This is on of my favorite weeks in the entire year. Our church brings in two of the best teachers in the body of Christ: Doug Jones and Keith Moore. If you haven’t heard of them, please take my word for it, you need to! I’d recommend checking out their websites and downloading a message or two.

I could not encourage you enough to make it a priority to get to these meetings. I promise you, if you’ll come with an open heart and expect God to do a work in your life, this will be a life changing week for you.

Here is the schedule:

Monday – Wednesday Mornings 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.: Doug Jones

Monday – Wednesday Evenings 7 p.m. – Whenever: Keith Moore

Tuesday Afternoon – 12 p.m. – 2 p.m. – Ministers Lunch and Question and Answer with Keith Moore

• **You must be a pastor and register if you’d like to go to the lunch. Register here.

If you need directions to the church, click here.

If you’re unable to make the services, our church will have the podcasts up as soon as they can. You can listen to the podcast here.

If you have any questions, or would like to come and connect, let me know, I’d love to help you in anyway I can.

Last month we took students on our Outreach team at Rev to the Special Olympics to serve. It was an awesome time being able to bless all of the athletes! The highlight of the day was definitely getting to dance at the Special Olympics dance party. That is something that our team will never forget! Here is a highlight video from our day. There are some awesome clips of everybody dancing!

⁴⁶And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. -Luke 2:46

I’m recognizing that a key to growth and success is the environment you are in. The environment you were raised in,  the environment you work in, and the environments you choose to put yourself in.

The environments you position yourself in will be a determining factor on whether or not you succeed in life.

I’ve been so blessed to be in the leadership environment at Victory Family Church for the past few years. Here are some things I’ve noticed about leadership environments that work:

1.) They make you better than you really are -this can be a downfall. If we’re not careful we’ll think we’re amazing, when really, we’re just in an amazing environment where leadership is valued. We must be humble and learn as much as we can about why the environment works, so we can apply it when we enter a non-leadership environment.

2.)They Empower You to Lead – They don’t have micro-managers, they have leaders that empower you to make decisions, hear from God, develop your team, and leverage your creativity.

3.) They Don’t Let You Settle - There is accountability for results. They demand the best out of you, give you honest feedback consistently, and coach you when you need coached.

4.) They allow you to Grow - Personal growth is highly valued. Growth opportunities are available for you.

5.) They Allow you to Fail – If you’re in the right environment, you’ll feel safe failing. Just remember to learn from your failure and not to repeat it!

5.) They Teach you to Create Leadership Environments – It’d be easy to leave a leadership environment  think it will be just as easy to lead wherever we go. It won’t. We must learn how to create a leadership environment that works and the only way I know of to to do that is by seeing on modeled and being a part of it.

I know that one day, I’ll have to create a leadership environment on my own, and I’ll have to rely on what I learned while I was in one.

So, my question for you is:

Are you in a leadership environment? If you’re not, I’d consider finding one to be a part of. Find mentors who are currently in one, join a local leadership network, or visit organizations where there is a leadership environment.

I’ve been in leadership environments and I’ve been to places without them, there is no comparison. You’ll never be all that you can be unless you’re in an environment that will make you all you can be.

Thoughts?