Friendship Project Update 1.27.10

Fans and friends,

I've started a movement. Just writing that makes me feel all Joan of Arc-ish. It's not quite so severe, but I do think it is just as significant. I'm hoping banded together we can be liberated from the tyranny of busy-ness and isolation. I am hoping we find fellowship with friends. And so I've set up a little Facebook group dedicated to the Friendship Project. If you are on Facebook, consider joining us. If not, you can follow along right here as we kick off the campaign. The goal is to see what happens when women stop being busy and start being friends.

Today I'm announcing the the first organized initiative of the Friendship Project. Beginning next week I will be posting a series of weekly updates that invite your participation. Ready?

Join me for:

"Meditate On It" Monday

"Work it Out" Wednesday

"Feedback" Friday

No need to stress about where we go from here. Don't obsess about how this works. This isn't a big picture obligation. It isn't intended to be overwhelming. It's not just one more thing on an already-packed to-do list. Let's just do what we can to open our hearts, and perhaps more challenging our schedules to see, really see each other. Relationships aren't meant to exist just on screen or paper, but in flesh and blood.

Join me. Let's make some friends.

And now just for old time's sake:

Do you like me?

Circle "Yes" or "No"

Or-

Check out the Proverbs 31 Website to learn more about me and the ministry changing my life and the lives of women all across the world.

Your new friend,

Whitney

Friends,

My sweet friends Luann Prater and Carol Davis are doing an amazing conference in Charlotte in just a few short weeks. It will be phenomenal!!! I wish I could be there, but I can't. Just wanted to pass along the details in case anyone can go, be blessed, and come back to share how fantastic it was?!!

Check out this video for a word from Luann:

This event is ONLY $119! THIS INCLUDES OVER-NIGHT STAY, ENTRANCE TO ALL CONFERENCE SESSIONS/ALL CONFERENCE MATERIAL, BREAKFAST & LUNCH ON SATURDAY!!! The bad news is...space is limited, so don't wait, register today.

From Luann:
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”—E.M. Forester

This team of women at Encouragement Cafe' are charged up and ready to "let go" and we want desperately for you to come along with us!

God scoops up all of our pieces and parts and makes it whole. Watch how He takes our little and magnifies it into something so incredible that we will NEVER be the same!

Maybe you've never pictured yourself as radical.
Maybe you've never thought that God would ever ask you to step into something more.
Maybe you've never really experienced ABSOLUTE, BOUNDLESS, ABANDON and quite frankly the thought of it scares you to death!

Let me whisper in your ear a little truth:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9

God wants to do reconstructive surgery on the hearts of each one of us. We all live lives of quiet desperation, yet getting trapped in the mundane was never God's intention for our life! He wants us to not only LIVE victoriously, but to display that victory so others will be drawn to Him!

He has promised to show up in a unique and marvelous way. Will your 2010 look just like all the other years or are you ready to let God do something EXTREME in your life? Trust His way.

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him." 2 Cor 2:9

Isaiah 55:13 "This will be for the Lord's renown..."

From Carol Davis:
As we get ready for the Encouragement Extreme event in January, I can't help but think that God really means for us to go to the EXTREME in our faith. The Bible says that Jesus came to give us ABUNDANT life. Are you living an abundant life?

I have to admit that most of my days seem pretty ordinary. The laundry, the meetings, the "what's for supper?" You know the routine. But, somewhere in my heart...there is a part of me that longs for the abundant...the extreme life of faith that God has already purchased for me. If you have that longing too...then meet me in Greensboro at the Embassy Suites, January 29th and 30th....and we will lock arms and run hard after Jesus.

And when the weekend is over, the world will see a group of gals that have absolute faith in a great big God.

I look forward to the journey with you!!!


From Ramona Davis:
There are so many women God is calling to come out onto deeper water with Him. He has asked us to provide a place and environment in which His Spirit can move and take all of our hands and bring us by faith to a place of deeper commitment in our relationship to Him.

That’s what Encouragement EXTREME is all about. If you have felt His call in your heart, then this event is for you. He wants to encourage us to be EXTREME for Him and impact our little corners of the world.

Come, join us as we take each other’s hands and launch out!
I can’t wait to meet you,
Ramona Davis

Friendship Project Update #3

Greetings friends. Hey! It's 2010!! Ain't that a kick in the head? If you've hopped here from the Encouragement for Today devotions by Proverbs 31, thanks and welcome. I hope you enjoyed today's devotion. Friendship is a topic I'd really rather not talk about. Why? Because I am a TERRIBLE friend; I mean really, really bad. Here are a few examples.

-I rarely remember birthdays.

-I never call to chat.

-I forget to ask about the thing you asked me to pray about last week.

-I take the last piece of bread.

To make matters worse, I am an introvert. I play an extrovert on t.v. and in life, but I love, need, c.r.a.v.e. mental white space. In have a few really, really close friends. And they laugh every time I tell people I'm not a good friend. They testify (to my embarrassment) that I am a really good friend. Here are a few of the examples they use:

-I have a knack for making other people feel comfortable.

-I ask good questions to get people talking.

-I am so comfortable with new people.

So I started wondering. Where is the discrepancy? I am not a good friend. I have this on good authority from a Highly reputable source. God has convicted me about my lack of commitment to real biblical friendship. He is working on me, and I am working on it. So why do my friends think I'm a good friend?

I think it's because I'm a good acquaintance. I do acquaintance-ship well. I know how to get to know you only so far. I rarely make the leap from social to spiritual. I don't make the sacrifice to invest in women. Don't get me wrong I have friendships-deeply intimate, spiritually nourishing friendships. I could. not do life without these gals. But here's the rub. There are countless women in my circle of relationship and even influence who desperately need, yet lack those same kinds of friendships.

Here's what the Spirit said to me about those gals even as He brought their faces to my mind:

"Whitney, you are waiting for someone else to do the hard, dirty work of friendship. You keep hoping they will connect with anybody but you. You've learned to be polite yet evasive. You have brushed them off as needy and "unique." You've pleaded your inadequacy as a friend as excuse not to engage. Daughter, invest. Connect. Sacrifice. Give."

Oh, friends. I did not want to hear that. And maybe more particularly I did not want to do it. But I will. I am. Friendship ISN'T always mutually beneficial, sometimes is sacrificial. It isn't always a give and take, sometimes it's just give. It isn't always easy. Often it is really, really hard.

Here's what I've learned so far. I have relationships where I experience friendship.I get the "take" as I give. But there are relationships where I demonstrate friendship. I demonstrate it in hopes that this new friend will experience the joy of biblical friendship. I won't do it perfectly, but that's not really an excuse.

I'm doing it. You?

P.S. Please join the Friendship Project fan page on Facebook. I'll be posting more details about the project there (and here.)