De-compressing Music

A pastor once told me how he de-compressed on the way home from the office. He found a dumping spot on his route home so that when he passed it, he dumped all his stress there, mentally clearing his mind. If you want to know how to decompress from the stress of a busy day just google it. You will find 5 ways, 7 ways, 10 ways, 100 ways people have found that works for them.

Why de-compress anyway? A day filled with meetings, challenges, projects, errands, noise, and other office activities can stress you out and if left unattended to, will physically effect your health long term. Plus, who wants to be around a stressed out you? Your spouse, family, and friends certainly don't. If you just leave the office and don't do something to de-stress and de-compress your mind, it will be a train wreck waiting to happen later.

I am a music lover. I'm not a one genre person and listen to almost all genres. For de-compressing, one of the best music genre's for me is classical music. I recently took a job were I drive the freeway to and from work. Fortunately, the heavy traffic is the other direction both ways. But there is certainly enough traffic left to cause me stress. Add that to the busy day and you have to de-compress to get back to your sanity.

Before I start my treck every day, I set my phone up via Bluetooth to the sound in the vehicle. I created a Pandora station called Classical Music for studying. I adjust the sound level enough to drown out almost all road noise giving me a euphoric feeling of floating down the road. In this state of mind, I am just observing traffic with the noise and distractions removed. I am actually able to think and tune out traffic stress and the stress from the day. Driving in this state of mind ensures you arrive home with a clear mind, de-compressed and ready for a great evening. Try it with your own genre of music and get stress free.

Comments? Suggestions? What is your De-compressing music?

5 Best Practices Counting Tithes and Offerings

High accountability should be exercised in all businesses including churches and non-profits. When you have donors contributing to your business, like a church does, there must be processes in place that give evidence of transparency but most of all accountability. In churches, counting the tithes and offerings properly must be of high importance. Here are several best practices that must take place in handling money in the church. If you are not doing these, stop and change your process to handle money the proper way and not give way to fraud or misappropriations of any funds. These may seem basic but I believe there are many churches still lacking in security and accountability in this area.

• Once money is collected during a worship service, ensure that two people walk it to the office. Allowing one person to carry the cash to the office is setting them up to fail and giving an opportunity for an unsafe situation. Always have two people with the money always until secured
• Don’t think that dropping the money on the Bookkeepers desk and locking the office is secure enough. Never hide the money bags under a chair, in a desk drawer, or in a filing cabinet. The best practice is to have a drop safe securely mounted to the floor that money bags can be dropped into. Also, use this drop safe for all department deposits from the staff during the week. Only give the combination to the drop safe to key people that need to be in there. I recommend that be no more than 3 people, one being just for back up and emergencies.
• Many churches still use volunteers the next day to count and process the offerings from Sunday. Keep the number of volunteers to a minimum but enough that you can rotate them around with counting so that you don’t have the same people every week. Use a secure room that is locked while counting. Provide the volunteers with forms to record amounts with that can be verified later if need be. The Best practice is to have a member of your financial staff present and counting too.
• Now that the money is counted and verified, use the drop safe again to hold the money until a trip to the bank is arranged. The best practice would be to use an armored car service that picks up directly at your office each week. Otherwise, don’t let the same person go to the bank at the same time on the same day each week. Vary that process up using multiple staff people.
• Now that you are ready to post the deposits and donor contributions, I recommend segregation of duties. Don’t let the same person do all the counting and posting. For posting, let the Bookkeeper make the journal entries, another staff member posts the contributions, and the Business Manager does checks and balances.

Comments! Suggestions!

Back in the Saddle Again

Have you ever been bucked off a horse without warning? I was riding that day, doing what I always do, and without warning my horse bucked and jumped wildly and within a split second, threw me to the hard ground. I laid there flat on my back in the dirt with dust flying all around from the fall. The crowd went silent for a moment waiting to see what would happen next. Would I get back up? Can I even get up? I laid there for seemed like a year when in reality it was just a short few minutes in rodeo time. Here is how it happened.

I’m a horse rider in a Christian rodeo and have been riding for 23 years. I don’t own a horse, I just ride them. For four years I rode one of the best horses in the rodeo. We were a team and rode high and rode fast. The horse was sold abruptly one day out from underneath me and there I was with no horse to ride. For the next couple years, I rode a lot of different horses that were good horses but not like the one I had before. Changing horses often for a rodeo rider isn’t good. Riders must get to know that horse and ride him every day and bond together. I finally got a another horse and we started riding. It was a rough start but we were riding together. After 3 years as his rider, the unexpected happened. We were riding the rodeo that day and doing what we were both trained for, and out of nowhere that blasted horse reared its head up and bucked and threw me to the ground. Here is the rest of the story.

While lying there flat on my back in the dirt, in pain, I began reflecting on my life as a rider. Was I really a great rider? Do the people watching me ride like me? Do I want to keep riding after this fall? Would the pain ever go away? Will I ride again? Those were the questions in my mind. It felt like a year lying there but it was only a few minutes. I felt my legs move again and the pain was getting lighter. I heard the crowds that day chanting words to get me back up. You can do it! Get up son! We need you to ride again! You were born to ride!

I mustered enough strength to sit up and then finally stand . The crowds went crazy chanting my name and excited to see me get back up. It was incredible to hear them so loud and so excited. I got my balance and dusted myself off, looked all around at the crowds and waved my hat high in the air letting them know I was alright and will ride again. It was a glorious moment of exhilaration and emotion. I walked back to the horse stalls and there, waiting for me, was a new horse. It was tall and mighty looking with a beautiful hand engraved saddle waiting for me to mount. The horse appeared to be too big for a small rider like me, yet I sensed it was gentle. The horse turned its head around to me and with this look of gentleness seemed to say... get on and let’s ride son. 

As I mounted the new horse, I was handed the reigns by my riding partner. She was standing there ready to lead me out to the arena again with the crowd waiting in anticipation of seeing me ride. She had been there before I was ever bucked off the horse and right there next to me as I lay there in the dirt with dust all around me. She was praying over me to get up and ride again and show the crowds I can do it. She handed me the reigns but I pulled her up on the back of the saddle with me. The stall gate opened and together we rode around the arena waving our hats to the crowd. They were ecstatic and screaming with joy and excitement for us. 

We stopped in the middle of the arena to take the moment in and there we saw the rodeo owner sitting high up in his booth that overlooks the whole rodeo. You could tell who he was because we wore the finest leather and the finest clothes and the finest boots money would buy. His face brightly glowed with joy over the fact that I got back on that horse again and was riding for Him again. At that moment, I knew it was Him that gave me the new horse that was strong yet gentle and would never buck me off again.

At that very moment, the rodeo owner silenced the crowd. I hear with a loud voice…”ride em cowboy, you’re back in the saddle again. 

Comments?