Wellspring Group

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Wellspring Group Equipping people to live wholeheartedly! Present. Surrendered. Overflowing.
“Becoming Wholehearted” | The Wholehearted Way Podcast

Norcross, Georgia

What began as a single weekend retreat became the Battle for the Heart – a leadership development process for pastoral teams and lay leaders that includes retreats (and follow-through experiences). Since then, Wellspring events have been held for churches across different denominations and in places as far away as Switzerland, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Today, Wellspring Group provides teaching, coaching, and materials for these events as well as consulting with church and business leaders. The men and women of Wellspring share a great vision for the Body of Christ and are generously giving of themselves and their resources to see this vision fulfilled.

Have you ever finished a sermon, a book, or a small group season and thought — that was good. And still felt like someth...
10/16/2026

Have you ever finished a sermon, a book, or a small group season and thought — that was good. And still felt like something was missing?

Not because anything was wrong with it. But because what you were longing for went deeper than information or inspiration could reach.There is a place for that longing to go.

Battle for the Heart is a nine-month journey for people who are ready to stop circling the surface and go somewhere real — with God, with themselves, and with a small team of people willing to make the same commitment.

The next retreat begins in January. If something in you is leaning toward this, that's worth paying attention to.

To learn more, visit wellspringgroup.org today!

Wholeheartedness Is Not…Avoiding.Avoiding makes a certain kind of sense. The things we tend to avoid are usually painful...
10/14/2026

Wholeheartedness Is Not…Avoiding.

Avoiding makes a certain kind of sense. The things we tend to avoid are usually painful, uncomfortable, or complicated. And staying away from things that hurt is not irrational, it can actually be a very understandable response to the experiences that have shaped us. The problem isn't that we learned to avoid certain things. The problem is when avoidance becomes our primary way of relating to our own hearts.

Because what we avoid doesn't disappear. It waits. And while it waits it tends to grow quietly in the background, maybe showing up as anxiety we can't quite name, distance in relationships we can't quite explain, or a low-level exhaustion that never fully lifts no matter how much we rest. Avoidance keeps us functional. It also keeps us from the kind of honest, wholehearted connection with God and others that we were made for.

Avoidance is a way we learn to protect ourselves from pain that once felt unmanageable. But what began as protection can become a prison. When we consistently avoid what is hard, we also avoid the desires beneath it. The longing to be seen, to be known, to be held in the parts of our story that feel too heavy to carry alone. Those desires don't go away. They wait too.

Wholeheartedness isn't the absence of pain. It's the willingness to stop running from it long enough to ask what it's pointing to. Psalm 34:18 reminds us that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. He doesn't ask us to have it resolved before He draws near. He draws near because He loves us. And that nearness, His and the nearness of safe people, is what avoidance can keeps us from.

What might you be avoiding today that is actually an invitation to draw closer to God and to safe people?

— Wellspring Group | wellspringgroup.org

Lies We Believe: “If God loved me, this wouldn't be happening.”When hard things happen, our hearts look for an explanati...
10/10/2026

Lies We Believe: “If God loved me, this wouldn't be happening.”

When hard things happen, our hearts look for an explanation. And one of the most painful places that search can land is here: maybe this is happening because God is displeased with me. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe He is distant, or silent, or simply doesn't care the way I thought He did. We start to use our circumstances as a gauge for God's feelings toward us. When life is good He must be near. When life is hard He must have looked away.

But that's not the God of scripture. Job was called blameless and suffered in ways that defy explanation. Joseph was faithful and spent years in a pit and a prison before he ever saw redemption. Paul begged God three times to remove his suffering and was told no. None of these were stories of people who had fallen out of God's favor. They were stories of people held by a God whose love was not contingent on their circumstances being easy or their pain being resolved.

Suffering isn't always a sign of God's absence. It can be the place where His presence becomes most real, not because He caused the pain, but because He refuses to stay outside of it. Romans 8:38-39 tells us that nothing in all of creation is able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Not hardship. Not confusion. Not the season we are in right now that makes no sense and feels impossibly heavy.

