Clearly, many people have an idea of what a Rescue Mission does, they feed the poor.  But We do so much more than that.  We provide shelter, transitional housing, educational services, case management, financial assistance through Need a Break ministries, jail chaplaincy at the Pierce County Jail, after school and summer youth programs for homeless children and much more.  Click here to see all we do.

More than that, you need to take a tour of the Mission.  call Jocelyn at 383-4462 to set up a tour of the Mission and it’s facilities. What you don’t know about the Tacoma Rescue Mission is a lot.  Come see what we do and get exciting about adopting the Mission as your cause.

DC

Here’s what I challenge all of you to remember each day to help you stay sharp and to keep focused and motivated on helping reach the hurting, hungry and lost of your community:

Matthew 11:28-30  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Remember to put your concerns and burdens in the hands of the Lord.  There is nothing we can accomplish outside of Him and there is nothing we cannot accomplish if we are working in His will.  I believe that EVERY problem has a spiritual solution.To all our staff I remind you to rely upon the power and joy of the Lord today to make a difference.

David

Solutions call for outside-the-box thinking, negativity shuts that down. Knowing that a person can learn to think positively and optimistically is little guidance when faced with difficulty and real-life challenges.

Here are some ideas about how to shake off the blues and to focus on possibilities:

1.  Think Spiritually – Knowing God has a plan and purpose for your life can help to shake lose the “why me” thinking and start up the “What’s God’s Plan” thinking that could reshape and reinvigorate your life.

2.  Dream and brainstorm solutions with someone not tied to your problem.  Brainstorming is great, dreaming is great, but often when done in isolation we can easily shut down the process before it begins.  We need a second party to help us think outside the box.  We all edit ourselves but negativity magnifies the editing process.  ”I can’t afford it”, “I can’t do that”, I don’t have the education”, “my family wouldn’t like that” are all excuses that stop the brainstorming process.  Find someone who won’t put up with those excuses and get started dreaming.

3.  Make thinking positive a routine.  Negative thinking is so ingrained in our minds that we don’t even realize we are doing it.  You need to find a way to make thinking positive a part of your system.  Positive affirmations, scriptures, quotes, books, are just a few ways to make it a routine.

4.  Become a Student. Read books about positive thinking.  I know the wrap against “positive thinking” and I don’t buy it.  I’m not suggesting living in a fantasy world, I’m suggesting rigorously deciding to stay on the offensive.  Don’t shrink back from life because you’ve got serious challenges in life.  Many of our graduates and success stories at the Tacoma Rescue Mission will tell you that they had to stop thinking negative, blaming others for their problems and get busy living a positive purpose for the Lord.

Give me some of your ideas on how to learn to be optimistic.

DC

Read my past blogs on the budget to discover how we have reached this point and what the major challenges are for 09′-10′.  

As always, we are thankful that we have reached our ministry goals for this year.  While we do all that we can do, I’m sure you agree with me that it is God’s blessing upon this work that allows us to have the resources to feed, house, and reach out to the poor with the love of God.

DC

Talking with members of our team who went to the event I understand it was a great event.  Thanks to Kathy Austin, Marlene Hamilton, Juliet Lee, Jann Sonntag and everyone who made it possible.  Special Thanks to Cynthia Tobias for coming a sharing on the Strong Willed Woman.

I’d love to get feedback from those of you who attended.  What was the best part of the retreat for you?  

DC

Now flash forward to a new book I’ve been reading, A Leaders Legacy by Kouzes and Posner.  Kouzes and Posner conducted massive research to write the book and it’s predecessor, The Leadership Challenge.  One of the most interesting findings of their research was that the most important leader in any organization to the staff wasn’t the CEO, it was THEIR DIRECT SUPERVISOR.  

When you think about it you know it’s true.  Most people don’t see the big boss every day and their environment isn’t directly affected on a minute by minute basis by some unknown vice president.  But if they have a supervisor that is a good leader, or more commonly a bad leader, they feel it every day.  No wonder Brett Favre was bummed about losing his coach- that was the person who most directly affected his life on a daily basis. 

