Vision and the “SpringHill Way of Life” Part I
My daughter Christina and I talking after she danced before our staff Sunday morning I had the opportunity to speak to our Michigan overnight and Day Camp summer staff teams about having a Godly vision for one’s life and how to achieve that vision. I had my daughter perform a ballet piece where she was on point a number of times and perform pirouettes as part of her routine. She was my illustration for the message. Here is the summary of the first part of my message to our staff:
Vision is a dream that you have a plan to achieve and then you work to that end.
Vision answer’s the “Be” question. Who do you want to be? What do you want to become? It’s qualitative in nature compared to be quantitive.
It’s what you see in your mind’s eye about who and what you want to be.
It’s also what others see in you, who they see you as. This factor becomes a test of whether we are fulfilling our vision- do others see this as well.
The “Be” question is different from the “Do” question in which we answer the question “what do we want to do?”, “what do we want to accomplish?” The “Do” question is the mission question and mission and vision are not the same thing.
Vision is about “being” and mission is about “doing”. Both questions are essential in our lives and our work but they are not the same thing.
Without vision we can not have mission, without the quality of “being” we cannot sustain any sense of “doing”. We run the risk of “doing” without integrity.
Yet to have vision without a mission is to risk being self-absorbed, to miss the calling God has on our life or the calling on the organizations we lead and serve.
My daughter’s vision is to be a professional ballerina. This requires an enormous commitment on her part, for her to live a “way of life” In my next post I will walk through the “SpringHill Way of Life” I shared with staff, it’s our way of helping staff achieve the vision God has for their and our lives.
A Graduation Ceremony
Our first son, MD, graduated from Northern Michigan Christian School last night. It was an incredible evening for us as a family as we celebrated both this great achievement but also the next chapter in the story of his life. We are blessed that he has done so well in this first chapter and can’t wait to see what the rest of the God’s story will be for him.
One of MD’s close friends, Riemer Praamsma, was valedictorian of their class. He gave an excellent speech and challenge to his classmates which in turn was a challenge for all of us who were in attendance. In part of his message he quoted the second stanza from a poem titled ‘As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). It was a poem read to their class by their English teacher, Mr. Harris, in preparation for their mission trip to the Dominican Republic.
As I listen to Riemer read that second stanza and then challenge his classmates I too was challenged by this moving poem and it’s message for us.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is-
Christ-for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
As Riemer said to us last night, “we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ ‘in ten thousand places””.
Transparency
Today I met with Bill Payne, good friend, long-time SpringHill board member/supporter and Chief of Staff of Amway Corporation. Every time I meet with Bill we have an excellent conversation and I walk away being challenged and/or having a new idea or perspective on some subject.
Our conversation today ended up on the topic of transparency in leadership and within in organizations. We both acknowledged that transparency is essential to a healthy organization and for effective leadership. This led me to further thoughts on the necessity of transparency in leadership and within organizations. But first a definition of transparency.
Transparency is where one can see something clearly. Clear glass in transparent, frosted or dirty glass is not. When there is transparency there is nothing the hides or blocks ones view. We see things as they are with no distortion. With this definition in mind here are some thoughts about why we need transparency in our lives, leadership and organizations:
Where there is transparency there is:
- Trust – because everyone knows what everyone else knows.
- Accountability – which leads to better performance and higher personal integrity.
- Teamwork – because shared knowledge and information creates shared power and responsibility.
- Respect and appreciation for the work and lives of others.
- Truth is held in the highest honor.
Where there is little or no transparency there is:
- Lack of trust because where there is a lack of information people tend to assume the worst.
- Little accountability but instead unclear responsibilities, goals and expectations.
- Silos, in fighting, territorialism.
- Cynicism, back biting, gossiping and arm-chair quarterbacking.
- Where the truth is bent, massaged and manipulated to protect, hide and cloud issues.
When you look at the two lists it’s obvious which option is the best for our relationships, leadership and the organizations we serve, support and endorse. One might say there is risk to being transparent and in some cases there maybe, but the reality is that the risk is small compared to the risk on not being transparent.
We desperately need to be transparent as people then as leaders, followed by assuring transparency in the organizations we serve in, work for and support. It’s the foundation that our lives, our leadership and the organizations we serve need for reaching their full potential, doing and being all that God intend us and our organizations to be.
If you have some other qualities to add to one of the lists above please pass them on, we will add to the above list.
“When Love and Skill Come Together Expect a Masterpiece.”
Christina and I after her Spring Dance Recital English poet John Ruskin once said “When love and skill come together expect a masterpiece.” I experienced a masterpiece tonight by my daughter, Christina, and the members of her dance company, Company Dance Traverse. Over the years of watching my daughter dance it has been amazing to see her grow and develop into an incredible ballerina.
Christina, absolutely loves to dance. On our way home from the recital somehow Christina and I ended talking about what life will be like in the new heaven and new earth. I asked her what she thinks she will be doing in our eternal home and she said ” I hope I can dance all the time.” When you equate something with our eternal home you must really love it.
Now add to her love for ballet, the incredible hours over years and years that Christina has put into her dance and the result was seen tonight. It was a masterpiece. Without the practice there would be no skill and with no love Christina would never had practiced all those hours. It really does take both love and skill if you want to produce a masterpiece. Christina understands this because she lives it.
We all Need a Friend Like Terry Prisk
Terry at our regular meeting spot, the Cracker Barrel Yesterday had lunch with my friend Terry Prisk at our regular spot, Cracker Barrel (I know it’s not a very exciting place but it’s a convenient half way spot for us). Let me tell you a bit about Terry. He is the Senior and Founding Pastor of The River – http://www.therivercc.net/ in Hartland, MI, a very dynamic church making a positive impact in that community. Terry has also spent much of his life speaking to students and others and has spoken at SpringHill for at least 30 years. He is one of the most dynamic speakers I have ever heard and through his teaching and coaching has made an incredible impact on SpringHill and the students he has spoken too over the years.
