Another Fish Story
As I said in my last post I spent a week in Canada fishing at the end of September. The first half of the week was with my college friends and my brother. The second half was with another group of great friends of mine and of SpringHill.
If six guys can create a few fishing stories, 13 (the size of the SpringHill group) can fill a stringer with great stories. This happened again this year.
The Three Daves and Steve show proof of their fish stories. Like being at a SpringHill Camp this group is firmly committed to a few things done very well. The first is to fishing. It’s our camp major. We take advantage of every minute to fish. The result is always lots of fish and a great fish dinner on Saturday night.
Spencer, Bob, Matt, Michael, Dick and Steve (again) showing off the catch. Secondly, this group is committed to good food. We eat well on this trip. Breakfast and dinner are highlights of each day as it is for our campers. At breakfast we plan where everyone will fish and at dinner we share all our fish stories and adventures we experienced that day.
Enjoying dinner together. Thirdly, we’re committed to fellowship. There is nothing like spending a day in a boat or canoe with a friend in an incredibly beautiful place to create the perfect conditions for life discussions. Many theological, spiritual, personal and practical conversations take place with the clarity of thought that comes from “being away from it all” (just like camp).
Finally, we commit to studying and discussing what it is that God has for our lives. We do this at breakfast each morning. This year the focus was on the SpringHill “Way of Life” called “V.I.S.I.O.N.” (which I shared in my posts of June 6 and June 7th). As in every good SpringHill experience, this small group time provides the basis for great discussions in the boat during the day. These talks in the boats enrich the campfire like discussions we have at dinner.
This trip is one of the highlights of my SpringHill year. I love the guys and what we do when we are together fishing and the friendships we now have outside of fishing. Just writing about it has me already looking forward to our trip together next year.
Fishing in Canada- Walleyes and Life Long Friends:
“What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.” C.S. LewisAt the end of September I was able to do something that I love. Fish in Canada. Not only did I do it for a week but I was able to do it with two groups of great people. Frankly I can’t think of many things better than being in the Canadian wilderness fishing with people I love.
Mike "Spike" Samyn and I slaying Northern The first group of guys I fished with are friends from college (one friend goes back to middle school) and my brother. This is an annual trip we have taken together since the mid 90’s. The trip began after we closed the stock club we had together (we weren’t making money in the market when the rest of the world was making lots of it – some of you may remember those days). So we decided to take an annual fishing trip instead to replace our time together in the stock club (the way things were going we figured this would be a less costly option).
- John “Flem” Fleming our chief
These guys are my longest (nearly 30 years) and closest friends. Our fishing trip is a chance to catch up and be together. The Canadian wilderness provides a great place to be and fishing a fun activity to do while we spend 5 days together.
Brother Rich on an early morning walleye hunt What do three decades of friendships look like? Here is a brief list of what we have shared together:Our college careers (we all worked together as RA’s and RHD’s at Central Michigan University)
Being in and at each of our weddings and supporting each other through the marriages that followed (Praise God we are all still married to these same women – praise these women as well).
The births of 23 kids.
The loss of parents and other significant people in our lives.
Watching sports together, including our kids playing together and against each other.
Coaching, encouraging and supporting each other in our careers.
Praying and supporting each other and our families through life threatening health issues.
Keeping each other out of real trouble while sometimes finding ourselves together in not so real trouble.
And of course fishing in Canada together.
Brian "Bake" Baker and Tony "Bones" Voisin hiking to a strategic lake to catch giant northern pike. As you can see we not only “see the same truth” but we have lived and shared our lives together as well. As a result these guys are a true a gift to me.
"P", Spike, Bones, Bake, Flem, Brother Rich (missing Shaun "Greiver" Holtgreive) Lessons from a Canoe Trip: Part 2
Jonathan and I learned a lot on our canoe trip. The following are some additional lessons we took away from our adventure down the Manistee River. No doubt these lessons will stick with us, not only when we canoe again, but throughout the rest of our lives. See part 1 for the first half of the list.
