In October of 2009 I was given the challenge as a layperson to get PLACE up and running in 90 days! WOW! At first it seemed impossible, but once I put a timeline together and began working forward, it’s amazing of how it has all came together.

I am proud to say that last Wednesday night I held my first PLACE class and we had 22 people in attendance. That is pretty good for the size of our church with very little adult programming on Wednesday evenings. Not to mention promoting it throughout the holiday season.

I taught the Personality Discovery section and will proceed teaching Learning Spiritual Gifts, Abilities Awareness, Connecting Passion with Ministry and Life Experiences in the following 4 weeks.

I still have a long way to go, but we are making progress. There is a big buzz about the class and I have had several calls and emails of more interest. Here are some things we have accomplished so far:

• Staff overview of the PLACE process
• Took paid staff and support thru a PLACE workshop
• Began building a PLACE team of Facilitators, Connection Coaches and Administration people to help with the process.
• Completed Ministry Involvement Survey throughout the congregation
• Completed a ministry guide
• Purchased Mobilyzr.com and the PLACE streaming video subscription.
• Entered all PLACE profiles into Mobilyzr.com
• Scheduled PLACE workshops for 2010
• Took deacons and other leadership through the PLACE Workshop
• Trained Connection Coaches
• Scheduled PLACE sermon series with Pastor
• Began out first “real” workshop with several others scheduled for members and new members.
• Plus a few more things!

I have worked for PLACE Ministries almost 10 years now in my profession and to have the opportunity to start it from scratch at a new church has truly been rewarding and has taught me many lesions. It has given me an opportunity to live out Matthew 16:25, you find your life as you give it away!

I can’t tell you how many times, when a person has completed the PLACE process and we began to look at helping he/she find their PLACE of ministry within his/her local body, people discovered their ‘heart’s desire’ was not something they had conjured up, but in reality, was God designed!

PLACE is the tool to help people ‘see’ that their God given Personalities, what they Learn about their spiritual gifts, their Abilities, how they Connect passion to ministry and that their Experiences in life are for a purpose-there truly is ‘meaning to the madness’ we sometimes label ‘life’. Then, the tool utilizes the ‘seeing’ to discovering what is deemed too often as a dream unobtainable, in fact, is the person’s ministry PLACE!

How many times, after the personal discovery in the PLACE process, have I heard participants say, I would love to . . . . volunteer at the Crisis Pregnancy Center, mow a yard, decorate for the ministry events, send cards, read books, the list goes on and on . . . . and when time to consider PLACEment, I have heard the comment . . . “That is considered ministry? Then, sign me up!”

Over and over, I have found people want to ‘freely give as they have freely received’, out of a sincere love for the Lord and what He has done for them, they just honestly do not know how or think they don’t have anything to offer because they are stuck in the preconceived ministry ideas of teaching, singing and working in the nursery.  Because they ‘can’t’ or don’t feel called to these areas, they believe there are not ministry opportunities for them. PLACE has been the tool to move people from their heart’s desire to ministry! I believe with all my heart God has PLACE’d a wealth of treasures in the body of Christ, what we call the local church, they are merely waiting to be discovered!