It’s not a stretch to say that Terry has spoken to more people at SpringHill than anyone in its history. There is no one even close. Easily over 20,000 people, maybe even 30,000. But more importantly God has used him to transform the lives of 1000’s of these people. There are people all over the world who will tell you that one of the most significant times in their lives was listening to Terry speak at SpringHill. If you wear a SpringHill shirt on your next trip chances are someone will stop you and tell you they’ve been to SpringHill and more likely heard Terry speak. It’s quite a record, one that will probably stand for a long time at SpringHill.
But let me tell you why I really appreciate him, why I love him like a brother (for a brother he is), and why having a friend like him makes me (and if you can find one, makes you) a better person with each interaction. Here is my reasons I love Terry and thus why he is the measure of what a great friend should be.
1. He is always learning, never satisfied with his contributions to the Kingdom or his influence on the lives of people, thus he inspires the same out of me.
2. He is brutally honest without being judgemental. He tells you what you need to hear and does it in a way that makes you very thankful. I need that honesty.
3. He has a driven passion to help others know and grow in their relationship with Christ and is willing to take great risks to see that this happens and reminds me why I do what I do, keeping me focused.
4. He is a devoted husband and father and the proof is seeing his kids and meeting his wife, I hope and pray my kids turn out like his.
5. He’d run through walls for his friends and for just about anybody that needs a hole in a wall, reminding me of the kind of friend I need to be.
6. And finally, I love anyone who can stare down big game and come out with the victory (see one of his take downs below), makes me a more courageous person just being with him. By the way he loves to hunt and I love to fish, which are two versions of the same sport.
If you can find a friend like Terry keep him or her, if you haven’t got one, go and find one, do whatever it takes, it will enrich your life and make you grow and become more the person you were created to be. Terry has done that for me and I am forever thankful.
They don't have these Michigan Lemonade out of Lemons, or Making a Useless Thing Beautiful
Our neighbor's stump turned into a flower-pot. My wife Denise and I took our morning run together. It was one of those incredible spring days in northern Michigan, the kind of days where you think Heaven might be a bit like this. We had been reflecting on the beauty of the day as we ran, taking in the smells, sights and sounds of a spring morning when as we ran by our neighbor’s home (a full half mile down from us) where we noticed this stump in their yard that they had turned into a flower-pot. Denise immediately said to me, “now that’s turning lemons into lemonade”. And all of the sudden an old clique turned into real life. Our neighbors, for whatever reason had chosen not to spend either the time, effort or money to remove this stump from their yard and instead left it. In a large yard, in the country, it’s a reasonable decision. Yet they went the next step and not only kept it but redeemed it. They took something useless and made it beautiful And on this incredible spring morning, it seemed to fit right into the surroundings we where fortunate to run in.
How often do organizations we are a part of have stumps, useless things, that we may not have planted and at the same time are too costly to remove? In any organization we inherit stumps, those parts of the organization, be it products, programs, services, assets, reputations or even people you just need to live with. The question is can we make them into something more beautiful. Just because we need to live with them doesn’t mean we can’t improve them until the time when removal makes more sense. Our job as leaders is to have the wisdom to know when to make the investment to remove a stump (and believe me it is an investment) or leave it alone and just improve it (which requires an investment as well but usually not as big) by making it more useful, effective or beautiful.
So here’s to the stumps we live with may they all be as beautiful as our neighbor’s stump on this incredible spring morning.
Oh Those Weeds in My Garden
I’ve spent 2 hours this morning weeding my flower beds and kitchen garden. Two hours! How did my garden get to be just a mess on May 22? Well I haven’t tended to it all spring and without attention – weeding, turning the soil, etc. those pesky weeds just kept growing. Growing so much that before I started this morning all I saw, when I looked at my garden, was weeds – no beautiful flowers (they are there), no pure black dirt (it’s there and the weeds love it). The weeds became the central theme of my garden. As I sweated, pulled, was bit by mosquitos, I realize maybe my garden had something to tell me.
It was then that I reflected on why the Scriptures so often use farming and gardening as metaphors for our lives. As I was pulling those weeds I thought about the parallel between my garden and my life:First, my life is to be a garden, Christ’s garden, something that continues to grow and become more beautiful and fruitful each day, each season, each year.
Second, as in every garden, it will always need to be tended if it is to continue grow and become what it was created to be.
Thirdly, tending includes weeding. There will always be weeds in my garden and my life so I will never stop weeding. So I better start enjoying it for what it is.
Fourthly, the longer the weeds are allowed to grow, the deeper the roots and the harder it is to pull them out and to do it without damaging the good plants.
Finally, gardening is a process not a job with an end point, likewise our lives are a garden that is never completed and the joy of it is working it and seeing it develop and grow.
As I was pulling weeds I also began asking myself the some “weedy”questions about myself, questions we can all probably ask ourselves:
1. Do I have weeds (and by weeds I mean anything that is getting in the way of what my life could truly be, what God created it to be) in my life that need to be pulled? Answer – yes
2. Have I been pulling them out on a regular basis or have I left them to grow and spread as I did with my garden? Answer- I hope not but I better double-check (I can do this best by asking my wife Denise, she sees and lives with my pesky weeds and is honest to tell me what and where they are).
3. What and when I am going to go after those weeds in my life before they become the theme of who I am? Answer – I better start right now.
When I was finished pulling weeds I realized the two hours was much more productive than I had planned.
