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Is It Selfish to Say No?

Not if we want to bless and to continue to bless.
Is It Selfish to Say No?

The church I lead has a café. We renovated our fellowship hall 11 years ago to welcome and bless our neighbors. And we have undoubtedly done that. But two years ago we closed the café for Christmas and had serious doubts about whether it would ever open again. Some difficult and extreme measures had to be taken if we wanted this treasured place to continue. And after two hard years, we are thrilled to find our café thriving. More than ever before.

From the beginning, the café was to be different from businesses whose main goal is to grow themselves. We wanted to be generous in all we did. Which almost ran us into the ground. Generosity is undoubtedly a goal we still have but we have come to define it in new ways, ways that I have found helpful for ministry, on both an organizational and a personal level.

The purpose of a business is to earn more than it spends. To provide for the business’s needs. To continue. It reinvests in itself for the purpose ...

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