7. Teams, even two people teams, are more likely to do great things than individuals.
8. Everyone has a role on the team, some steer from the back others scout the water from the front.
9. You can do better than you expected when you focus together on both the goal and the obstacles in front of you.
10. Don’t be too selective about where you will camp. Better to grab the first acceptable place instead of waiting for the perfect spot. Otherwise you may canoe a lot longer than you planned. Your back will get really sore and you will discover that you haven’t found a better spot than the first one you saw an hour earlier.
11. Inside a bend the water is shallow, slower and there are fewer obstacles but you have to fight the current to get to it. On the outside of a bend the water is deeper, faster and full of trouble and the current takes you there unless you are diligent.
12. Don’t camp at campsites next to highways unless you like to hear traffic all night (and parties across the way).
13. Be nice to fly fishermen even if they are not nice to you.
14. Set your tent fly up correctly, no short cuts, because it may just rain like crazy and flood out your tent on the first night.
15. Always take adventures when you can because you will learn something new, grow as a person and have lots of stories to tell for years to come.
Lessons from a Canoe Trip: Part 1
When each of our three boys turned 13 I took them on a one on one adventure. It was my way to create an experience that facilitates a discussion about the significance and meaning of them becoming men.
At the end of this past summer our youngest child Jonathan, who turned 13 this year, and I took a 4 day canoe and camping trip down the Manistee River. We started near the head waters just west of Grayling, MI and finished northeast of Lake City, MI. We had an incredible time. The river was beautiful, Jonathan caught some trout, we had some great discussions and some exciting adventure along the way.
The vast majority of our canoeing experience has been on lakes not rivers which created some of the adventure we had and taught us many lessons. As we talked about these lessons each evening we began to see how they also applied to our lives in general. So we thought we would share some of our “canoe” lessons with you.
1. Do all you can to avoid obstacles that are in your path (like fallen logs).
2. If you can’t avoid obstacles (and we learned you can’t always avoid them) then you need to hit them straight-on.
3. By all means do not hit obstacles side ways because you might sink (which we nearly did).
4. Fast water is fun but you have to be 100% focused otherwise it will send you into trouble.
5. If you want to catch fish you must have your line in the water.
6. The more you do something the better you get at it even if you learn by trial and error (we floated 96 miles on our trip).
To be continued…
Growing without Stealing
SpringHill’s BHAGG (Big Hairy Audacious God Goal) is to have 260,000 people in a SpringHill Experience each year by 2025 (for perspective we expect to have 40,000 people in a SpringHill Experience this year). Our staff and board set this goal in 2003 after much prayer and discussion. We believe God is calling us to something bigger than we’re capable of achieving on our own requiring an intervention by God to make it a reality.
Because our BHAGG requires moving ahead without clearly seeing how we will reach our goal there is a process of discovery that happens along the way. For example in 2003 we did not envision Day Camps and yet today, 7 years later, we see how Day Camps will significantly impact our ability to reach our BHAGG.
One obvious fact in achieving our BHAGG is it requires us to reach people who do not come to SpringHill today. There are two kinds of people who fit this group. The first are those who choose to attend other camps and the second are those who attend no camps at all. We decided long ago that we are not interested in taking “market share” from this first group (those who attend other camps). Instead we want to reach the second group of people, those who do not attend camp at all. This is where we see the greatest opportunity to make an impact on the lives of others.
So last week a number of our key leaders attended module one of training in Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS). BOS is a process that leads an organization to reach “new markets” or as we like to call them “new campers”. It’s a proven and powerful approach to strategy. One any organization, be it a church, camp or business, should consider if it wants to reach “un-reached” people. See my post “Swimming in a Blue Ocean” on June 30th for more information on Blue Ocean Strategy.
SpringHill is not walking or even running to 2025 instead we are swimming.
100 Years and Counting
How many organizations have the opportunity to celebrate a 100 year birthday? Not many. Hardly any. I have to think hard to make a list. Yet I had the opportunity this past weekend to be at such a birthday party. It was for Northern Michigan School (NMCS) in McBain, Michigan.
