Denise VanEck has been a speaker and trainer for more than ten years, specializing in communication, team building and leadership development. She is the author of From My Heart to My Hands: A Journey into Leadership (8/04 Zondervan/Youth Specialties).

Team Building Issues

The Art of Dialogue
Our modern culture has trained us in a primary communication model (discussion and debate) that is often more hurtful than helpful. The ancient practice of dialogue can often be the key to stronger team building, building healthy community and creating a more productive workplace. This workshop, offered in half or whole day formats, introduces participants to the fundamentals of the practice of dialogue, as well as providing a model for application that can be transferred into the participant’s own environment of impact.

The Art of Conflict Management
It has been said that if a leader is not experiencing conflict regularly, they are probably not really accomplishing much. Leaders have a responsibility to understand and practice healthy conflict management, not only in their own personal conflict situations, but among those they lead. It is often the absence of good conflict management skills, rather than conflict itself, that causes organizational failure. This interactive workshop provides leaders with strategies for managing both personal and organizational conflict, as well as an interactive dialogue on creating a conflict management plan.

Ministry to Postmodern

Leadership in the Postmodern Matrix
At any given time, you can find around nine thousand books available from Amazon.com on the topic of leadership. This abundance of information relating to leadership in the modern world misses our need for a framework for leadership in the emerging culture of Postmodernity. Leaders who ignore this impending era may end up like the captain of the Titanic, trying to steer a large ship around the iceberg, only to discover that they’ve started way too late. This interactive dialogue session isn’t about new formulas or strategies for leadership – it’s about exploring together the uncharted territory of what leadership looks like in a postmodern culture.

Healthy Leaders Lead Healthy Churches
Are you bored with unproductive meetings? Frustrated by hitting walls of resistance in creative planning? Tired of unnecessary or unresolved conflict in your personal and staff relationships? Are you longing for your church to be the healthy, fully-functioning place that God intended? Those kinds of churches begin with healthy leaders who communicate in healthy ways. You are invited to invest seven hours into discovering how to interact with others courageously, confidently and skillfully. You will learn by doing - through fun, engaging and practical experiences that will get you on your way to successful communication with family, friends and colleagues. Through this workshop, you will learn how to enterinto courageous, authentic dialogue - the kind that brings true transformation of people and ideas.Learn to: 

• Use simple, easy-to-apply techniques to dissipate the barriers that prevent good communication
• Confront challenges and difficult conversations in ways that create and stimulate growth instead of conflict
• Discover your personal "dance steps" of communication and how you can become a more
• effective facilitator of good thinking
• Build healthy, authentic relationships within your staff and lay teams

"Healthy Leaders" is an interactive, participatory workshop designed to help individuals and teams master the art of conversation in new ways. The strategies and techniques you'll learn will enable you to experience the powerful, transformational conversation that will create the healthy church you desire.

Building Student Ministry

Developing a relevant Student Leadership program
When federal agents are being trained to recognize counterfeit currency, they are trained to examine the real thing until they are so familiar with it, that they are able to easily spot a fake. Our youth are dying from a lack of genuine leadership. School shootings, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity… many of the real challenges our students are facing can be traced to an inability to recognize true and good leadership. Our students must be trained to be authentic leaders of integrity, recognizing and developing their unique gifts. By studying the real thing, they will be better equipped to recognize the frauds out there that would shipwreck their lives. Developing a strategy to train students in leadership is an important task, one that takes a solid vision and a good team. This workshop is designed to help youth workers develop a strategy to intentionally develop strong leadership skills and authenticity in students. It will cover casting the vision for parents as well as the students, training a team of adult leaders, and creating opportunities for students to practice leadership, along with available resources.

Denise VanEck is the founding President of Endurance Leadership (Rockford, MI).

To investigate Denise’s services contact her through Judy@authenticleadershipinc.com.