yay!  (Can you tell, practically all I'm thinking about is this book?!  I can't say too much right now other than to say some MAJOR steps forward have happened this week.) I struggled yesterday with a mild headache during the interview and by the time it was over and I was going back to the church office I had a full blown migraine.  I almost never miss church and last night my husband took my sermon and preached ...
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I have a dream!
3 Steps to Help You Discover YOURS!

Throughout my life people have loved to tell me what my dream should be.  Sometimes it's been all about helping them achieve their goals and at other times their remarks have been based upon what they perceived as my most visible talents.   One thing I've come to realize about people is that most have never stopped long enough to come to terms with what their dream really is.  A lot of people copy other people's dreams because they haven't taken time to seek God for their own. Author Renee Swope in her book, The Confident Heart says, "When we don't know what our heart's desires are, we tend to spend our lives fulfilling the desires of others." This is my favorite quote about daring to dream: "All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that is was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make i...
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Are people truly following you, and if so, WHY?
5 questions for every leader

I was flipping through the channels one day and stopped to watch a TV show of a chapel service at a major Christian university, reportedly the largest of it's kind in the USA, with over 70,000 students.  The speaker that day was a professor that for the purpose of this post we'll call, "Professor Pinhead".  A major point in Professor Pinhead's sermon was the influence of bloggers.  Specifically he was upset about "young up and coming pastors" ...successful church planters within the denomination who were blogging and had gained a huge following.  He realized a lot of students were following these bloggers, many of whom had sat in the same chapel seats just a few years before, also from this same denominational background.  The students were soaking in the insights, creative ideas and wisdom of these bloggers on a constant basis.  Professor Pinhead was not happy. His complaint was that the students were following these bloggers instead of "tried an...
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