Sometimes the Questions are More Telling than the Answers
“Which SpringHill camp’s your favorite?” asked of one of our mischievous Indiana overnight summer staffers.The question was part of an informal Q&A I’m having with each of our summer staff teams. The goal’s to get to know them better and for them to get to know both me and SpringHill better. It’s the first time I’ve done this in training and my first session was with our Indiana staff.
It’s amazing what you can learn about people by the questions they ask – and the questions they don’t ask. Questions reflect the circumstances people are in, their values, their perspectives and their observations. Questions are revealing, sometimes more so than the answers.
In addition to the question above here are some of the other questions that came my way. See what they tell you about our Indiana summer staff team:
“How did you come to SpringHill?”
“Did you feel called to SpringHill and how did you know?”
“What’s the vision for SpringHill?”
“How do you feel about the fact that people stop going to church after graduating from high school? What can SpringHill do about it?”
“How can I combine my business degree with my interest in overseas missions?”
“How do I know I’m called to a particular work or field?”
The most personal question of the night was…
“How did you propose to your wife?” My answer spurred on a whole litany of follow-up questions.
And finally the most challenging question was…
“Will you do ‘Brown Squirrel’ for us?” This was the hardest question because it took the most courage for me to answer. If you know the camp song “Brown Squirrel” and its accompanying motions you understand my trepidation in answering yes.
And of course I did answer “yes” and concluded our evening together, with the help of Carey Edgren, performing a little song and dance.
High School Graduation and the Importance of “What’s Next”
Denise, Christina and I at Christina's last Dance Arts Academy recital (click below right under "Links") On Friday June 3rd our daughter Christina graduates from high school. So this morning I drove her up to Northern Michigan Christian School for graduation practice.
Along the way we talked about how she and her classmates were feeling about graduation. Christina expressed, as she has for months, that she’s ready to graduate and move on and start the next phase of her life.
Yet she didn’t think this was true of all her friends. Some didn’t appear ready to move on. Then she said she thought many people she’s known over the years have graduated but never really “left high school.”
So I asked her “what’s the difference between you and these people?”
She didn’t know for sure so I followed up with “so why are you ready to move on?”
She replied “because I can’t wait to go to Butler and meet new people and take my dance career to the next level.”
“What about the people who’ve seemed to have never ‘left high school,’ what were they looking forward too?” I responded.
She answered “I don’t think they were looking forward to anything except maybe just being done with high school.”
“That’s right” I replied “they probably didn’t see their life moving to a more exciting or better place. They even may have come to believe that their best days are behind them.”
Then I shared with Christina that life is full of change, like graduation, and there’s no way to avoid it. So the best way to confront change, as she’s doing, is to have a vision of “what’s next”, a place to be moving toward.
So we when discover “what’s next” in our life and help others to do the same, be it those we lead or just love, change becomes not just an ending but also a bright new beginning with an exciting future.
Working like Churchill & Hemingway
What do Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf have in common? They worked, and in particular wrote, standing up.
I became aware of this fact back in the late 1980’s while working at Steelcase, Inc. The idea of working at a stand up desk caught the eye of some office furniture executives including one from Steelcase who put it into practice.
The first time I saw this executive at his desk I asked why he worked standing up. He answered “if creative and brilliant people like Churchill and Hemingway worked and wrote while standing up then it might also help me be smarter and more creative.”
That’s all the reason I needed to get myself a stand up desk and begin working on my feet (I need all the brilliance and creativity I can get). That was over 20 years ago and I’ve been working at a stand up desk ever since.
Now I won’t claim that I’m brighter or more creative as a result but I’ve seen a number of other benefits that come from working standing up.
First, I tend to work faster because I am more focused on the task at hand.
Second, it’s made a difference in my health. I burn more calories and save my back working on my feet.
Third, when people unexpectedly stop by my office and we’re both standing it tends to create a more succinct and to the point conversation.
Finally, it meets my need of being in perpetual motion. I don’t sit still well for long periods of time and prefer to rock if I do sit (typically not many rocking chairs in offices and conference rooms) so standing is my best option.
So I’ll be standing doing my work as long as my body allows so that I’ll continue to be more productive, healthier and, God willing, maybe even a little more creative as a result.
The World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs
Praying for one of the great "entrepreneurs" Yesterday Todd Leinberger, Craig Soderdahl and I had lunch with some of the greatest entrepreneurs in the world.
They’re the greatest because their start-up’s are some of the most challenging in the world. But the challenges create the greatest returns found anywhere.
What makes these start-ups so challenging?
First, they’re almost always started on a shoe string budget and sometimes no budget at all. Banks and angel investors aren’t a source of capital for these entrepreneurs.
Second, these entrepreneurs do most of the initial work themselves from cleaning facilities to door to door sales. The remaining work’s done by unpaid staff, family and friends – the easiest people to love and the hardest to hold accountable.
