Treating Organizational History as an Old Friend
Organization history can act like an old friend or jilted lover. It depends on how you treat her.
The secret is to understand the nuances of the organization’s history including what’s sacred and what’s not, then respecting the sacred even if it’s detrimental to the organization. If it is detrimental then change it. But work to preserve what’s good while only changing what needs changing.
When SpringHill has approached its organizational history in this way the results have been honoring to its history as well as moved the organization forward. Our New Frontiers Dining Hall at our Michigan overnight camp is a good example.
About 10 years ago we outgrew this Dining Hall. But because it’s the first major building built at SpringHill it’s full of history. For example there’s a miracle story about the beams and another about committed volunteers who made the very cool lighting fixtures.
Then there’s the fireplace. It’s sacred ground because it’s the spot where, over the years, 100’s of camp speakers stood as they shared their messages. As a result 1000’s of people had life transformational experiences as they looked upon that fireplace.
This meant tearing down the Dining Hall was not an option even if the cost of expanding and renovating was the same as building new. Instead we added to, renovated and built around the sacred parts of the building, designing it to feel and look like an updated version of the original.
The result is we have a building that does two important things. First it preserves our history and allows us to continue to tell the important God stories which make up our past. Secondly we now have a Dining Hall that serves both our needs and most importantly the needs of our campers and guests.
Visiting a Miracle
Have you ever had the opportunity to talk with someone who has just experienced a true life saving miracle?
Denise and I did this past Sunday when we met with Heather and Jeff Perry in a Starbucks in Carmel, IN. In October Heather was in a coma lying in a hospital ICU as medical staff worked to figure out why her body was shutting down.
The Perry’s literally stood toe to toe with death but God rescued Heather through miracle upon miracle (I won’t share Heather’s story, it’ll be her privilege to do so one day). As Jeff and Heather shared their story and their incredible faith in Christ as well as the faith of family, friends and acquaintances, for a moment, that table in Starbucks became holy ground.
As we talked we began to discuss two questions which I’m continuing to wrestle with.
The first question’s simply “how do people come toe to toe with death, staring it right in the face, without believing in or having a relationship with God?” Maybe I’m just weak but I can’t fathom it. Not because I’m particularly afraid of death but because without God neither death or life has any meaning. As Francis Schaeffer once said, “without God we’re just time + chance + matter.”
The follow-up question is “how does a person come toe to toe with death and then walk away doing so without believing in God?” Trying to answer the existential and metaphysical questions that would naturally arise from having a near death experience would drive me crazy without the foundational knowledge of God.
Yet the overriding feelings Denise and I had as we left the Perry’s was simply a deep gratitude for God’s graciousness and awe of His mighty power in Heather and Jeff’s life. We accepted it as an early and beautiful Christmas gift.
The Blessings of Integrating Our Personal and Professional Lives
Saturday night Denise and I had a chance to bring parts of our two families together – our immediate and our SpringHill families. In particular we had 18 members of the SpringHill family from the Indianapolis area join us to watch our daughter Christina dance in her first Butler ballet – The Nutcracker.
We had dinner together at a local Butler hangout, Binkley’s, and then went to the evening show at Clowes Hall on Butler’s campus. For Denise and me the entire evening was a blessing and a blast.
Afterwards I thought about how so many people seek a separation between their work and their personal lives. I understand this desire but not always the degree people can take it.
Because there’s something wonderful (maybe sacred is a better word?) when there’s a healthy integration between our work and personal lives. It’s what Denise and I experienced Saturday night. We experienced a great blessing when SpringHill staff, board members and other supporters enthusiastically celebrated with us Christina’s first Butler Ballet.
And it turns out to be more than just one evening, because we have these incredible friends who now know Christina, live near her and will be available to her (and us) during the rest of her years at Butler.
And this would not be possible if I kept a strict separation between my work and personal life.
Yes, it’s healthy to be able to step away from our work, but to build artificial walls between work and personal life isn’t, and often keeps us from receiving the blessings of an integrated life.
To strike the right balance between these two parts of our life requires wisdom, prayer and reflection. But when the right balance is struck, as it was on Saturday evening, it’s hard to imagine living any other way.
Hangin with the SpringHill Family
We often talk about SpringHill staff as “our team” but when we speak about staff and camper alumni, volunteers, donors, ambassadors, board members and ministry partners we tend to speak in terms of family. The SpringHill family’s large and diverse and I’ve grown to love and appreciate it more every year.
Part of my work includes spending time with SpringHill family members both when they attend a SpringHill Experience and with them in their homes, their places of work and at their favorite coffee shops and restaurants. The places where we meet are as diverse as the members of the SpringHill family which makes being with them one of the most enjoyable parts of my work.
