Deanna Doss Shrodes

Years ago I was in a place of deep depression. I was reading my Bible, maybe more than ever, because I was in such a desperately low place. I was praying daily. I was seeking God. I was not only seeking Him, I was begging Him to help me, to speak to me, to do something that only He could do. In the midst of this, I was the speaker at a women's conference. I've never stopped working or serving for the past thirty years, even when I've been in a low place. Some people might say, "Well, that's your problem, right there!" I guess one could look at it that way. I just see it that even on my worst days I get up, dress up and show up.  And believe me there were plenty of days I didn't feel like doing any one of those three things. On this particular occasion I was the keynote speaker, but the host of the conference was also speaking in one of the sessions. As I sat there, I experienced something that was common for a women's conference or church servi...

THRIVE 2016 is now over and what a time it was! I am trying to be a better leader in the area of what to do AFTER an event that I lead.  For most of my years in leadership and ministry, I would scarcely celebrate or focus at all on what just happened and would go bolting head first into the next event at 500 miles an hour. A few years ago I asked myself why. There was an urgency to get things done and get busy on the next thing. BUT, I realized I was doing myself and my team a disservice by racing into the next thing without celebrating the last thing. This season is particularly challenging because I am leaving in two weeks with members of our team for Africa for 16 days. I feel an urgency to race ahead but I am holding myself back from doing that. Here are five things I've found it's important to do: 1) Celebrate I have observed that Pentecostals in particular seem to be not-so-good at this. I think part of it is the admonition that is banged into all of our h...

Yep, this is me. :) When I was in Bible College music students were required to do juries where we would perform for two or three music professors and receive a grade. I love playing and singing and have done it since I was four years old. But I but dreaded juries. The reason for my disdain was my lack of skill with music theory.  Theory doesn't come naturally to me, but playing by ear is something as natural to me as breathing. Although I've taken lessons over the course of my life, the majority of what I know was learned by ear and watching other musicians and gleaning from them. My earliest experience with learning to play the piano consisted of listening to 33 records of groups like the Happy Goodman Family. Soon I could go up and down the keyboard with ease, but not by looking at a piece of music. This isn't exactly the skill set needed to do a music jury in college.  I will never forget what happened to me during one of those dreaded juries. I came...

Recently I taught a workshop for pastor’s wives and I asked the question, “How many of you have had someone in the church approach you and say, “God told me we’re supposed to be best friends... ?" Laughter immediately erupted and lots of heads were nodding and hands raised.  I went on to say that this pressure comes in various forms – not always the same verbiage – and can be anything from… “God told me we’re supposed to be best friends…”  to “I really want to know you more and get closer to you...”  to “God laid you on my heart and said we're supposed to be close friends...” Sometimes it comes in the form of someone relentlessly asking for private coffee/lunch times for the purpose of pursuing those things. (Note: there's a difference between spending time such as this for mentoring, discipleship, etc. and developing a close friendship.) I asked the pastor’s wives gathered in that class if they had experienced anyone actually leaving the church...

One of the hardest things for a pastor's wife is knowing her assignment. There is no job description for a pastor's wife outlined in scripture. Confusion often comes when people in the church think they know the God-ordained role of the pastor's wife. This is based upon the church member's background, stereotypes and personal expectations and of course these widely vary from person to person.  To add to the challenge, many will outright tell their pastor's wife what they expect. Or, they will refrain from telling the pastor's wife personally and instead spread the word to others about what she should be doing. (And are more than likely not doing, and therefore, displeasing them.) Here is truth that we know... The pastor's wife is the wife of the pastor. That's the definitive truth on this subject. So how does it get so mangled and misconstrued? Through people's preferences, and false expectations.  Beyond the pastor's wife...

An informal poll I took recently among friends in ministry revealed that most don’t take a day off. Or if they do it’s not a true day off. I’ve known the importance of a Sabbath for a long time. After all it’s in the Bible . And I’m a minister, so I’ve done plenty of reading of the Bible. But for some reason those of us in ministry, myself included, seem to need more of a kick in the pants about taking a Sabbath, even more than our non-clergy counterparts.  Several weeks ago, I was spending time with some women's ministry leaders and brought this up. I was encouraging them about getting proper rest and practicing self-care. I discovered that even on their day off, 99.9% of them check work emails and texts, and “take a moment to answer back real quick.” I suggested to the group that all of those moments taken to “answer back real quick” add up.   I know because I’ve been so guilty of it myself. I also suspect that by answering back, most of us have entire Sabbaths...