As I was enjoying the party (my kids attend this school) with many of the people who, over the years, have become dear friends I kept asking myself what does it takes for an organization to have such a party.
Though small in size NMCS has some very big things going for it that brought it to a 100th birthday. Things that any organization desiring long-term impact need to have.
Things such as:1. Generations of families being committed to the work.
2. Great people involved at all levels be it staff, volunteers, donors and ambassadors.
3. Clarity on purpose.
4. Willingness to change with out loosing focus on purpose. Very hard to do but essential for a 100 year birthday to be a reality.
5. Slow enough to change so that you are not “tossed back and forth by the waves and wind” of ever fad.
6. Reach out to people outside the traditional community which supports the work.
7. Hold to traditions that make the organization special and loose the ones that hold it back. Be not afraid to cut those traditions loose that hurt the organization today.
8. The organization needs to be owned emotionally by a larger community never by 1 person or a small group of people.
9. The focus always needs to be on others and their ongoing well-being. Love, celebration, honest accountability, friendship and other key ingredients that create community assure longevity.
10. Acknowledging that there is always something bigger than the organization. Something bigger being served. In NMCS’ case it is Christ and His Church.
NMCS has it going, and I have no doubt will celebrate their 200 year birthday as a result. More importantly to me personally is the privilege we have had as a family to be a part of such an organization and be the recipient of its great work.
Family, Friends, Food, Fun, Fellowship and Faith
Every Labor Day weekend we have 20 to 25 people living in our home, people sleeping where ever there is a bed, couch, or floor space. We have more great food than all of us can eat in a week. There are card games, ziplines, horseback rides, tubing down the Muskegon River and great discussions about life and faith. So what’s the occasion?
This is the annual SpringHill Labor Day Family Camp. One of the first programs SpringHill began and after 41 years it’s bigger and more impactful than ever. We continue to see families who want this kind of experience together leading us to continue to grow the program with nearly 4000 people attending 4 family camps in Michigan and Indiana in 2010.
But our little corner of this fabulous weekend are the 3 families who come and make our house their camp site and together we experience SpringHill’s Family Camp. Over the years and over the course of the weekend we have had other families join us for meals, for a warm and dry place to sleep or just to catch a college football game on Saturday afternoon.
It is one of my favorite SpringHill experiences and one of my favorite weekends of the year. The three families, the Wagner’s from Plymouth, Michigan, the VanderKolk’s and the Blanchards from East Grand Rapids, Michigan, and of course our family have all become dear friends because of this annual shared experience.
The friendships have extended to our kids and our kid’s friends. Late on Saturday night some of our summer staff (friends of our kids) joined us after the session for a discussion prompted by the weekend’s speaker Duffy Robbins. The focus was on God’s intentions of bringing His Kingdom to bear on His earth. Included were great questions, a bit of debate and a moving story of how the power of Christ’s Kingdom came this past week to someone from our group.
The evening was Family Camp at it’s best. It’s what happens at SpringHill every evening during the summer as well as during family camps. Small communities of people sit around a campfire (or a fire-place) and share, discuss and pray together. It’s also why I love these weekends. You see I not only have a hand in this incredible ministry but also have the opportunity to be a SpringHill camper for a weekend.
Snapshot #4 The Best Summer Yet!
As my final summer 2010 “snapshot” I’d like to provide an overview of the summer at SpringHill. In my posts I’ve told stories in an effort to provide a glimpse into all that God was doing through SpringHill as well as giving insight into this ministry. Now I want to share some numbers that will provide context for these stories.
I’m asked every fall by friends of SpringHill, “How was the summer?” And I always answer, “It’s been the best summer ever at SpringHill.” This year is no different. I can answer with integrity that this summer – in many ways – was the best.
Here are some reasons why:
- We broke our own record for number of campers in our summer camp program: 14,056. These numbers include our two overnight camps in Michigan and Indiana as well as our Day Camp ministry.
