Welcome to your new season! In this post we give you some of the really practical tips on how we are going about hearing God and developing strategy for growth this year. We have found that when we have a plan that we are both on the same page with, that it is WAY more likely to turn out well. The plan supports us, we don't support the plan (that means we can change it if we need to). So here's some of the tips:

Read the blog here: Heaveninbusiness.com/blog/how-we-are-preparing-for-growth-this-year

1. Start (and never stop) in prayer.... listening to God daily/constantly

2. Review what you see God doing, what you hear Him saying and what you remember He did.

Great resource: The Good Fight: Prophetic Processing Workbook by Dan McCollam

3. Review your finances

4. Dive into the data - Review results

5. What did you learn

6. Get away to a quiet place, connect and plan

7. Go for a walk... 

Best tool - Remarkable digital notebook has saved me hours

Best book - The Prosperous coach by Rich Litvin and Relactional Leadership by Ford Taylor

Best advice - get a coach/advisor and community

NEXT STEPS:

1. Join the Heaven in Business community to grow with God, grow in business and grow in kingdom influence. Try it out for seven days free: HeaveninBusiness.com/free-trial

2. Participate in the annual conference with more than 150 other faith-centered business leaders. The theme through all the speakers will be how to partner with the Holy Spirit in our workplace: hearing His voice, getting free from fear, making decisions, experiencing the miraculous. Find out more and sign up HeaveninBusiness.com/conference-Atlanta

We are at the time of year where we intentionally set aside time to reflect, capture learning, express gratitude and plan for next years growth. As we have heard from a number of you asking for the templates, here's all the best we know of in one location. You're welcome!

Full list and links here

NEXT STEP: Join us for a live weekly call where we share encouraging and inspiring stories what God is doing in workplaces all over the world. Then grow in your partnership WITH God through the community, focused weekly content and other resources. Free trial here.

BEST STEP: Join us in-person Washington DC March 2024 for a two day Heaven in Business strategic planning workshop. We will walk you through the practical process and you will get clarity on each of the steps above. See HeaveninBusiness.com/events for registration details.

Listen in to this incredibly powerful story of Joanne Moody who experienced debilitating pain for 15 years and then was healed in a moment.

She was living her dream in Hawaii as a serial entrepreneur, barely sleeping four hours a night then a literal God-intervention happened that led her to discover the reality of Jesus.

Then, after getting married and having her first child, she was left with extreme pain that no surgery or pain medication could fix. Then God...

To find out more about Joanne Moody and what she is doing now, go to https://agapefreedomfighters.org/

To sign up to hear Joanne in person at the Heaven in Business conference go to https://www.heaveninbusiness.com/conference-atlanta

#godstory #atheist #miracle #miraculous #healing #hearinggod #faithandwork @agapefreedomfighters

Janine and I just completed the recording of the Dream Culture book in audio format. It walks you through how to unlock the dreams and desires of your heart, how to turn these into practical action steps and how to overcome limiting beliefs, blocks and barriers along the way. It's basically the story of our life! Here's an invitation to grab your copy and heads up... we will invite you into a live online six-week course starting in January ($100 off if you register before Christmas).

Talking about living your dreams, last week we got to be with some wonderful friends in Dallas. We had some phenomenal conversations, met some really cool people and even got to hear Max Lucado "You, Me and the Christmas Tree" at Gateway Church on Sunday!

Here's a quick summary of what we did, what the results were and what we are learning...

Read blog and testimonies here: Heaveninbusiness.com/blog/what-happened-in-dallas

NEXT STEP: Meet us in-person at an event near you. See HeaveninBusiness.com/events

Low hope is like an invisible cancer that slowly consumes the life of a family, organization or nation.

So:

1.How do you know if you are losing hope?

2. What is the solution? 

Read the blog here - Heaveninbusiness.com/blog/is-low-hope-silently-killing-you-and-your-business

Result - shrinking economies, relationships, influence..., death without knowing, absence of the pleasure of God (see Luke 18:8 and Hebrews 10:39)

Now play "It's entirely possible" - click the link to read the blog and watch the video.

NEXT STEP: Join a community filled with practical hope and leverage our momentum, wisdom and learning. Try the free trial HERE.

Happy Thanksgiving! I took some time to reflect and remember on things I am grateful for and stumbled on this podcast I recorded ONE WEEK before we left Redding, California to move our family to New Hope, Pennsylvania. We have now been on the east coast for almost a year and a half and it's great to go back and reflect on the journey and remember what you are grateful for. Enjoy this episode.

"Next week a moving truck is arriving to pack up our 'stuff' and then we begin the drive from California to Pennsylvania. There are a lot of goodbyes and see-you-later's happening (and a few leaky eyes). In the midst of this time I have taken some moments to reflect on what I have learned from my time here. I was privileged to work directly with Danny Silk, then Kris Vallotton and through both of them connect and receive personal feedback from Bill Johnson.

So what did I learn that you will never read in a book? Here's some inside stories..."

- Relationship is more important than being right

- The level of trust is the level of connection and means EVERYTHING when you are trying to lead people they don't want to go: tissue paper vs. leather 'connection'

- Two new words for my vocabulary: "What do you need to feel from me in order to thrive?"

- Keep walking and stay close: when you have someone in disagreement or conflict

- Why do you trust me? Because you recognized the culture and protected it...

Best book : Culture of Honor - How to sustain a supernatural environment

- Humility and confrontation: "You are a father in the house, you carry the culture better than anyone I know, including me and I'm sorry for any pain I caused you."

