Zero to Hero Conferences

All communicate. Few Understand!

In these conferences you will learn to be a noble person, partner, parent, provider, or proclaimer of good understanding and a courageous hero while under fire.

z2h conferences help you answer these questions?

How can I overcome my defensiveness?

How do we deal with a conflict when neither party wants to take the initiative to reconcile?

What can a person do when they feel like the relationship is hopeless?

What steps can a person take to go from being a zero to a hero?

How do we collaborate on a plan that we both agree to and will follow through with?

What are the few things we cannot fail to do in our relationship or everything else will be rendered inconsequential?

You will realize that you have a choice of who you will become by the decisions you make and the actions you take.

Testimony of a couple who went from zero to hero.

“Rod and I celebrated 30 years in August and as we were eating our 30th anniversary dinner we laughed about how it has only really been 1-2 years! Your conference saved our marriage!”

This man learned how to rescue his wife during a 90 minute courageous conversation and go from being a zero for 28 years to a hero for the last 1-2 years.

Testimony of a father who went from zero to hero.

What we found at the conference was a wealth of new tools for our parenting toolbox…the courageous conversation was a break-through point. Although we had brought our son to the conference to “fix” him, what I discovered was that there were several significant needs in my wife that I was not meeting. At the end of the tears we enjoyed renewal and a revived hope.

Testimony of a Busy California Wife.

_It was EFFICIENT (lots of info effectively delivered – the kind of material that could easily take up many more days, but is delivered in about 12-14 hrs)
It was SCRIPTURALLY BASED and REVEALING toward our roles as a wife and husband
It was PRACTICAL – Communication skills taught are nothing you’ve ever seen before and the mechanics are demo’d live so you really see it and ‘get it’ (people are sharing their true life situations…it’s compelling…it’s live…not a mocked up situation).

Testimony of a Young Woman.

It is easy to attend a conference with the view of learning how to “become Somebody” and therefore return home with the burden of expectations and more things to do in order “measure up” and be a “great Christian” so that the Lord is pleased. For me, this has turned into a performance trap – a road that ends in burn out, discouragement, etc. However, the Vision Conference was a completely different story! It was a reminder not to strive to “become somebody” but to “contain Someone.” Oh, the freedom! I was encouraged to rest in the Lord, not try to perfect “the vessel” but allow Him to increase the capacity instead, and to know who I am in Christ so I can then live according to who I am. I began to see more clearly how He answers my core questions, how my identity is secure in Him, and how my belief system had a lot of room for improvement! It was so helpful to identify that I had been trying to answer the core questions backwards. I must first learn to receive in order to feel and in order to act.

Zero to Hero Conferences begin on a Friday evening and go through Saturday evening. The z2h conferences differ from the Life Role conferences in that they are only 1 day and an evening compared to 2 1/2 full days and 3 evenings that include time for coaching. The z2h conferences focus on four heroic deeds.

Four Heroic Deeds of Relationship

We will review the four heroic deeds of relationship in each z2h conference. The four heroic deeds include what we need to Be, Know, and Do.

1 Come – Create a Safe Place to Share from the Heart

Be – A Noble Partner

A noble partner willingly and generously offers to lay down their life to serve the other. When a spouse willingly offers to listen with a heart of understanding to the others thoughts, feelings, fears and needs they are being a noble partner. A noble and understanding heart creates a safe place and it is a key to overcoming defensiveness. We create a safe place by preferring another in honor (Romans 12:10,16).

Know – How to Encourage Yourself in Lord

Before creating safety for others, we must first encourage ourselves in the Lord and receive all our needs of safety, affirmation, and security from the Lord. Then out of our own heart flows an atmosphere of security and worth. Secondly, we inquire of the Lord for a plan to significantly impact others for their good. We find sufficiency in Christ to reveal the love of God that leads to reconciliation.