I'm writing this post today because I don't personally need more income. Don't get me wrong, I could always find uses for money. But my point is, our family income is just fine. But at one time, it wasn't. And only someone who is making a decent salary can write this kind of post, otherwise it's taken as  begging for money. Photo Credit: ccstbp, Flickr Many years ago a woman in the church  where we were pastors at the time came to me with a box of things and said, " Pastor Deanna, I want to donate this to a family in need at the church, and I know you'll know exactly who needs it and who to give it to..." I thanked her. Once she left the room I peeked inside the box and said to myself: "We are that family." I took the box home and our family utilized the contents. At the time we may have been the most financially disadvantaged family in the congregation. We qualified for food stamps. Our kids qualified for free school lunches...

Leaders have to face various obstacles along the way to our destiny in order to prepare us for the greatest things we will do. I Samuel 17 is about David facing Goliath and in verses 34-37 it talks about him killing the lion and bear in preparation to face his giant, Goliath. David had a great destiny before him in not only becoming the greatest worship leader/psalmist who ever lived, but also a king and a man after God’s own heart. David wasn’t sadistic, and he certainly wasn’t killing just to kill. The lion and bear were coming in to steal a lamb from his father’s flock. He had to protect the flock. And so he destroyed the lion and the bear. When I went first into the ministry, I never realized how much I would deal with bears and lions. I just expected to love people. And I imagined, they would just love me back. I was quite surprised that much of my work would involve warfare. Not only did I get tired, but sometimes I thought I wouldn't survive the struggle...

People's failures teach us as much if not more than their successes. One of my greatest failures happened because I refused to use one of my greatest strengths. Resilience: My Personal Uzi I've always been resilient. Had to be. It's a story bigger than one blog post. The crux of it is, I learned pretty early in life that I could be resilient or die. My former boss used to joke that while other employees were complaining about something that happened, I had already formulated a 10-point strategy to come back from whatever took place and was passionately trying to sell everyone on it. Why Some Leaders Don't Move Forward A lot of leaders stay down too long after a hit. Staying immobilized for too long impedes a comeback. If something bad happens in the course of my job, I usually blow off steam for no longer than a few hours. Then, I pray about it and work hard on quickly creating and announcing a new plan -- that day. The goal is move f...

Laura Dennis Laura Dennis and I first met in the blogging community.   Both of us are writers, with her blog being a popular adoption and parenting blog, the subtitle of which is: The Adaptable (Adopted) Expat Mommy . Laura and I probably would have never been matched by others as, “Most Likely to Be Friends.” Thankfully we went ahead and matched ourselves. Although our lives couldn’t be more different in many ways – our friendship couldn’t be more perfect.   We both love guacamole.   I’ve been a Christian pastor for the last 27 years, and now serve as the Women’s Director for the Pen-Florida District of the Assemblies of God . I’m a conservative if you have to pin me down to a label. (Which I really dislike…the whole idea of labels. Or being pinned down, for that matter.)     Laura is an agnostic, an unbeliever, who would probably politically align mostly as liberal…and I don’t think she likes labels any more than I do. Oh, and did I ment...

Are you totally itching to get speaking invitations? Here's something you might want to think about. Time Out I took the summer off from traveling to speak outside the church. Even before my natural mother got diagnosed with cancer or passed away, I did this because I needed a time out. It wasn't a hard decision to say no to invitations, because home is my favorite place to be. I had no aspirations to go anywhere in 2014, except for my preaching trip to Africa which is already scheduled. I'd be perfectly fine should Jesus just decide to keep me here. It would be nice to not have to flat iron my hair yet again.  But this past week people have started to reach out to me about scheduling for the months ahead.  So I'm open, and praying and saying, "Whatever you want, Lord."