- Then WE made a mistake story

- The value of disagreement pushing back on ideas, challenging to get a bigger perspective 

- Texting every few weeks when our daughter was going through crazy physical asking how she was doing and praying for us

Best book: Supernatural Ways of Royalty - Discovering your rights and privileges of being a son or daughter of God

- Family above everything : Earl Johnson leaving his own annual conference to go watch Bob play basketball... 

- Courage under fire: Enduring Faith -  the message week recorded the before and the week after Bill's father died of cancer. Also, watching Bill now navigate his own wife battling cancer and yet Bill is on fire for the Kingdom of God and miracles. 

- Love for word of God and voice of God above all else - honors people who disagree including writing them a check... Early on at Bethel turning to Beni saying 'this is it...' 

- Passion for the Kingdom - I've had this as a philosophy for years but haven't known how to do it - you are doing it.

Best book: Strengthen Yourself in the Lord - How to release the hidden power of God in your life We came here with a career and left with a story We came here with cracks in our foundation and left knowing if God is for me then no other opinion matters We came here with 12 suitcases and leave with a moving truck We came here with four children under the age of 8 and leave with four young adults who are more confident and secure in themselves and God than I was We came here out of obedience, we leave here out of vision and love We came here as a fat caterpillar and leave as a butterfly, having broken out of the cocoon

I'm sad. I'm excited. I'm grateful.

Thank you Danny and Sheri, Kris and Kathy, Bill and Beni: my life in Christ and His Kingdom is stronger and more secure AND more fruitful because of you.

The things that I heard from you among many witnesses, I have committed these to faithful men and women who are now teaching others also!

Marilyn was an argumentative atheist. Now she has built a website that had over 50 MILLION visitors last year, all seeking answers to hard questions about life and God. And ONE MILLION of them managed to find a follow-on link saying they made a decision to invite Jesus Christ into their life and wanted more information to get discipled.

I was shocked by how easy and genius this site is and amazed by the results. So if you want to hear the story of how Marilyn uses GOOGLE and FACEBOOK to lead millions to her website tackling the hard questions about life and God, watch this now!

NEXT STEPS:

1. Get more resources https://www.everystudent.info/

2. Get familiar with the site and look for opportunities to tell your friends - https://www.everyperson.com/

3. Come meet Marilyn at https://www.heaveninbusiness.com/conference-atlanta

#atheist #faithandwork #bestmarketing #whoisgod

Sight and Sound is a media production company with 800 employees, two locations and sold out shows - two thousand people, twice a day, six days a week!!! How we are only hearing of this now is surprising!

My family and I got to personally experience a show and behind-the-stage tour (twice!) and I'm delighted to introduce you to the CEO Matt Neff on this podcast. Hear some of the stories, how they lead and protect the culture of expectancy and what is coming up next year.

Better yet, Matt will be at our annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia, end of February 2024.

NEXT STEPS: Find out more about Sight and Sound Lancaster, PA or Branson, MO HERE (Sight-Sound.com)

Grab a ticket to the Heaven in Business annual conference. Details here -(Heaveninbusiness.com/conference-atlanta)

This conversation is with Ryan Collins, founder and CEO of Bethel School of Technology and author of The God of Tech - activating the next great movement of God through Spirit-led innovation.

NEXT STEPS:

1. Grab a copy of the book on Amazon HERE

2. Check out Bethel School of Technology HERE

3. Register for Heaven in Business Annual Conference Feb 28-March 1 HERE

Recently Janine and I got to lead a team to Zimbabwe and South Africa. We called it an Adventure Missions Retreat - kind of a combination of executive retreat meets mission trip meets Africa adventure. Here's a quick report of what we did, what resulted and what we learned. 

Read the blog here - https://www.heaveninbusiness.com/blog/what-i-learned-from-zimbabwe

What did we do?

- Conference in Harare, Zimbabwe with Pastor Tom Deuschle, Celebration Ministries International teaching and training approximately 600 bi-vocational pastors and city leaders on partnering with God at work.

- We then took the team with Tommy Deuschle and two local leaders to Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe where we enjoyed fishing, game drives, individual strategic prayer sessions

- Following the lake excursion we flew to Cape Town, South Africa where we served with Brendon Knott and Colin Walker doing a Heaven in Business workshop for about 70 local business, non-profit and workplace leaders.

What were the results?

Our strategic objectives were as follows

1. Strengthen and Serve local leaders in their assignment

2. Activate the team and serve them in clarity for what's next

3. Connect train and activate participants of the events

Feedback from the local leaders (Tommy, Brendon, Colin) confirmed we achieved objective #1 with excellence. The team were activated and all gained clarity for next steps in their life and workplace calling. And the feedback from event participants was outstanding - 10/10. In both locations, the common critical feedback was that participants wanted another day of training! Words like 'life changing' and 'pivotal' were common. Best yet was feedback from the teams of people we served with who were blown away by the authenticity, genuine care and leadership wisdom.

What did we learn?

1. Our strategy is working! Discipleship the best strategy to change the world. 

2. Not all Collaboration is equal...

3. Low hope is a silent killer - see next blog/podcast (too much for this post)

4. Sin is Evil and Beauty exists right next door

NEXT STEP: If you want to multiply the message and work of Heaven in Business into people and places that are limited economically, join us in donating to our registered non-profit: The Hope Directive. Alternatively reach out to me personally with your questions or comments: [email protected]