Becoming Wholehearted reminds us that it is often in our deepest pain that our deepest desires surface. The longing to be seen, to be held, to know that what we are going through matters to someone. Those desires can be an invitation to bring what we are carrying to a God who has not moved, even when it has felt like He has.

What do you most need/long for from God in seasons of suffering? How have you experienced God meeting you in seasons of suffering?

— Wellspring Group | wellspringgroup.org

Wholeheartedness Is Not…Achieving.Achieving rarely feels like a problem. It feels like ambition. Like stewardship. Like ...
10/07/2026

Wholeheartedness Is Not…Achieving.

Achieving rarely feels like a problem. It feels like ambition. Like stewardship. Like being someone who takes seriously the gifts and opportunities God has placed in front of them. And there is nothing wrong with working hard, pursuing goals, or doing things with excellence. The problem isn't the achieving. The problem is when we begin to use it as the measure of our worth.

Because underneath a lot of our drive to achieve is a quieter question we are trying to answer: Am I enough? Am I valued? Am I respected? And we have learned, often early, that accomplishment is one of the most reliable ways to believe the answer might be “Yes.” So we set the next goal. Chase the next milestone. Earn the next thing that was supposed to make us feel okay about ourselves. But the finish line keeps moving. And the question remains unanswered.

Pursuing achievement as a way to prove our worth can sabotage what we most long for. It requires us to always put our best foot forward, to allow others to see only that side of us that contributes to the narrative. Rather than feeling seen, known, and valued for who we are, we are left uncertain, questioning. That uncertainty is worth getting curious about, because it points to a desire that no amount of achievement can fully meet.

Wholeheartedness isn't built on what we have accomplished. It's rooted in who we are beneath the accomplishments. Psalm 139:14 tells us we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Not fearfully and wonderfully productive. Our worth was established before we ever did anything, and it remains unchanged when we stop. That's not an excuse to stop caring about our work. It's an invitation to stop letting our work tell us who we are.

How do the words “fearfully and wonderfully made” fit with how you see yourself?

— Wellspring Group | wellspringgroup.org

10/05/2026

Registration for the January Battle for Your Heart Retreat is now open!!!

To register, visit wellspringgroup.org today!

A Wellspring Word: SurrenderTo surrender is to give ourselves over to another, letting go of control in favor of their w...
10/02/2026

A Wellspring Word: Surrender

To surrender is to give ourselves over to another, letting go of control in favor of their will.

For most of my life, surrender sounded like failure. Waving the white flag. Giving up. Over the last 15 years, God has been reshaping that word in me. Surrender has become less about losing and more about trusting: yielding to Him in radical trust, believing His heart toward me is good.

What I've found is His kindness. He isn't harsh. He isn't hasty. He sits with me in my disappointment and offers me a different view. Surrender isn't a formula for getting the outcome I want. It's trusting Him with the outcome.

In the garden, Jesus prays, "Not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). But first, He asks for the cup to pass. He is honest about His anguish. Surrender isn't pretending we don't hurt or want something different. It's bringing our whole heart to the Father and trusting Him with what happens next.

Psalm 34:18 reminds us that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. God doesn't wait for us on the far side of surrender. He meets us in the middle of it.

What outcome are you holding God to right now? What would it look like to open your hands and trust His heart instead?

- Abby Mandella, Executive Director of Wellspring Group

Wholeheartedness Is Not… People Pleasing.People-pleasing rarely feels like a problem in the moment. It can feel like kin...
09/30/2026

Wholeheartedness Is Not… People Pleasing.

People-pleasing rarely feels like a problem in the moment. It can feel like kindness. Like keeping the peace. Like being someone who is easy to be around and considerate of others. We say yes when we mean no. We shrink so others feel bigger. We change our answer depending on who is in the room. And we tell ourselves that's just what it means to be gracious and accommodating.

But people-pleasing isn't really about other people. Underneath it is something much more personal. It's the need to manage how others see us. To make sure we are liked, accepted, approved of. To avoid the discomfort of disappointing someone or being seen as difficult. It is, at its core, one of the self-protective strategies Becoming Wholehearted describes. A way of keeping ourselves safe by making sure we never give anyone a reason to reject us.

