Shaunti Fledhahn

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 10/27/2007 8:00 AM

This trip was one I have been looking forward to for a long time, because   Christ’s Church of the Valley or CCV, is the last of the Churches that have been putting on a marriage conference and have invited me to participate in one of the weeks of speaking. When I arrived at the Phoenix Airport I was picked by a terrific lady named Kim who is the assistant to Senior Pastor Don and as we talked about the Church one thing that I realized was remarkable about this particular Church is that Pastor Don puts a huge emphasis on attracting and speaking to men. So many churches are so female-oriented that many men just don’t feel at home in Church. There has actually been books written about this, including one that I believe is called something like “Why Men Hate Church”. This p ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 10/25/2007 8:00 AM

I absolutely love speaking at colleges and universities and this one is a special treat, because I have     been there before about two years ago and I have like spoken on my own, and this time Jeff and I were invited back to speak not only to the college faculty, but also to a Question and Answer session of hundreds of students.

We spoke probably to 1,300-1,400 students, and it is always such a treat to be able to catch folks before they develop all the wrong ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 10/16/2007 8:00 AM

What a great group of people at Cypress Wesleyan Church. I had so much fun   with the women from this church. Three leaders of the women’s group at this church had been on the ‘Girls’ Getaway Cruise’ that I spoke on, last year, and they enjoyed it so much they tried to re-create a little piece of that cruise for everyone else! No seriously, it turns out that one of the pastors, Dale, ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 10/11/2007 8:00 AM

This was a wonderful family trip. Jeff and I have been trying to prioritize doing marriage conferences where we can actually bring the kids with us, and this was wonderful for many reasons.

First, the invitation happened to fall over a long weekend for our kids’ school, so we could get a little mini family vacation in, in a wonderful environment.

Secondly, the invitation also fell during the famous Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, where hot air balloonists from all over the United States come to Albuquerque. They have mass liftoffs of 700, 800, 900 hot air balloons at a time, each morning for two weeks. I had heard about this, but had never seen it.

SRead More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 10/5/2007 8:00 AM

This event was a real treat for me because I was invited to speak by my college friends, Jean and Cheryl Foley. Jean and Cheryl have been close friends ever since we were all freshmen in college and meeting each other for the first time in the first few days of our college life together; and we all agreed it would probably be better for us not to tell the stories of the somewhat crazy things that we did in college now that we look back on and wonder, “What were we thinking?” But the reason that this was special for me is that I haven’t had as much contact with the Catholic side of the Christian world over the last few years, even though it was the Catholic students group in college that really nurtured and defended me; and really was where I had my real spiritual awakenings, and understanding of who God really is. So Jean and Cheryl are very special to me, and I was delighted to get this invitation to speak to the individu ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 9/29/2007 8:00 AM

The day after I got back from New York, Jeff and I took one of our first family trips to a speaking engagement under our new system. A year ago, we had realized that we needed to start prioritizing speaking engagements, where Jeff and I spoke together and could bring the children and a nanny with us.

Too often in the past when we have brought the children on our speaking engagements, they have been stuck in a church nursery somewhere probably with a very sweet volunteer looking after them, but still stuck in a nursery all day, which is obviously not really that much fun for them. So, we realized that we needed to start traveling with the children and a nanny; even though it’s more expensive for us, it’s very worth it in terms of our family priorities. So, we loaded our nanny Keri and the children up on the flight and flew out to Seattle, and it all worked beautifully. We had a lot of work to do on the airplane beca ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 9/25/2007 8:00 AM

Our old stomping grounds… How i miss this city

On Tuesday, I flew to my old stomping grounds in New York City to meet with my publisher about the new business book I will be working on for the next year. I had not realized how much I missed New York City until I got back into the City. I realized along the way that this would be the first night I had ever stayed in a hotel in New York. Obviously, when we lived there for four years, we had our apartments about ten blocks North of Gramercy Park on 27th and 2nd, and since we had an apartment, we were the hotel for all of our ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 9/21/2007 8:00 AM

My assistant Leslie and I flew out today for this large marriage event at     a Church in suburban Minneapolis and I was fascinated to see that like many of the Churches I go to this was a fairly large and growing Church where the average age of the attendees was in their 30s and 40s. I was also fascinated to see that these marriage events which they do twice-a-year attracts 1500 people - one thousand five hundred people roughly at each one of them and that basically represents 700 or more couples which is just a huge response from a Church that apparently takes Marriage Ministry very seriously. The interesting thing was that this was actually arranged by the Small Groups Ministry of the Church as a way to try to get people interested and connected and realize their need for fellowship with other couples and use it as a way to connect people in.

They also did something that I wish more Churches will do. In the lobb ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 8/25/2007 8:00 AM

On Saturday morning, I flew out again for the Phoenix area. I had been at Cornerstone Christian Church almost exactly a year ago to do a Women’s Event. They had wanted to have me in to do a pastoral interview as part of a sex series, like so many churches that I have spoken at in the last three years.

CORNERSTONE COMMUNITY CHURCH ATTENDANCE GOES FROM 2500 TO 6000 IN ONE YEAR!

They were doing a series of five or six weeks on sexual issues and had want ... Read More »

By Shaunti Feldhahn on 8/23/2007 8:00 AM

I flew out Thursday morning to do a women’s night out event at a church in McAllen, Texas last night and it was a really sweet group of people. They had a full dinner and it was one of those great events that I love so much were the men of the church serve the dinner for the women of the church and give their wives a fun, relaxing time. The other thing that I always find really amusing about those scenarios is that, while I’m standing up on stage talking to the girls about what’s going on in the lives of their men, you can see the heads of the men peeping over the windows and the doors to the kitchen or peering around the sides of the room or standing in the back of the room just happening to take a long time to clear dishes just because they want to hear.

Last night, I was standing on stage sharing some of these issues and I noticed that there seem to be more men than normal filtering into the room when ... Read More »