Parting the Sea of Imposters and Finding Our Best Self

Life Model Works brought together a power-packed event for Transform in 2022! With nine total sessions and twelve speakers, you are sure to find some amazing, original content that will help you find your best self.

Enjoy!

The 5 Skills Every Marriage and Family Needs

In this session, relational skill experts Chris and Jen Coursey from THRIVEtoday will lead you with teaching, stories, practice, and exercises on 5 key skills that change the game for marriage and parenting.

The Coursey’s worked with Dr. Jim Wilder for over 20 years developing resources and curriculum, so families and communities use relational skills to be resilient, relational, and resourceful in good times and bad. They will share the 5 skills that transformed their marriage and took their parenting to a new level. 5 simple skills transform our relationships, so fear and pain no longer have the last word.

Encountering Immanuel

The Immanuel Lifestyle is one of the Life Model’s three pillars. This model of prayer connects with God (who is ‘with us’, Immanuel) so we can sense His presence and hear His voice.

Whether this is an introduction to Encountering Immanuel or a deepening of your interactive life with Him, you will experience the joy of His presence as Margaret and her team lead you through the proven practices that have helped so many connect with God at a whole new level.

Rare Leadership in the Workplace

Did you know that living as a RARE leader at work is taking the Life Model to work? In this interactive session, Dave Mead and Virgie Maney will assist you with practical steps on how to be your best self at work.

Healthy teams begin with healthy leaders, and at the heart of this dynamic is emotional maturity—the quality the greatest leaders possess.

Healthy leaders lead with their full heart and whole brain.

RARE Leadership in the Workplace will help you live the Life Model at work.

Our "As If" Self

The difference between humans and the rest of God’s creatures is our ability to create an ‘as-if’ self so convincingly that we believe it ourselves.

We build, protect and seek the company of those who maintain our image. The ‘as-if’ self has no immunity to the justifications of the flesh, the greed of the eyes or the pride of our status although the as-if self can make those three forces sound spiritual.

The ‘as-if’ self tends to live in the future or the past and dislike being in our bodies right now. The ‘as-if’ self wants whatever is going to work rather than who we are meant to become.

Our Best Self

At first, we cannot see our best self – only its shadow in the things that cause us suffering. We sense our best self in those things we admire about Jesus and people like him. Our best self is asking to be found when we are in love and when we imagine.

The only problems with these longings (desires of our heart) are the deformed and limited ways we imagine they can be fulfilled. Our imaginations are always too small and too contaminated by the false self’s way to build our image with the world.

We need a new identity group that sees in us people who attach to their enemies – something the “as if” self cannot do.

The False Selves We Encourage in the Church and Why

One of the responsibilities of the church is to bring out the truest and best selves in each other. Tragically too often the opposite happens. Because of performance expectations and fear, we are pressured to become people who are far from who we truly are.

Come and take a look at the false selves or avatars that we encourage in the church and how we can encourage our true selves to flourish in community.

Goodbye Raggedy Ann - How Healing from Shame Banished a False Identity

Terri will share how circumstances surrounding her birth produced a pocket of shame that gave rise to a false identity.

Just recently, following her mother’s passing, Immanuel exposed this stronghold and removed the burden of this false self.

Escaping Enemy Mode In Our Marriage

More than 10 years ago, Ray was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma the same month he learned he would be promoted to brigadier general. They were both terrified but determined to survive and grow into a more relational marriage. Deborah felt God calling her to live her life without regrets, so she began to speak honestly, courageously, and compassionately with Ray about their marriage and how his enemy mode had impacted them.

What is it like to live with a husband who is escaping enemy mode?

Calling Out the True Self In Non-Believers

How do we reflect what Jesus sees in people whose point of view does not align with ours? Stories from daily interactions in secular environments.

Getting Stuck in "As If"

How is a stuck brain like a stuck toilet? The strange side effects of an as-if self and understanding how they work that way.

Finding Our Best Self

Using a rescue attachment will get us unstuck from enemy mode. What are the necessary elements and how can we practice?

Questions and Responses

The Conference speakers join in responding to questions submitted by attendees. Some great additional content!

Speakers

Pastor, Missionary

Michel Hendricks is a pastor, missionary, engineer, inventor and author. He has been teaching and training for over 25 years. He was a pastor of spiritual formation at Flatirons Community Church in Lafayette, Colorado. In addition, he served and trained people in Argentina, Mexico, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda. He is married to Claudia and they have three adult children.

