Ned Berube, Presiding Elder, The Alliance for Renewal Churches

After referring a leadership couple to Doug & Charlene Fike’s leadership resourcing center in Virginia’s highlands, my wife and I took three days to visit them in the middle of their extended stay.  We were deeply impressed by both the vision and practice of what we saw, and by the wisdom and grace being poured into them.  Tangible transformation was afoot in the lives of our leaders. 

But our friends’ experience wasn’t mere information imparted from head to head.  It was organic, relational and genuinely incarnational.  Our leaders returned to the field with handles on a faith, vision, and life-pattern that we are quite sure will enable them to ‘finish well.’

I asked Doug if he would come and serve as the keynote speaker at our annual leadership conference six months from then.  The Fikes and their team did a wonderful work.  I described it to our leaders as ‘ethos changing.’  I believe it will deeply impact the lives and ministries of our leaders—in fact, I feel quite confident that this message will save some leaders from long seasons of frustration, futility, and loss of vision.  

Doug has been through the trenches of organizational matters and knows where leaders live and suffer and die.  He’s high voltage without being disrespectful of the particular dynamics of the group he’s resourcing.  We loved him and his team, and have begun to point many leaders and churches to this wonderfully unique resource.