Shaunti Feldhahn

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/24/2007 8:00 AM

This was the first marriage conference that I had done on my own in a while, and I realized how much I missed having Jeff with me! He is so good at relating to the guys as an “average knucklehead” (his words, not mine!), and really seems to help them ‘get it’ about how simple it can be to truly understand their wives and make them happy.

Although I was missing my husband and kids, I really enjoyed this visit. The pastor, Georg Karl, is an old Michigan guy and had a shrine in his office to the Michigan Wolverines just like Jeff does! Which in Indiana, of course, is NOT very popular.   [LINDA - see if you can get the picture from the event site of me between two of the pastors who were wearing Michigan sweatshirts!] Georg had actually met his wife, Jeanne, in Flint, MI, which is where Jeff used to own restaurants with his brothers before he went to college. And Jeff was blown away to hea ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/20/2007 8:00 AM

I was delighted to be able to do this women’s night out-type event and not have to get on an airplane! This was a terrific church up near the Mall of Georgia, which made for interesting driving in rush hour traffic,
as anyone who knows Atlanta traffic might guess! But once I actually got there, what a fun group of ladies! There were probably about 350 women packed into the old sanctuary, and they had brought friends, neighbors, co-workers, and so on. The organizers had told me that they were hoping this would be a good event for church members to invite their friends to, and that is exactly what happened. I had at least three women stop me in the bathroom and tell me privately that they had brought a neighbor who was really struggling with her marriage, or had invited a co-worker who wasn’t as interested in hearing about men but wanted to hear me speak because she read my column in the paper every week, or so on. Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/11/2007 8:00 AM

Jeff and I flew to South Dakota on Friday and when we landed, it was about five degrees below zero. What did we get ourselves into?! We also were several hours late and by the time we got in, we basically had to run to dinner.

We were delighted to spend time with the senior Pastor Tim and his wife Dawn of Brookings Wesleyan Church. They were the real duo and we thoroughly enjoyed the entire weekend with them. This was a marriage conference and it was  very interesting because South Dakota is not heavily populated; and Brookings is a college town that has 20,000 residents, most of which are the college. The church has 900 people, which probably means ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/5/2007 8:00 AM

Today, Monday, I did absolutely no work at all. I have been feeling so convicted that I wasn’t really trusting the Lord by not being purposeful about taking a Sabbath. For several years I had been trying so hard to do all these events, write these books, and write the articles that I needed to write for the column that I had really been skimping on the idea of a Sabbath. I felt like the Lord was really challenging me just as He says in his Word, that we are supposed to thrive as a discipline and we are supposed to trust Him; that we’ll have enough money for all of the things we need to do but we need to give that first 10% of our finances to Him.

I had felt the Lord encouraging me that I had learned how to thrive and how to trust Him financially years ago, but I had never really learned to trust Him with my time. So, I felt very convinced that I was supposed be very careful about starting to take a Sabbath every we ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/3/2007 8:00 AM

My assistant, Leslie Hettenbach, and I had to leave the women’s event at Sagemont in Houston Saturday morning to get to Sun Valley Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona. The retreat speaker starting Saturday morning at Sun Valley was Tammy Trent, the singer who had lost her husband and had written a book about it. I had really hoped to meet her, and hopefully, one of these days our paths will cross, but I wasn’t able this time to get there in time to see her. Leslie and I both had to overcome a little bit of a stomach bug of some sort. We decided it would safest to eat only crackers and drink only ginger ale for the weekend. I did five services with the Pastoral interview on Saturday night and Sunday morning with Pastor Scott at Sun Valley. Boy, I had so much respect for pastors whose churches have grown like wildfire. This church was a church of 400 people only 3 years ago, and now it’s a church of approximately 1800 peopl ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 2/2/2007 8:00 AM

On Friday, February 2nd my assistant Leslie and I flew to Houston where we were picked up at the airport and driven down to speak at a weekend women’s retreat for Sagemont Church, out of Houston. The retreat was in Galveston, which is about an hour’s drive south of Houston. It took us a while to get there because right before we got to Galveston the highway was closed by 5 car accidents. We ended up pulling off the highway and having a leisurely early dinner with Karen, the sweet woman who had picked us up at the airport. It turns out Karen was the lady who was in charge of running the “For Women Only Bible Study” that the women of Sagemont were already doing. It was very encouraging to hear how some of the women had responded. She said for example that one of the women had started in the first week or two to put some of the truths in practice about trying to respect her husband, build him up, and be very careful ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 1/29/2007 8:00 AM

On Monday, the day after I got back from Chicago, I got on a plane again with my friend and co-author Lisa Rice and we flew to Dayton, Ohio for me to be able to speak at a college chapel at Cedarville University. Two wonderful students who were so enthusiastic about Cedarville picked us up, and immediately    Lisa started getting very intrigued about this great University. Cedarville is sort of placed out in the middle of nowhere in Ohio, yet has excellent academic standards. According to the Dean of students, Cedarville is in the top 12% of all schools nationwide in terms of SAT Scores and grades of the entering class. Cedarville is also a Christian University, and these students were certainly very enthusiastic about it.

The next morning, I spoke at the daily college chapel of about 3,000 people. It’s a mandatory service, which to me was very interesting. I was very fascinated about the fact that they have a ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 1/28/2007 8:00 AM

Jeff and I flew to Chicago and drove across the border into Indiana for a 6-hour marriage conference at Faith Church, today. It was a productive long day with over 100 couples, and we both had to race out afterwards: jeff to catch the last flight out so he could get back for a talk tomorrow morning and me for a church service near Chicago that I had to be at just one hour after the Dyer event ended!

The thing that most struck me today, was that on a Saturday - all day - more than 100 men loved their wives enough to sit in a room and listen to and talk about ‘relationship’ stuff: which does NOT come naturally to most men. The other thing that most struck me was to realize that during the question and answer time at the end, that women - even if they’ve been married for decades - still don’t realize that! Jeff and I structured the day to spend the first hour and a half explaining to women most of ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 1/27/2007 8:00 AM

After Jeff and I were done with the marriage conference in Indiana, we raced back to the airport to be able to catch the last flight out on Saturday night and get home.

Parkview Christian Church sent a car to bring me so that I would be able to participate in both the evening services as well as the Sunday morning services. This was another pastoral interview with Pastor Tim, who is a fantastic guy, great pastor, and great interviewer. It’s a very big church with probably about 4,000 attendees on a Sunday. They had just moved into a new sanctuary, had already outgrown it, and were planning to build at a whole new building.

Pastor Tim was actually one of a few “snowmobiling pastors” as I call them. He and three other pastors of similarly sized churches get together a couple of times a year. At the last one of their get-togethers he was reading to them from my book and they were all very ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 1/20/2007 8:00 AM

Jeff and I flew to Las Vegas for our second time in three months, for the annual meeting of the Southeast Chapter of the Young President’s Organization. For those who aren’t familiar with YPO, they are a terrific organization; essentially an association for any young and upwardly-mobile heads of businesses who want to network with others in similar situations.   I always enjoy doing corporate events, and this one was a surprise in more ways than one!

First of all, they put Jeff and I in a 5-star suite at the Wynn Resort, which was an experience in itself! We figured if we had to be away from the kids for three days on an event, this was the way to do it! The suite was about three times larger than our apartment in New York, with three televisions (including one in the massive bathroom suite), two restrooms, and absolutely stunning views of the city and mountains from both the bedroom AND the living room.& ... Read More »