Do – Develop a Noble Identity Statement for Blessing

Discover who you are in Christ Jesus so you can remember who you are and act like who you are in every situation. You can reveal your love for your spouse by blessing them as your recite their noble identity statement. This is a practical way to reveal your love by believing, hoping, and enduring all things as Christ is formed in them.

2 Call – Listen with an Understanding Heart

Be – A Man or Woman of Good Understanding

When we delight to be with someone, to consider their troubles, and to know their soul in adversity, we are being men and women of good understanding and we are building a bridge of communication that connects us.

Know – How to Draw out Counsel from the Heart

Developing the skill of asking questions and listening with an understanding heart is the key to effectively pursuing the heart of a person. “Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Proverbs 20:5). The failure to ask wise questions and to willingly listen is interpreted by others as the absence of care and concern.

Do – The Skills of a Courageous Conversation

Developing the skills of a courageous conversation will allow you to rescue your relationSHIP from the “Ocean of Emotion.” Courageous conversations give you a standard operating procedure when your communication becomes unsafe and you want to follow your natural inclinations of fight, flight or freeze.

God mentioned one woman in the scriptures who was a model of good understanding, “the name of his wife Abigail: and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance” Abigail did four things that we can learn from:

She esteemed the needs of others higher than her own. (See also Philippians 2:1-8, Romans 12:10)
She asked wise and courageous questions of God, and others to discern the real needs.
She listened with an understanding heart.
She made a wise appeal relying on God’s power.

Her husband demonstrated a foolish man who lacked understanding. He demonstrates the actions of a fool.

He esteemed his own needs higher than others.
He asked rhetorical questions that revealed his judgment of others.
He lectured with a condemning heart.
He issued commands relying on the force of his money, natural inclinations, and strength.

3 Clothe – Repair the Ruptures of the Heart

Be – A Courageous Hero

After you have come as a noble partner to willingly hear the heart of your spouse, and you have called them into a conversation to draw out the issues and counsel of the heart, then you courageously lead them to the throne of God’s grace so they can be clothed with His righteousness and once again be restored to His presence where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. (See Psalm 16:11) Our spouses roar because of the disquieteness of their own hearts. (See Psalm 38:8) The psalmist reveals what has caused the disquietness in verses 1-7, it comes from a person’s own feelings of guilt, shame, hopelessness, anger, and fear.

Know – How to Return to Joy

We must know how to return ourselves to joy like David did in the Psalms. We learn valuable lessons as we study the Psalms to see how God led David back into the joy of His presence from every difficult emotion and trial. When we are courageous under fire because we have the joy of the Lord, which is our strength, we are able to rescue others from their own dangerous emotions. This requires that we learn how to take captive our thoughts so we can manage our feelings and therefore choose our actions based on principles of love. When we do the above we will be able to predict our results. God allowed David to express the facts as he saw them, he was able to share his opinions, hopes and dreams, feelings, fears and needs without being interrupted. When David felt heard he felt loved. “I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.” (Psalm 116:1-2) David was then able to focus on putting his hope in the Lord, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” (Psalm 42:11)

Do – Boldly Enter the Throne of Grace

All relationships will experience the “ocean of emotion” at some point. Most ruptures occur as a result of being “oblivious to the obvious”—when people are self-centered and oblivious to how their choices are hurting others. When these moments are handled by the natural impulse to come, see, conquer, and retreat; guilt and blame result. However, when we pay the debt (hurt) of our offenders and clothe them with Christ’s righteousness, we are removing the guilt and therefore the blame that disconnect us through criticism and defensiveness. (See Proverbs 10:12, 17:9.) We also release ourselves from the poison of bitterness. By overtaking the enemy of our relationships with mercy and truth, we meet at the cross where righteousness and peace have kissed. Once again love flows from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5). This all happens as we go to the throne of God’s grace in the time of need to experience and extend His grace.

