BLOG: INFO & INSIGHTS

This post is copied from Paul's blog. For more information, check it out at http://paulurban.blogs.com/paul_urban/

Shanna Retzlaff, our Office Administrator extraordinaire. Before I get to what Shanna does at The Journey, let me give you a little backstory. Because Shanna is the exact reason we launched The Journey!

Shanna's family quit going to church when she was about 10. She never knew exactly why. Shanna was invited to The Journey by friends the week after we opened. She (her husband, Mike and their son Brian) begain attending. It was different and they were intrigued. Shanna joined a Beginnings Group and began investigating the claims of Jesus. About a year after starting to attend, Mike & Shanna gave their lives to Jesus. Brian followed shortly after. Shanna was baptized and they began serving in Journey Kids and wherever we needed them.

Shanna and Mike have worked in Journey Kids, they've hosted, they help lead the Fruitport Network, Mike now serves on our Lead Team (kind of like a Board of Overseers). A couple years ago now they came to us and were open to what God wanted for them. They'd been wise financially through the years and were in a position to do something radical. Shanna quit her full-time job, to come work for us for 30+ hours a week, even though we couldn't pay her much (I'm guessing it was a 40%-70% decrease in pay)!

So what does Shanna do? Simply put, she makes our Pastor staff better! How? By taking things off our plate so we can focus and concentrate on the things where we add the most value to The Journey. Beyond handling the day-to-day operations of The Journey, she is often the first voice (or email) that people will connect with at The Journey, and we are confident of her ability to share the heart of The Journey. She continues to develop and work systems that make our office and in turn, the church function more effectively. In my case, in particular, she is an extension of me. She handles all sorts of things, like making sure Journey Sheets, and materials are ready for Sunday, being the contact for bills, vendors, etc., she handles much of our facebook and web updates, follows up with people, and so much more.

Shanna is a "get-r-done" kind of person, which is what we needed. And we trust her. The Journey is definitely better with her and we're grateful that she is using her gifts here.