December 4, 2011
Dear friends and ministry partners,
Each month
I look forward to sharing what God is doing through the GH4G. At times it seems
as if things just are not moving fast enough but when I sit down to write these
letters I can see that God is definitely on the move and is doing something
big. Let me start off by sharing some comments I have received from men around
the country about the ministry:
“I absolutely love reading your
(Twitter updates). They ring so true on so many levels. Thank you for all the
help you gave and teachings you give
me. (They) have helped me so many times in the last few years. I just want to thank
you again and pray that God
continues to bless you and your family.” Dan, California
“I read the Great Hunt for
God devotionals each day. I actually shared one of them with my
colleagues at a breakfast meeting prior
to our admin meeting. I encouraged them to read them also. There have
been many times that I have been tempted
by the enemy to follow the world's way and your devotions challenge me to be a
man of faith and not of the world.
Thank you again for writing these…” Steve, Colorado
As we seek
to develop our web page we have purchased the domain GreatHunt4God. Eventually
this will take you straight to our web site. We will begin phasing out of our
g-mail accounts and using this domain to check e-mails. You can contact me
about speaking engagements, support or general ministry questions at Jim@the greathunt4god.com or
Shanna with administration questions at Shanna@thegreathunt4god.com.
I am in the
middle of putting together a kit that we will take into local churches in order
to implement our Great Hunt model. As we launch our ministry these kits will be
less refined graphically and we will be giving them away but as the kits grow
we will begin to charge for them as an organizational fundraising tool. I will
take these kits to Colorado in a few weeks as we begin the early stages of
implementing our strategy for multiplying men with them.
Another
exciting change is our new budget system for our fiscal resources. Our plan is
to live and work and act like and organization so it made sense that we begin
to handle our tangible resources the same way. First, we are absolutely
committed to honoring God by being a 100% debt free organization, which equates
to using only debit cards or checks for operational expenses. Secondly we have
structured the allocation of resources in the following way:
Payroll 70%
Giving 10%
Administration 5%
Board/Leadership Development 5%
Business/Traveling Expenses 5%
Miscellaneous Expenses 2%
Savings/Emergency3%
This
letter cannot hold the room for all that is in my heart so I will conclude with
our Christmas needs list. Being skeptical of technology I tend to be a late
adopter but am learning in order to build a national influence for men certain
things are a mandate. We need equipment that is not only organizationally
consistent but quality, and offers product services for “non-techie” people,
which is why The GH4G has committed to the services Apple provides as reflected
in the list below.
1. Expenses to meet with a potential book agent on December 23 $200
1. Expenses to meet with a potential book agent on December 23 $200
2. Travel expenses to Denver, Colorado in Mid
December $400
3. Smart phone and data plan for the year 2012 $500
4. Mac Book Pro Laptop $1500
5. Web page design and maintenance $2,000-3,000
6. Hire a marketing company $5,000-10,000
Leading from the Back,
Jim Ramos