4 Connect – Become as One Heart

Be – Man/Woman Mighty in the Scriptures

“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3) When we pray together we stay together. When we discover God’s Word together we grow together. I tell couples to take the time to sleep on an issue after they have prayed so they can get God’s perspective on an issue, David said, “I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.” (Psalm 16:7) Ask the Lord to give you counsel in your sleep and prepare for bed by reading a portion of scripture. When you awake ask the Lord to teach you by His Spirit as you read the Word once again.

Know – How to Hear God’s Voice

Learn how to hear God’s voice as you search His Word. “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life” (Proverbs 6:23) We recover all when we connect and stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. We experience the joy of the Lord when we are likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, and working together as one body. As we dwell together in harmony, God commands His blessing that makes one rich and he adds no sorrow to it (Psalm 133, Proverbs 10:22). Standing secure in Christ and extending His grace to others, we experience the blessing of individual maturity and full family connection. Only through the leading of God’s Spirit through His Word can we achieve the complex balance of mercy and truth that creates the flexibility and adaptability to become one.

Do – A Noble Plan

A noble plan has five elements that allow us to gain clarity about: God’s Will, God’s Way, God’s Resources, God’s Timing, and God’s Consequences

What is a Hero?

In every battle there are heroes and there are zeros. Heroes save other’s lives; zeroes are only concerned about their own lives. To win the battle for the hearts of those we love, we must continually go from being a zero to becoming a hero. At some point, every relationship will experience the “ocean of emotion.” We have to learn how to connect in our relationships by building bridges of communication across the “ocean of emotion.” These are defining moments in which we have the opportunity to become a hero by willingly losing our lives, or a zero by trying to save our lives.

A Hero’s Motto

A hero’s motto is, “He who seeks to gain his life will lose it, but he who loses his life will gain it.” Jim Elliott, a heroic missionary who died trying to save the Auca Indians once said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” We must discern what is worth dying for as a hero and what is worth living for and then take courage under fire.

A Hero’s Pattern

Heroes learn to come, call, clothe and connect in their relationships. They model the pattern of restoration/redemption set by God when He came into the Garden to reconcile Adam and Eve. He called them out of hiding to courageously resolve their most pressing issues. He then clothed them with His righteousness so they could once again be connected and in His presence. God the Son came to the earth, called us unto Himself, clothed us in His righteousness, and connected us to our Heavenly Father. Jesus is our example of a hero who willingly laid down His life.

A Zero’s Pattern

Zeroes follow their natural inclinations to come, see, conquer, and then withdraw in irresponsibility, thereby breaking connection in relationship. We act like a zero when we come to take, we identify what we want, we demand or manipulate others to cooperate with us, we judge them when they do not willingly comply, then we punish them by withholding our love. Being a zero results in guilt, justification, blame, and self-deception. Both parties are no longer energized by the relationship, but drained by negative emotions of fear, anger, shame, disgust, and despair.

Root Cause of a Zero

The Apostle Paul tells us the root cause of being a zero: it is the lack of love as the compelling force behind every thought, word, or action. “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing,” I am a zero. (See 1 Corinthians 13:2.)

David’s Pattern for a Hero

A hero knows how to encourage himself in the Lord so he can be a giver instead of a taker. Heroes know how to inquire of the Lord for a strategy to pursue, overtake, and recover all in the advancement of God’s kingdom. In 1 Samuel 30, David encounters the ocean of emotion as he and his men return home to Ziklag, only to find their city burned and their families taken into captivity. They all weep until they canweep no more and then David’s own men talk of stoning him. It is in this defining moment that David reveals whether he is a zero or a hero. He encourages himself in the Lord, he leads his men in prayer, he inquires of the Lord and gets a confirmation to pursue, overtake and recover all. David is once again a hero! He connected with his men, he reunited with his family, and he built bridges of communication and trust with the cities of Judah by justly dividing the spoils of war.

To erect a bridge of communication that can span the “ocean of emotion” you will need to master the four heroic deeds.