You've experienced the power of the Wellspring Challenge - now how do you bring that power into the wider community of your church or Christian organization?
That's what the Wellspring Community Challenge is all about. It's a way to help your whole organization get the most out of the Wellspring Challenge.
Sending a few of your members on a retreat is fairly simple. But when it comes to transforming an entire organization much more is required.
The Wellspring Community Challenge helps you implement the Wellspring Challenge at an organizational level with heart to heart, hands-on consulting and coaching from experienced leaders over a one to three year time frame.
Level I: Strategic consulting and organizational coaching
- Consulting covering questions such as
- How does the challenge fit with your strategic objectives, the culture and the calendar of your church?
- How will it fit with other church ministries?
- How do you develop a leadership team that can effectively engage and lead from a whole heart?
- Coaching with key leaders so they grasp not just the truths of the Wellspring Challenge but are growing in the heart and skills of living and leading from a whole heart.
Level II: Replicating the whole process inside your organization
Takes the above process to the next level of actually equipping a team to replicate the Wellspring Challenge inside your community.
The process generally takes 1-3 years depending on your level of engagement. This is a mutual decision between your organizational leadership and Wellspring Group. Why so long? Because we are committed to not just transferring the language of the heart but actually knowing that your team is living and leading in the WAY of the heart. This is critical to the organic nature of the Wellspring Community Challenge.
Wellspring Group will provide a proposal based on your organization's individual needs and level of engagement.
The Wellspring Community Challenge requires real commitment and hard work from your people. Is it worth it?
When leaders are not living from their whole hearts (defined Biblically as their thoughts, feelings, desires, and choices), their personal lives suffer, their relationships suffer, and their service in the body of Christ is hindered. They tend to:
- Talk about the love of God, but don’t experience that love in a way that results in significant, sustained change
- Achieve objectives, but often with significant collateral relational damage
- Unconsciously seek approval from God through performance instead of performance flowing out of love for God and being loved by God
- Live in marriages where they are committed to their spouses, but there is little true intimacy, and they become “roommates on the way to heaven”
- Become unable to effectively experience and express their own emotions and desires or effectively experience the desires and emotions of those they love the most
Leaders tend to have high internal motivation. They long to live their lives to ultimately hear, “Well done good and faithful servant.” But, when they face challenges, they often resort to their own strength instead of the Holy Spirit’s power. They tend to:
- Re-double their efforts and try harder
- Seek accountability that ends up as mere behavior management
- Self-medicate through increased accomplishment, affirmation, or addictive behaviors
- Shut down internally, but keep functioning externally
- Increase activity and decrease personal reflection
- Share transparently, usually about what has already happened, but avoid vulnerability that reveals to significant people where they truly are in the moment
The Wellspring Community Challenge deals with the root causes of these symptoms, freeing men and women to fulfill their callings and live deep lives full of the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Wellspring Community Challenge is not about adding burdens to people, but about discovering and releasing who they are as men and women created in the image of God, redeemed by Christ, and being restored by the Spirit.
Here are some of the key results organizations begin to experience when they take the challenge:
- Leaders will lead out of authentic community, understanding how to engage from a whole heart with each other and with other members of the body
- Challenging issues will get resolved more effectively because leaders are engaging at a deeper level and communicating honestly and authentically
- Conflicts will be worked out in a more healthy way due to a greater level of trust and heart-to-heart interaction
- Church leadership will truly shepherd the flock, helping the members of the congregation to live deep and fulfill their God-given purpose
- The impact will extend far beyond the leadership team as the entire church experiences a greater sense of care and a clearer sense of purpose
This way of life is energizing and fulfilling. Leaders find themselves wanting to serve in the Kingdom with renewed joy and enthusiasm. They long to see others share in the joy of living from their whole heart as they take their places in God’s Larger Story. This is why so many men and women volunteer so much time to be part of Wellspring. They are being changed, and they see others being changed.
For churches or other Christian organizations interested in taking the Wellspring Challenge and possibly implementing it in their church (or organizational) community, the initial step is to send an “exploratory” group of one to two teams to a Battle for Men’s Hearts. Ideally the team should include a senior pastoral staff member and lay leader. All men should be able participate in the follow-through process (having no known schedule conflicts).
The initial team can consider whether the Wellspring model fits the goals/objectives of their church and, in light of the potential outcomes, whether this is something the church is interested in considering. This is not a typical retreat ministry or a study-based discipleship model. It is an integrated retreat and follow-through experience that requires significant time and financial commitment from the church and participants. Wellspring Group staff and consultants are available to discuss this with the church leadership team and make sure you address key issues.
Prior to actually making a decision to take the Wellspring Community Challenge, additional teams may participate in the Wellspring Challenge.
At this phase, you actually engage in the Wellspring Community Challenge by entering into an agreement with us that outlines the objectives of your church and how we will work together to achieve them.
If your church is interested in possible involvement with either the Wellspring Challenge or the Wellspring Community Challenge, please e-mail WG administrator Anisa Sumlar (anisas@wellspringgroup.org) for additional information or to find out about our application process.