This should be incredibly encouraging to managers who wonder if anyone notices the time and effort they put into being a good leader.  Conversely, it should be a wake up call to bad manager who make excuses for why they are not doing what they need to do.  

To quote from the Leaders Legacy, “You can’t pass the leadership buck.  Just because your manager doesn’t do leadership well doesn’t excuse you form doing your very best.  Your direct reports  don’t really care about what your manager does, but they care a lot about what you do.”  ”Whatever your role in life may be, you make a difference.  There’s a 100% chance that you can be a role model for leadership.”

Thanks to all the great people who are contributing to this project and to those who helped us raise the total we have so far.  Special Thanks to Mar Corpuz, Lynette Grubbs and Jann Sonntag.  Without these three and many more we couldn’t have gotten this far.  

I know I speak for all of them and the board when I say that we feel this is a miracle and that God has again provided for the poor that are served at the Tacoma Rescue Mission. 

DC 

Here is an earlier blog on how our budget meeting with staff went.  

After meeting to discuss the budget in detail, our finance staff tabulates all the numbers and comes up with the sum total.  After that I take one final look at it and decide if anything further needs to be added or subtracted before we propose a final budget to the Finance Committee.  When it’s all said and done we will be proposing a budget that will be $4,764,128.  This will be a growth of 11.7%, a large number considering the economic challenges-but a number which I believe is an achievable figure.  

Here’s the reason for the growth:  

We’ve added a new department this year, Need a Break Services, which is direct aid for people who need direct financial assistance with things like car or home repair.  The addition of this department is a large reason for the growth in our budget.  

In addition, we have scheduled to improve salaries of the front line workers at the Mission, the shift managers.  This will be a big help.  Most importantly, I feel like we are making a statement that we believe we are not only going to survive this economic downturn, but with the partnership and support of our donors we will do more than ever before to reach the poor with the love of God.

 If the finance committee approves the budget, we will present it to the board at the June 29th board meeting.

DC 

While I’m just a neophyte to social media I’ve got some theories on how it can best be used:

1.  Build a large LOCAL network: Twitter and Facebook people often encourage the growth of your network getting as many “followers” as possible, regardless of who or where they might  be.  I disagree.  While I follow a few sellect people outside my circle of influence I find the real power of these networks is  connecting with those who are in your local area or have some affinity for you or your organization.  

2.  Share what excites you:  Nothing worse than a series of FB/Twitter updates about inane details, yet most people do it regularly.  My experience says people don’t mind hearing some of the details of your life, as long as it’s something that you are passionate about or that you are learning.  Folks at the Mission should have lots of great stories, info, lessons to share about how you are changing lives.  Update your friends and family on these things! 

3.  FB/Twitter don’t take the place of FaceTime.  Yes, more and more people are socializing over the internet, but this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take time to touch base with people face to face.  I call it FACETIME, sitting across the table from a friend and chatting.  In fact, I think there is a cause and effect happening with these social networks.  People are connecting through more impersonal methods, thus making real FACETIME all the more valuable.  It has become even more important to get out and touch base with people.  This is why I’ve scheduled a series of Coffee events and dinners to connect socially with the supporters of the Mission and why I take the time to have coffee or lunch with various staff each day.  

4.  It’s Not Either/Or, it’s Both.  Don’t fool yourself that you can avoid getting connected through some form of social networking.  While next year may bring a different company/site for social networking and companies like FB/Twitter may fold, connecting over multiple channels is here to stay.  Your kids and grandkids are going to be doing it, it’ll be required for many jobs and you’ll avoid it to your peril.  Anyone under the age of 75 needs to get connected to this!  The thing is, it’s not FACETIME or FACEBOOK, it’s both.  You need to connect with the new technology and make the time to get together with people in real time.   

These are just some of my thoughts.  What do you think?  

DC