Four Stages of every Business and Ministry First is the creating stage.. Your passion and excitement drives the organization ...you want to grow and grow you do. These are the most exciting days in anything you are doing. These are the days your life is filled with energy and optimism. These are the days where you are filled with fresh and full anticipation. Your vision and the plan to achieve it is highlighted in your life every morning you awake. You are thinking about what you want to accomplish everyday and dream about it at night. Because you are growing, you begin to throttle back on creating, thinking you now need to manage growth or because of some "realities" or setbacks in your endeavors, you decide to become a "manager" of what you have started. You think you can manage the existing team to success. Paperwork and time is now devoted to management and training, but creating and vision casting takes a back seat. You fail to understand the concept of diminishing returns. You start to look for ways to mange your situation and just get by. You start to use " stinkin thinkin" and begin the process of too much thinking and lose sight of your dreams and goals. You begin to settle in and think you are trapped and can do no more. You focus your energy on problems and challenges, and wonder why you have so many! Life, ministry, employment, or your business becoming a drag. You then can either turn back to creating or you will probably move into the third stage, Protecting. Protecting is an interesting stage; you start to self-identify and separate yourself from all other groups and current ideas. You no longer listen to mentors and you begin to see yourself as the reason for your success or lack of success. You start to believe your own headlines or you grovel and have a pity party. Either of the two responses usually cause you to become an island in the sea with new feelings of isolation and often deep fear. Past leadership is either marginalized or discounted. Then if you are not successful as you would like to be, or think you should have been, you begin the final stage in the death spiral of business, ministry, personal and even marriages; the blaming stage. The blaming stage ..could just as well be called "I take no responsibility stage" or "It's not my fault stage." This is the last stage in the demise of every business, employee, personal or ministry relationship. The end is near! There is only one way to return life to these important relationships and that is to return with energy to the creating stage. If you choose not to revitalize and create, you will walk away from a personal relationship, or you will get a divorce. An employee who no longer takes personal responsibility for their actions will be fired or they will choose to quit, probably repeating these actions over again with another employer. A business or ministry leader will watch the demise of their original dream disappear right in front of their eyes. In my business life, ministry life and in my daily life, I can point to so many examples of where I have seen the dream disappear for so many. So many have started out strong with great hopes and dreams and have been saddened as I watched those hopes and dreams dashed against the rocks of life, and despair and angst set in to become their new life. This does not have to be the way life is for you. You are created in the image of God and you have so much God given potential. You are gifted through His Holy Spirit. The Bible says, you are His child if you know and have trusted by faith He is your Savior from your sins. He is able. John 6:63 "The Spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing." The Bible encourages the Christian with theses words in Ephesians 3:20-21 " Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power." That is at work in us! To Him be the glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever! Amen! You can do more than you can imagine! Do not allow the challenges and circumstances of life draw you away from creating. What stage are you in today? With your personal relationships? How about your marriage? Is your business or ministry on life support? Go back to creating.