For example, this week I’ve had the opportunity, along with Todd Leinberger our Great Lakes Region Vice President and my wife Denise, to spend time with these SpringHill family members:
Scott, a successful commercial real estate business owner, a competitive tri-athlete and a very active member on a number of ministry boards
David (in photo above), who’s responsible for all the tire, wheel and jack engineering globally for Ford Motor Company
Paul and Cindie, long time friends of Denise’s and mine from our church in Grand Rapids. Cindie works with teenage moms and Paul owns a wealth management and financial advisory business
Our friends Scott and Karen who’ve given much of their lives to a number of global ministries and businesses
And later this week Denise and I will have dinner and see Butler University’s Nutcracker Ballet with 18 of the SpringHill family in Indianapolis (look for my next post)
Every time I have coffee, lunch or dinner with a SpringHill family member I’m blessed because I learn something new, gain greater perspective on SpringHill and better understand the world in which the SpringHill family lives and works.
Submitting to the Mission
I’m reading Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen’s new book Great by Choice where, for illustrative purposes, they compare the leadership styles of the two Antarctic explorers, the well-known Robert Scott and the lesser known Roald Amundsen, who raced each other to the South Pole. In particular, Collins and Hansen references Roland Huntford’s fantastic book The Last Place on Earth – Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole.
I read The Last Place on Earth in 2009 and immediately appreciated it as both an important historic account as well as a great study in leadership. It combines the two types of books I love to read – history books and in particular biographies of historic characters and books about real life adventure. The Last Place on Earth takes a historic look at one of the great adventures of all time – the story of the two men who raced to be the first to reach the South Pole.
I won’t repeat Collins and Hansen’s leadership lessons (you can read their book) but instead share one leadership observation and one conclusion I drew from The Last Place on Earth.
The observation – Scott ended up being the more celebrated of the two explorers though he failed in his mission which ended in his and his team’s death while Amundsen, the first man to the South Pole, is largely unknown outside of historical and exploration circles.
The conclusion – if a leader submits all, including their own personal ambitions and recognition, to the fulfillment of the team’s mission they’re more likely to be successful. At the same time they’re more likely to be unknown or forgotten because they made accomplishing the mission look easy while doing it with less drama than those who failed.
The Tension between Unlimited Wants & Limited Resources
One of the first things I learned in my introduction to economics class back at Central Michigan University was that economics is best described as the tension between “unlimited wants and limited resources.”
This perfectly describes the tension we experience at SpringHill every fall as we finish our upcoming year’s financial plan, or what we affectionately call “the budget.” It’s an “all hands on deck” (or should I say “all brains on deck”) activity because of the importance we place on the entire team’s input and ultimate ownership of the financial plan. It tends to be a time where everyone’s brain hurts and passions (and frustrations?) run high.
But for us the financial plan’s actually the final step in the development of what we call our annual ministry plan for it’s the anticipated financial outcome of that plan. Our ministry plan includes; which SpringHill Experiences (SHX) we’ll offer to whom, where we’ll offer these SHX’s, and the anticipated number of participants. We also work out the details of everything we’ll need to carry out these SHX’s including capital investment and staffing. Finally we align this plan with our 5 year strategic plan to assure we’re headed in the right direction and accomplishing our long-term goals.
We dream big for God which results in big plans early in the process. Then we begin to put dollars and cents to these plans and the tension begins to rise because our dreams are always unlimited but, we discover, God generally gives us limited resources. Over the years I’ve become convinced that God does this so that our big plans become His plans.
And in the end that’s our desire – that our plans will be God’s plans because we want the results and the glory to be all His.
Qualities of Trustworthy Youth Organizations
Denise and I hold two important, but at times conflicting, goals in raising our children. The first one’s simply to assure our kids have experiences that help them grow physically, emotionally, socially, intellectually and spiritually. Secondly, we want to do all we can to keep our kids safe and to protect them from the consequences of evil.
It’s when we need to entrust our children and their safety to those who provide them life transforming experiences that we can feel conflicted. We want to provide our children these experiences and at the same time assure their safety.
The best way to achieve both is to verify that the organizations we entrust our children to have the following three qualities.
Transparency
The organization and its staff are transparent. Transparency mean’s there’s nothing hidden about its history, operations, philosophies, track record and methods. Transparency also includes our child’s experience.
Accessibility
Related to transparency is accessibility. Organizations and staff are accessible to parents. In addition, if necessary, our kids are accessible when involved with the organization. We should expect our phone calls and emails to be returned timely as well as the opportunity to meet the staff when dropping off and picking up our child as well as any other time we want to interact with them.