- All three (Michigan, Indiana and Day Camps) grew in the number of “camper days” compared to last year, which means 2010 is the largest summer-camp program in SpringHill’s history. A “camper day” represents one day of summer camp.
- Our Indiana camp, compared to much of the youth-camp industry, saw significant growth both in number of campers (10% more than last year) and camper days (23%).
- Our Day Camps ministry saw explosive growth in both campers served and locations. We served more than 4,800 campers (compared to 1,450 campers in 2009) in 25 locations in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio (compared to 12 locations in 2009).
- We, by God’s grace, had an extremely spiritually fruitful summer. In our preliminary count, 48% of this summer’s campers indicated a first-time or renewed commitment to follow Christ in their daily lives.
As you know from my posts this summer these numbers represent individual kids. Each of these kids had the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ, see Him in the lives of our staff, and experience Him in the context of intimate communities and shared experiences with the result being life transformation. This is why we count numbers and why having the largest SpringHill summer ever is important to us. It’s not the record books that truly matter, it’s the life change that we have the privilege of witnessing and being a part of.
Please thank God, as we have, for the work He has done – and is still doing – in the lives of our 14,000-plus campers and the 700 staff who served them.
Snapshot #3 Out of the Box
One of the reasons campers will tell us they love coming to SpringHill is because they can “leave the box they are in at home and really be themselves.” This is particularly true for teenagers, whether middle school or high school. They can feel trapped in a box at home or at school don’t know how to get out of it.
Boxes are expectations others have for a person whether they are good or bad. Such as “you are a star athlete” or “you are a partyer” or “you are a scholar”. It’s when these expectations no longer seem to fit who a young person believes they truly are that they feel “trapped in a box.” They don’t know how to shake it off. It’s especially painful when the box is negative and they’ve come to realize it and desperately want out.
When they come to SpringHill many register by themselves because it is a chance to start over. They meet new friends who don’t have them in any box. With an emphasis on “embracing all kids” regardless of who they are, loving them as people created in the image of God, our staff reinforce this freedom that kids feel in being themselves.
One of our staff shared how she had such a girl on her TST team. Early in the week this young woman left her group crying and her counselor went to see what was wrong. The counselor learned that this camper had felt put into a box at home that no longer fit but couldn’t find her way out of it.
Her counselor said to her “I’m going to stay with you until and help you through this.” Then she told her the great news “You do not have to be the woman the world says you are – you can be the woman God created you to be.”
This message began to sink in and the young woman returned to her team ready to experience camp. Later in the week this young woman put her faith in Christ, trusting Him to help her become all that He intended and created her to be. This is her first step in getting out of the box she desperately wanted out of and stepping into a new life, a life God intended for her to have and allowing her to become all He created her to be.
TSTer's on Opening Day getting to know each other. Snapshot #2 On a Mission.
Urban areas all around the world are full of kids challenged from the moment they’re born. For many the obstacles start even before they arrive into the world.
This is why we’ve continued to partner with other ministries who serve these kids and their families in urban areas around the midwest.
During the last week of Day Camp for our Indiana team we provided a camp experience for nearly 200 kids from inner city Indianapolis. We partnered with Shepard Community Center – http://www.shepherdcommunity.org/ – and Oasis of Hope Church to create this SpringHill experience for kids in their neighborhood.
Tony Schmid, our Indiana Day Camp Director, shared with me the following story that, for him and his team, was a great example an incredible week of ministry.
On the first day one of our staff had a girl in her small group who was on a mission. During their first small group time this camper asked her counselor if she could speak to the group. And of course the counselor gave her permission to share what was on her heart.
This girl then proceeded to tell her story about her relationship with Jesus Christ and finished by asking if all the other campers wanted the same relationship she had. Now mind you this is Monday morning not Wednesday afternoon when we are very intentional to ask campers this question.
But this girl was on a mission and her mission, as it turns out, was quite successful. Almost all the campers in her group raised their hands in an affirmative response to her question. So she led them all in a prayer to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Quite a way to start out our first inner city Indianapolis Day Camp. It was a preview of all that God would do during this incredible week of camp.