Finally the service they’re providing has a highly emotional and intangible quality making it hard to measure success, show progress and know if what they’re doing is making a difference.
So why would an entrepreneur start-up such a challenging business? Because of the payoff, the return on investment is eternal, it’s forever. The rewards are personal, deep and significant. Finally it’s a calling. No one does it if they’re not called. And only those called survive the start-up phase.
Who’re these great entrepreneurs? They’re church planters. They’re men and women who have taken the challenge to start churches that will reach and make a difference in the lives of people and expand Christ’s Kingdom.
For example we heard from and prayed for a man whose starting the first evangelical Christian church for Chaldeans in the world. Think it about, an entire ethnic group that doesn’t have one evangelical church and this man’s been working and praying for 30 years to start such a church.
So needless to say we walked out of lunch with new respect for the commitment and talent of these men and women. And we also wondered why the greatest entrepreneurs in the world haven’t yet made the cover of Inc. magazine.
The Tension between Hope and Reality
Life lived well always finds us torn between two places – hope and reality. We’ve hope that things can and will be better but also live in the reality that they may not change in our favor.
Yet if we lose hope reality will drive us to despair. And if we lose sight of reality hope will lead us down a dangerous path. We’re to live in this paradox –”being in this world but not of it”.
It’s the balance we must have when we’re faced with hardship and the need to survive. When my wife Denise went in for her biopsy seven years ago we prayed there wasn’t cancer but knew that it was possible that the lumps on her breast could be malignant.
When they turned out to be cancerous we continued to hope that Denise would be healed but we also lived with the reality that she might not be cured. Hope gave Denise strength to go through chemo, radiation and 7 surgeries. Reality kept her rooted in her relationships with Christ, her family and friends because she just didn’t know how it would all turn out.
This combination of hope and reality is what Jim Collins calls “The Stockdale Paradox”. Named after Admiral Jim Stockdale an eight year prisoner of the Vietnam War housed at the “Hanoi Hilton” where he lived in unimaginable horror.
When Collins asked Admiral Stockdale how he survived this ordeal he answered, as recorded in Collins’ book Good to Great …
“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they maybe.”
This combination of hope and reality, of being in the world but not of it, is where we’re called to live and lead as we face, and help others face, the world before us.
Remembering Mark Olson
Mark and I at a Winter Retreat leader's meeting Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of my friend Mark Olson’s death. It seems just like yesterday that he was with us.
I knew Mark for twenty years first as a friend and then as a colleague at SpringHill. If you knew Mark you will agree with me that twenty years doesn’t seem near long enough time to have known him.
There’s almost never a day that I don’t think of Mark. Normally it’s because I’m wondering what he might have done in a particular situation I’m facing. So I’m thankful for our friendship and especially for the last 3 years of his life when I worked for and with him so closely at SpringHill. It’s because of those 3 years that I’m usually able to answer quite confidently the question “what would Mark have done?”
But beyond the tactical and technical things I learned about Christian camping from Mark the most important thing I’ve taken from his life was his constant desire to make everything and every person he had a relationship with better, meaning more effective in advancing Christ’s Kingdom in this world.
When Mark saw a need or an opportunity to have an impact he took it. It never seemed to be a duty to Mark. Instead Mark appeared to be compelled to do something as if God’s Spirit was moving him along. As a matter of fact Mark used the word “compelled” in his last banquet messages he gave in 1999 to describe his and SpringHill’s motivation to reach more kids for Christ.
This character quality is one I want in my life, one that ten years after my death I hope others will remember me for – that, like Mark, I did all I could to help other’s be more Christ like and more effective in advancing His Kingdom.
Life’s a Dirt Road
We’ve lived on a rural dirt road for 13 years. And it’s apparent that our road has a life of its own, that there’s a rhythm to its existence.
For example the winter’s when our road’s most friendly. The road’s frozen and covered with packed snow making it the smoothest driving of the year. Yet it can be deceptive because it’s also icy.
Summer is the opposite. The road is dry so that when it’s driven on it can create a dust storm that covers our car with a fine grit. We’ll not drive a clean car for months.
With fall comes rain and with rain comes mud. Dust on our cars in the summer turns to mud in the fall. The road’s in decent shape but makes a mess of our cars and garage.
Spring’s when our road’s at its worst. The melting ice and frost followed by rain creates miles of pot holes that causes our cars to rattle so bad that we’re looking for car parts through our rearview mirror. The good news is we drive so slow that there’s no chance of hitting a deer.
But after 13 years we know the seasons so we don’t get mad when our car is shaking apart or covered in mud and dust. As a matter of fact we expect and prepare for it.
Individual, family and organizational life is much the same. There is a natural rhythm of seasons to it and the reality is there isn’t much that can be done to change this fact.
