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.
Cascading Community
I love SpringHill in May because our summer staff begin arriving in cascading waves for training. One of the most important lessons they’ll learns the importance of small communities in creating SpringHill Experiences.Small communities, such as families, are powerful places for life transformation. They’re transformational because they’re relational. And it’s within the context of relationships that the important stuff that God uses to transform people takes place.
We build SpringHill summer camps on this reality. We begin with hiring people that can both thrive and create transformational communities. Then we follow with training that shows staff how to create small communities in a SpringHill way.
For the training to stick we don’t just tell our staff how to create transformational communities we also have them experience it by doing our training within small communities. Our staff learn it by living it for the weeks they’re in training.
To accomplish training in this way requires an enormous amount of coordination, investment in leadership development, trust, and empowerment.
So we start with our summer professional (resident) staff. They’re trained in small communities with the goal of having an integral part in the training of the next staff (summer leadership) to arrive. Summer leadership staff then’s trained to be involved in training the final wave of arriving staff.
This cascading of training in small communities allows us to multiple our trainers which then allows us to multiple our small communities as each new wave of staff arrive. In this way all our staff not only hear but also experience being a part of and leading a small community.So when the 1000’s of campers arrive this summer our staff’s prepared to create 100’s more small communities where young people can know and grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ and thus be transformed.
“On Any Given Day”
“One game. If we played ’em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight, WE are the greatest hockey team in the world.” Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle
This past weekend there were regional track meets across the state of Michigan and our third child, Mitch a freshman at Northern Michigan Christian, participated in his first running the 200m, 400m and the 800m relay.
He’s had a good season, one where he had some success but also learned a lot. Coming into regionals he knew he’d be battling against older, more experienced runners and he was also recovering from the flu he had earlier in the week.
So needless to say he wasn’t brimming with confidence as Saturday approached.
I told him two things in an effort to combat his dwindling confidence –
First, I told him that all he could do was to give it his best and if he did his mom and I would be proud of him no matter what place he received.
And second, I told him that state qualifying wasn’t determined by what happened during the season but what happened in the regional meet. The only day that mattered was Saturday. I wanted him to know that on any given day anything can happen.
Now I can’t report that the day ended for Mitch like it did 30 years ago for the 1980 USA Hockey Team. It wasn’t that “given day” but I can say that Mitch gave it his best and more importantly as we talked on the way home he shared his new-found vision of what his future regional meets could look like and what it’ll take to achieve that vision.
And as it turns out, that talk on the ride home was his best performance of the season.
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.
Spoiled and Didn’t Even Know It
If you’ve ever been a member of a private golf course, or flown first class or corporate jets on a regular basis and then had to play golf on a public course or fly coach you’ll know what I experienced this past week.I found out just how spoiled I’ve been.
Since December I have taken advantage of the SpringHill indoor pool and have been swimming a couple of days a week.
My wife and I and a couple other SpringHill staff intentionally arrive well ahead of the public lap swim so we can have the pool to ourselves.
So I’ve never known what it’s like to share the pool with lots of people. I had an inkling after talking to a friend recently who swims regularly at a YMCA. He described what it’s like to swim laps with lots of people with differing swimming abilities and speeds. Yet I didn’t give my good fortune much thought – until this past week.
You see I slept in and got to the pool later than normal and the community lap swimmers arrive early. So I experienced the chaos of public lap swim. Frankly, at first, I was a bit ticked. How could these people expect me to swim with them splashing all around me?
Then it dawned on me how fortunate I really am to have access to a pool for my own private work outs.
So I asked myself “what else is there in my life that I’ve been blessed with yet don’t even know it?” “And what good things are a part of my life now that at one time I appreciated as a gift but now see as expected or even a right?”
The public lap swim has certainly given me some things to think and pray about during my next private swim.
Are you blessed in any way but haven’t noticed or have forgotten it? It’s never too late to say thanks to the Source of all good things.
Being a Part of the “Chicago 7”
Myself, Stan White, Mario Zandstra, Doug Goodwin & Jack McQueeney with one of our favorite leaders One of the highlights of my work is the opportunity to be a part of an informal group of peer leaders. The first “official” time we met together was six and half years ago in Chicago. It was in that meeting that we adopted the now infamous name Chicago 7 (why it’s infamous is another story which I won’t bother blogging about).
Currently the group includes Mario Zandstra from Pine Cove Ministries in Texas, Stan White from Forest Home in Southern California, Doug Goodwin from Kanakuk Kamps in Missouri, Jack McQueeney with the Navigators’ Glen Eyrie/Eagle Lake in Colorado and John McAuley from Muskoka Woods in Ontario, Canada.
This past week we met in Washington, DC. Our time together included a full agenda of items to discuss, people to meet and things to see.
One of our discussion topics was a review of our purpose and objectives as a group. It provided a reminder of why these men have become so important to me personally and professionally and why I encourage others to be a part of such a peer group.
Our purpose is to encourage each other in our leadership of our respected organizations. We accomplish this by doing the following:
We:
Provide a safe place to talk about our lives both professionally and personally.
Openly share ideas, new programs, and organizational insights with each other.
Benchmark other organizations and meet with other leaders.
Provide accountability on issues we each face.
Pray together for each other’s work, family and personal life.
As a result of our intentional relationships each of these men has become a dear friend and partner in ministry. But even more important to us is the fact that over the years God has used our relationships to strengthen and expand His Kingdom here on earth – the most worthy purpose.
