"Our Walk 
Consists of ALL 
we say and do 
and the daily choices 
we make -- in short, 
OUR VERY 
LIFESTYLE"

from the
PUBLISHER'S 
PEN

For this month’s article I thought I would step out of the box and talk about one of the hardest subjects I could write about in a public forum, and that is “funding of our ministry.”   What, you might say, God is the one that funds your ministry! TRUE. Or, if you don’t have the funds, you must not be “in the will of God.” NOT TRUE! 
     Of course you have those people who believe “the gospel is suppose to support the gospel,” and that’s TRUE, it’s supposed to – but it doesn’t. In 1994 Micki & I gave up everything with the exception of a few clothes, our music equipment & a small Toyota, and we hit the road.
     Our families thought we had lost our minds, and sometimes I thought we had too. Wherever we stopped, that was “home.” Our family treated us like we had the plague. We had no support, no home, and very little help from our few remaining friends. We lived that way from 1994 to 2000. Where the Bible says “Go Ye Therefore” - We got up and went! 
     The biggest problems we had during that time were funding to keep our ministry going, getting our mail and getting a decent hair-do! 
     When we first went on the road we found ourselves almost expecting people to give into our ministry - (that embarrassed me).  I felt like I was begging for a hand-out. 
     Then we thought that we needed investors, only to find that when someone invests into your ministry, many times that means you listen to the investors and God takes second seat. Then we tried looking for grants. Again there were too many strings attached. 
     For the past 4 years we’ve been looking for different ways to help fund ministries. We can now say we have found a few ways to support our ministry (and you can support yours, too) with no strings attached. You can do this at your own pace as time allows. 
     We who are in ministry must remember that “Paul was a tent Maker” -- that means that from time to time when your ministering slows down, you need to find different ways to put bacon on the table & pay the bills –meaning to supplement your income, or simply put “make tents.”
           I know people who say “I don’t want anything to stand in the way of ministering.” Sometimes you need a reality check. There is a big difference between “your want to’s” and “have to’s.” 
     That’s kind’a like the guy that learns the truth about who God is - gets saved and decides 

    Gene Farington

to go out and save and change the world with only the bible verse “John 3:16.” His heart is right, but there is a whole lot more to it than just that.  
     Sure God will protect you, help you and guide you, but at the same time, you are going to be faced with hardships, discouragement, frustrations and great big walls to climb, to say the least.  You need the tools (knowledge & preparation it takes ) to be able to handle your journey. Most of us have neither enough study and O.J.T. (on the job “trials”).  The end result is either you give up or get beaten up trying to learn, and then by the time you get the knowledge you need to handle your ministry, you are too tired, bitter and fed-up to go on. 
     A few nights ago a very close friend of mine said to me “With every God given promise comes a problem.” These are GREAT WORDS to keep posted in your heart. 
     As for getting your mail – It amazed me when we had several friends on different occasions, who would collect our Mail, but then had a hard time sending it to us. We even tried mail services who would forget to send it, and we even had one go out of business. We were all the way down in Texas, our mailing center was in Tennessee, and you would have thought we were in a foreign country. We never did solve that problem. 
     And then there was the hair-do issue. Micki had green hair, orange hair and white hair all in one day at a Wal-Mart Super Center Grand Opening in Florida. And my hair cuts have been indescribable – I’ve looked like everything from a beetle to a pyramid, with hair cut short in front and nothing cut on top or the sides.
     We faced great frustration and discouragement, too. All I can say is that you must always try to keep focused on who you are doing this for, and know that “If” (that’s a big word “if”) you have been called to do this, “HE IS IN CONTROL” and He said He would never leave you or forsake You. No matter what happens, don’t give up and quit. 
 
     And until next time . . Gene