So the best we can do is to anticipate and accommodate each season and not fight them. Instead we can embrace each as a gift with its good and the bad. Maybe then we instead of complaining about the mud or the pot holes we can have some fun in the fall seeing just how covered our car can get or how fast we can drive in the spring and still miss the all pot holes.
One More Time on Calling
Jack McQueeney my favorite Navigator friend knows his call. “Need doesn’t always constitute a call.” Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators.
The needs of others don’t always equal a calling to meet those needs.
But our calling always includes meeting the needs of others.
This is why calling can be so confusing.
And it’s also why calling can be so dangerous.
It’s confusing because it’s easy to believe, either as an individual or as an organization, that we can and should address all the needs of all the people all the time. It’s a positive impulse but it’s misdirected because when we try to meet all the needs of all the people all the time we end up unable to meet hardly any needs of any one anytime.
Calling requires knowing that we are not God and thus can’t meet all the needs of all the people all of the time and trusting Him to enlist others to do what we can’t and are not called to do.
Calling is always focused on specific people and their specific needs. At SpringHill we’re called to serve children, teens and young adults. This is not to say adults don’t have needs that SpringHill can meet or that adults are less important than children. No it’s simply that we’re called and equipped to serve young people. We trust that God has called others to serve adults.
Calling can be dangerous when we have the ability but don’t meet the needs of the individuals God has placed in our lives. It’s when we use our calling as an excuse for not doing something that we put ourselves at serious risk.
What’s the risk? Think of Jesus’ parable in Luke 16:19-31. A rich man walks daily right by a poor beggar named Lazarus without lifting a finger to meet any of Lazarus’ needs. What’s the consequence for the rich man’s inaction? He goes to Hell and he never escapes.
Now the rich man didn’t end up in Hell for ignoring all poor beggars in the world just the one in his life. And that is what separates needs from calling. The needs of the one beggar in our life is our calling, the many needs may not.
Are You Waiting for Your Calling?
Since my last post “Opportunity Does Not Equal Calling” I’ve had a number of conversations with people who’ve grown weary of waiting for their calling.
So I’ve thought it would be good to explore what it means to wait for one’s calling.
In my previous post I stated that “calling comes to all people”. But if this is true then why are so many waiting for theirs?
I think it’s because we look at calling too narrowly. We typically think of it just in terms of vocation.
But there are other callings which, frankly, are higher and more important than our vocational calling.
The highest calling is to trust Jesus Christ with our lives and to follow Him. We’ve all been given this call so the good news (no pun intended) there’s no waiting.
The next call’s to each other, to “love one another” beginning with our family, friends and neighbors both near and far. Because many of these people are present in our lives we’re blessed to be called now.
The third call is to be good stewards of all we’ve been given. There is no waiting to receive this call either; for example if you are breathing (which means you’ve been given the gift of life) you’re officially called to be a steward.
Finally there’s this frustrating vocational calling. Vocation is the work we do, the part we play in the world.
Now it’s here that we often feel we’re waiting because we sense our work isn’t what it should or could be. So why do we wait for this calling? I’ve a couple of theories which given me perspective while I’ve waited.
First a vocation requires training and preparation. Maybe what we’re doing now is part of our preparation?
Second we tend to glamorize vocational calling, thinking it’s the highest calling. But the truth it’s really less important than the other ones. So maybe we have work to do in those first three callings?
So if you are waiting for your vocational calling remember you are already called in the highest ways. Be at peace and when you least expect it this final calling will come at precisely the right moment.
Opportunity Does Not Equal Calling
Opportunity is what you can do. Calling is what you must do. That’s a big difference. Yet it’s easy to confuse the two. I should know I’ve done it enough.
Opportunity comes only to those people and organizations others see as successful. Thus it feeds the one thing, pride, which can cloud vision and makes a decision about an opportunity nearly impossible.
Calling comes to all people and organizations. But callings are different for different people and different organizations. So it doesn’t naturally feed one’s ego but it instead requires faithfulness and obedience.
Opportunity comes regardless of capabilities. Calling always matches gifts and abilities.
Opportunity offers something that is apparent to many.
Calling requires going to places and doing things never imagined before or if it has then it’s considered foolish.
The quality of the opportunity’s measured by return on investment in that opportunity.
The quality of calling is measure by the passion one brings to the calling they’re given (click here for my post on passion).
Opportunity is generic. It doesn’t design itself to fit a person or an organization.
Calling is personal and specific thus unique.
Opportunities tend to be short-term.
Calling is almost always long-term.
Opportunity provides no moral or ethical boundaries.
Calling requires the highest good and the greatest benefit to others and God’s Kingdom.
Can opportunity and calling be for the same thing? Of course they can, at least on the surface, but if it’s true a calling then it’s not a true opportunity because opportunities, by definition, present equal alternatives – to take the opportunity or not.
Calling at the end of the day provides only one true alternative – to answer the call.
Be flattered by opportunities, if you must, but just for a moment.
Be always thankful for a calling because it’s a gift from God just for you.