Founder, Alive and Well, Inc.

Margaret Webb devoted herself to a ministry of emotional healing and maturation in the context of prayer. Margaret has studied with and learned from Dr. Jim Wilder, Dr. Karl Lehman, Chris and Jen Coursey, and Ed Khouri for the past 10 years, and it has changed her personal life as well as her ministry career. Using what she learned from these leaders, as well as her experience as a Christian Counselor, she created the Alive and Well, Inc. curriculum for leading people into the Immanuel Lifestyle and preparing prayer ministers to use the Immanuel Approach. Teaching, training, mentoring and consulting, she is committed to the vision of a network of lay and professional people-helpers bringing the care of souls into the local church. Her website is alivewell.org.

Dave Mead

CEO of WeAlign

Be assured that Dave Mead is glad to be with you! Dave has been on staff with the Navigators for 31 years working on college campuses, Military installations, overseas, and as a Vice President overseeing the Navigator Military ministries. Currently, he is on the national leadership team of Nav Neighbors. He also had a 31 year career in the Army (23 years in the Reserves). He would say that he began to engage the right side of his brain a year ago at Thrive…and everything has changed! Now Dave wants to joyfully spend his next 31 years living out the Life Model. He is CEO of WeAlign, a coaching firm committed to personal transformation by guiding people to their unique design within a culture focused on strengths and fueled by joy. Dave holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the United States Military Academy and a Masters of Strategic Studies Degree from the U.S. Army War College.

Counselor, Author

Chris Coursey has spent most of his ministry career applying and developing strategies for Life Model training. Chris is a pastoral counselor, leadership consultant, published author, and conference speaker. He speaks nationally and internationally, frequently visiting schools, ministries and churches throughout the United States and Canada in particular on growing and propagating relational joy. He has been a guest speaker at YWAM schools in Kona, Vancouver and New Jersey. He has also been an interview guest on several Christian radio shows in the US, speaking about the role that Gentle Protector Skills have for couples, leaders and pastors. Along with Dr. Jim Wilder, Chris co-authored Share Immanuel and The Healing Lifestyle. Dr. Wilder and Coursey also developed THRIVE Training, which are three interactive training tracks strategically designed for leaders to learn and spread the nineteen gentle protector skills. Along with his wife Jen, Chris now actively leads THRIVE Training events along with THRIVE Joy Rekindled Marriage Retreats, THRIVE Reach Your Potential with Joy weekend retreats, and seminars designed to equip leaders and pastors in the Nineteen Gentle Protector Skills with the Share Immanuel Lifestyle.

Chris earned his Associates Degree from Illinois Central College in 1995. In 1998, he transferred to Eastern Illinois State University to earn his B.A. in Sociology, with a minor in Psychology. Chris earned his M.T. from M.B.I. Yeshiva in Hampton, Virginia in 2007. Chris is an ordained minister with the Evangelical Church Alliance. Chris is currently the assistant director for Shepherd’s House, Inc. under the mentorship of Dr. Jim Wilder.

Executive Director of Life Model Works

Rev. Ray Woolridge (MDiv, Southwestern Baptist Seminary, and Master of Strategic Studies, U.S. Army War College) became the Executive Director of Life Model Works on September 1, 2020. He is thrilled to serve in a role that combines his pastoral and leadership experience with his calling, giftings and walk with God. The principles behind the Life Model are transforming his life, work, and personal relationships every day.

Ray is a retired U.S. Army Chaplain (Brigadier General) with 43 years of service with the military, in uniform or as a civilian. A skilled public communicator, he also gets joy in coaching leaders to discover their uniqueness and unleash their potential. Ray has led in two congregations, as a church planting pastor and as pastor of adult ministries. Ray is thankful to partner with Life Model Works to come alongside existing networks to implement Life Model principles in their context.

Founder Life Model Works

Dr. Jim Wilder has been training leaders and counselors for over 30 years on five continents. Jim grew up in South America and is bilingual (English/Spanish). He is the author of nineteen books with a strong focus on maturity and relational skills. His coauthored book, Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You, has sold over 100,000 copies and is printed in eleven languages. Wilder has published numerous articles and developed four sets of video and relational leadership training. Dr. Wilder has served as a guest lecturer at Fuller Seminary, Biola, Talbot Seminary, Point Loma University, Montreat College, Tyndale Seminary and elsewhere.