The cost accumulates quietly. When we live to please others, we lose track of something essential. What we actually think, what we actually feel, what we actually want. We become curated versions of ourselves, shaped by whoever we happen to be with. And over time the distance between who we perform ourselves to be and who we actually are can become its own kind of loneliness.

Wholeheartedness asks us to be the same person in every room. Not because we stop caring about others, but because we stop needing their approval to feel okay about ourselves. Galatians 1:10 asks a question worth sitting with: Are we trying to win the approval of people or of God? The desire underneath people pleasing is almost always a longing to be loved and accepted. That desire isn't wrong. But there is only one place where it can be fully and unconditionally met.

Is there an area of your life where you find yourself people pleasing? What is your desire to people please pointing to?

— Wellspring Group | wellspringgroup.org

Lies We Believe: “I am the only one who feels this way.” Shame has a favorite line: No one else struggles with this. No ...
09/26/2026

Lies We Believe: “I am the only one who feels this way.”

Shame has a favorite line: No one else struggles with this. No one else would understand. If they really knew, they would leave. And so, we hide. We perform. We present the version of ourselves we think is safe enough to be seen, and we keep the rest tucked away where no one can find it. Not because we want to be dishonest, but because the risk of being truly known feels far greater than the cost of being alone in it.

But the hiding makes us feel more alone. And the more alone we feel, the more convinced we become that our experience is uniquely shameful and uniquely disqualifying. Isolation is one of shame's most effective tools. It keeps us convinced that we are the exception, that our particular struggle or heartache or longing exists outside the range of what other people carry.

Becoming Wholehearted reminds us that underneath all of our different stories, human beings share the same deep desires. Belonging, respect, safety, beauty, purpose, connection. The details of our stories differ. The desires underneath them are remarkably the same. Which means the thing we have been most convinced is uniquely ours is almost certainly something someone sitting next to us in church, in a coffee shop, or in our own family has felt too, even if they haven't said so.

Romans 12:5 tells us that in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We were never designed to carry our stories alone. Our struggle doesn't isolate us from the body; it can be the very thing that connects us more deeply to it, when we are willing to bring it into the light with safe people who stay anyway.

What might it look like today to let one safe person into the part of your story you’ve been trying to carrying alone?

— Wellspring Group | wellspringgroup.org

09/25/2026

We had another successful Battle for Your Heart Retreat!

To register for the January battle, visit wellspringgroup.org today.

Wholeheartedness Is Not…Managing.Managing doesn't always look like a problem from the outside. It looks like competence....
09/23/2026

Wholeheartedness Is Not…Managing.

Managing doesn't always look like a problem from the outside. It looks like competence. Like someone who has it together, who doesn't burden others, who handles what comes their way without making it anyone else's concern. And in many seasons of life, managing is exactly what gets us through. It's not without value. The problem isn't that we learned to manage. The problem is when managing becomes the only way we know how to live.

Because managing can keep us at a safe distance from our own hearts. When we are always in control of what comes out, we may never feel what's actually there. We stay functional. We stay presentable. We stay fine. And somewhere underneath all of that fine, something real might be waiting to be acknowledged.

Becoming Wholehearted explores how manage our behavior, our image, and our emotions can sabotage what we most long for. The wholehearted life isn't about having everything handled. It's about being honest with ourselves, with God, and with others about what's going on in the deepest parts of our hearts. And it's about the healing work God does in us as we live in relationships where we are seen, known, valued, and accepted for who we truly are.

God isn't asking us to manage our way to Him. The invitation has always been to come as we actually are: unmanaged, unpolished, honest. Not because He needs us to fall apart, but because the parts of us we've been managing are often the parts He most wants to meet us in.

Do you have the need to manage parts of your life? Who can you be honest with today, rather than hiding behind the image you want to project?

— Wellspring Group | wellspringgroup.org

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Norcross, GA
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