Everyone on our team is open to the possibility of speaking at your event. We can develop a keynote for your context on any of the following topics:

• Hopeful Frustration: Listening to Emotions -- with Marj Funk-Pihl.

  • Since our brains are hardwired to hold on to the negative, frustration comes easily to most of us.  That’s neurobiology. But staying frustrated leads to cynicism, which is distancing and debilitating.  Let’s talk about emotions and how they layer and overlap.  What is under frustration? If we dig, can we find grief and then maybe hope?  In this conversation, we’ll learn about emotions and practice a meditation technique. My goal for you is the same as Nelson Mandela’s for all of us: “May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears.”

• Embracing God’s Future without Forgetting the Past -- with Michael Girlinghouse  

  •  A conversation about grief, loss, nostalgia and congregational life. Most congregations can remember a time in the past when there were families and children in full pews.  We will learn how to work through our grief over the loss of the “glory days” and learn how we can draw strength, courage and vision for the future from our memories of days gone by. 

•  Creative Tension - with Michael Girlinghouse

  • Wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, there will be differences of opinion, disagreement and a diversity of perceptions and experiences.  Guaranteed.  The question is not whether or not there is conflict in congregational life, but how we work through the inevitable conflicts that arise and use them creatively to strengthen and grow our ministries.

​