Professionalism
Professionalism includes a broad range of key activities that we should expect from an organization and its staff including verifiable training, quality control, safety practices and policies that the staff know and demonstrate commitment to by their adherence to these policies.
These three qualities should permeate the entire culture of an organization as reflected in the staff, websites, promotional material and most importantly in their reputation.
With prayerful due diligence, we as parents, can reduce the possibility of any harm coming to our children and yet still provide them those formative experiences they so desperately need to reach their potential.
The Penn State Tragedy and My Heart Breaking Twice
I’ve been hesitant to write this blog. But I can’t escape the need to address one of the unspoken consequences of the sad and tragic story of alleged sexual abuse of young boys by a former Penn State assistant football coach.
First, let me say, that if the alleged charges prove to be true then the worst consequences, by far, are the effects of these evil acts on the lives of these young men. There’s nothing worse.
Yet there’s another consequence that also breaks my heart every time a situation like this comes to light.
It’s the consequence that every organization committed to serving children will have a growing black cloud hanging over it. This black cloud’s the mistrust of parents of all organizations that serve kids because of the tragic and broken trust by one unrelated person or organization. That black cloud can especially become a reality for organizations, such as camps, to whom parents temporarily entrust the care and safety of their children.
And when parents, out of fear and mistrust, begin to exclude their kids from experiences , such as Christian camps, that can help their children grow physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually then the ripple effect of evil continues . In a world where children need every advantage, every opportunity to grow, every chance to become all that God’s created them to be – to see organizations committed to these goals lose the opportunity to serve kids and their families – breaks my heart all over again.
In my next post I’ll outline some of the characteristics parents should look for in an organization they’re considering entrusting the temporary care and safety of their children to.
For another take on the impact of the Penn State situation on youth ministry read my friend Jeff Munroe’s blog by clicking here.
Intersection of the Past, Present and Future
My high school Young Life group at Wilderness Ranch There are those moments in our lives where our past crosses our present as it moves towards the future. It’s in those moments of intersection that God provides a glimpse into how He’s orchestrating our lives for a purpose we may have never seen or anticipated.
I had one of these moments this past week when I had the opportunity to speak with Young Life’s Camping Department about leadership, professionalism and the current state of Christian camping. It’s an intersection because of the significant role Young Life’s played in my life.
I’m a Young Life kid meaning I attended Young Life club, campaigners and camp as a high school student. Next, my wife Denise and I served seven years as volunteer Young Life leaders. Then I moved into involvement on Young Life area committees before stepping back because of family and work commitments.
Young Life’s played an enormous role in my spiritual, emotional and leadership development as well as influenced my personal philosophy of ministry. So when I was asked by Steve Thompson, Young Life’s Vice President for camping, to speak to his team, an intersection of my past and present occurred.
But it’s also an intersection of the present and the future because of the continued need of Christian camps and other youth ministries to work together to serve young people. Because of the world in which we live and the culture we’re called to work, I’m convinced the future of effective ministry to young people will require the cooperation of like-minded organizations such as SpringHill and Young Life.
This week my past intersected with my present, but it’s to the future where I’ve now set my eyes and will continue to take steps on the path God’s graciously illuminated for me.
My Pastor Day
Terry Prisk 
Steve Andrews 
Eric Russ and family My wife Denise called Tuesday my “pastor day” because I had the opportunity to hang out in metro Detroit with three dear friends who are also inspiring pastors and incredible leaders – Terry Prisk, Steve Andrews and Eric Russ.
My first stop was with Terry Prisk, a long time SpringHill partner and leader of The River Community Church. Terry and I meet every few months to share, challenge and encourage each other in our respected leadership positions. As usually happens we exchanged books we’re each reading knowing we’ll discuss their respected contents the next time we’re together.
Next I had the opportunity to have coffee with Steve Andrews from Kensington Community Church. Steve’s a former SpringHill board member and current member of our strategic planning team. In these roles, as he did once again in our time together, Steve’s spoken into my life by challenging me to think big about SpringHill and its place in God’s Kingdom.
I ended my day near downtown Detroit with Eric Russ, a current SpringHill board member, who leads Mack Avenue Community Church. Eric and I spent our time together riding in the “Mack Truck”, an old pickup truck used by the church. We toured the neighborhood where his church ministers. I’m inspired every time I’m with Eric but never more than when I see the community, people and work he’s committed his life too.
As I drove home from Detroit I thought to myself “what a great day”. I also thanked God for each of these men and the significant impact they’ve made on both SpringHill and on me. In my final thought of the day I searched for answers to this question “how can SpringHill and I better support them and their churches in the incredibly important work they do in the communities they serve?”
