We’ve got a couple dozen spots left for our THR3E Event.
Are you coming?  If so, you’d better hurry and register.

Of course, this event definitely isn’t for everyone.  We intentionally priced the day at a level that would assign a good deal of value.  In other words, we wanted to fill the room with only the people who were hungry and serious.
A $300 price tag helps assure that.  Plus, the majority of the proceeds will be used for our future staff development events here at Elevation.  So it’s for a good cause.

Also, if you want to expose your entire team to al the bells and whistles of programming done well, this is not the event for you.
No music, no videos, no interpretive dance…

But if you’re a church planter or leader who just wants solid content, I promise you’ll leave full.
I’m already aggregating content, and it looks like I’ll be touching on a little bit of everything, including establishing the financial base, creating a culture of honor, and seizing strategic momentum initiatives, to name a few.

We’ll also be providing you with tons of legal and organizational documents.
I think Chunks told me we paid thousands of dollars for the materials ourselves and invested over a year in obtaining/developing them when it was all said and done-you’ll get them free with your registration.  That’s worth the trip.

It’s humbling to me how many folks from so many different states will be joining us on April 28 in Charlotte.
I hope you’ll be one of them.

A one-time event:
Everything we’ve learned and every mistake we’ve made so far…all in one day.
We’re keeping this thing small, so I look forward to meeting every one of you personally.

Register here.

You need to check the soil you’re sowing in regularly and make sure it’s yielding a good return.  If not, stop wasting your seed and find some better ground.

I’ve spent disproportionate time trying to develop certain people only to eventually discover that they didn’t really desire to grow.

I’ve bent over backwards to bless some people, only to find that the blessing was somewhat wasted on them because they suffered from acute gratitude deficiency. (You like that term?)

I’ve expended endless energy trying to encourage folks who did not have the capacity to receive the encouragement…my words leaked out before they ever hit the spot.

Don’t get me wrong, every person is worthy of your kindness.
But not every person is worthy of your strategic ongoing investment.
You are a limited supply of seed.
Be selective about who you sow into.

…not necessarily what’s best for ME.

Waiting for the death penalty while shackled to a prison guard wasn’t BEST for Paul.
But it was best for the advancement of the Gospel.
(Philippians 1:12)

Being beat to shreds on a criminal’s cross wasn’t BEST for Jesus.
But it was the only way to procure salvation for those He came to redeem.
(Matthew 26:42)

Ultimately God’s best is what’s best for me.

But in the meantime:
If what’s BEST for the cause of Christ doesn’t happen to be what’s BEST for ME…
am I okay with that?

Guest Blogger: Holly Furtick

I decided to take my husband’s blog captive today.  Last week I blogged about how to coach and encourage your husband.  I feel strongly that if husbands and wives could get this down, our marriages would be so much stronger.  Correct timing can mean the difference between a great conversation and an argument, between building your mate up and tearing them down.

I thought some of you men who read my husband’s blog might want to pass this along to your wives.   Anyway, here’s the post.  You can stop by my blog and leave me a comment to let me know what you think…

Once a month I take some of our staff wives out to lunch.  After a very long break, we finally got together this past month.  Maybe I should move our meetings to every three months because we had some really great conversations.
We were talking about how to walk the fine of balancing constructive criticism, that our husbands do want to hear, with encouragement.  If all we every did was encourage, it wouldn’t be real.  If all we ever do is criticize, we would crush our mates.
I have learned (the hard way) that 90% of my coaching (a much better word than criticize) comes before and encouragement always follows.  For me the way this looks is coaching on Friday and Saturday night, encouragement on Sunday afternoon.
On Friday I may say something like, “Babe, last week, I really wished that you would have read the whole scripture first so I could have a little bit of context.”  Sunday I am only full of encouragement.  I am always very careful about the timing and wording of my negative comments.
Nobody wants to be criticized after they do something.  It is demoralizing and embarrassing.  As married couples, we protect each other.  Criticism is always for the growth of the other person, nothing more.  It works no matter what your spouse does.
Coach before, Encourage after.

Holly Furtick
www.hollyfurtick.com