Some of My Favorite People
Leaders from Ridge Point Community Church Imagine working a full week and on Friday afternoon, instead of heading home to relax, you rush off to a church parking lot. There you get into a van, school bus or coach loaded with dozens of students. You then make a multiple hour trip to a camp where you’ll be sleeping in a sleeping bag, eating camp food and staying in a cabin with a dozen students for a weekend retreat.
Anyone willing to give up a weekend to be an adult leader at a student retreat makes my “favorite people in the world” list. These retreats, which are so often life changing experiences for students, couldn’t happen without the volunteer leaders and the pastoral staff who commit themselves to the spiritual development of young people.
This past weekend we had our first of 14 student retreats that occur between now and the end of March at our Michigan camp. This first weekend was a Juniors Retreat designed for 4th thru 6th grade students. I had the opportunity to have Saturday night dinner with leaders and students from Ridge Point Community Church in Holland, MI.
Watching these leaders interact with their students was fun and encouraging. It was encouraging because elementary age students are the most important age group of people for the Church to invest in. And it was fun because it was apparent these leaders had special relationships with their students.
So make it a point to thank the youth leaders and other adults who work with kids that you know. Thank them for giving up their weekends, their sleep and their diets, but more importantly thank them for investing in the lives of our children.
Why Do You Spend Your Precious Time…?
Yesterday we had one of our three yearly “all staff” meetings which follow each of our three “seasons”. Our agenda’s consistent for each meeting – we review the results of the completed season as well as the anticipated results of the upcoming season and year.
It’s an opportunity to celebrate and pray together as well as ask questions, make suggestions and assure we’re aligned as a team.
We want these meetings to be fun, informative, causal, real and helpful in achieving our goals. We speak frankly and with full transparency about how we’re performing and what’s needed in the months and years to come.
At the end of this particular meeting, as a first in many discussions related to the task of re-articulating SpringHill’s vision statement, I asked our staff to begin to think, reflect and pray about the following three questions (taken from What to Ask the Person in the Mirror by Robert Steven Kaplan –see my 10/23/2011 post) .
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What do we (you) hope SpringHill will achieve in the years ahead?
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What’s special about SpringHill?
- Why do you spend your precious time and energy working for SpringHill?
Over the next several months the answers to these questions will become key inputs into our vision re-articulation.
But today I asked our team for some impromptu answers. Their responses were moving, inspiring, stunning and made me proud to be on this team.
Here are just three of many answers (paraphrased) to question 3 our staff shared:
“I’m able to fulfill God’s calling in my life of creating cool and inspiring environments that God can use to transform lives.”
“God changed my life when I was a SpringHill camper, now I can help create the same life transforming experiences for other people.”
We have a great start to this important task of brining new clarity to the SpringHill vision.
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Keeping Your Eye on the Ball
I grew up playing baseball, basketball and football (in which for many years I was a receiver). One of the most common instructions I’d heard from my coaches, regardless of the sport, was “Perry, keep your eye on the ball.” This meant, whether playing third base or wide receiver, to focus entirely on the ball until I had it completely in my control.This instruction, on the surface, seems to be easy enough to follow, except for that linebacker ready to put a hit on me the moment I touch the ball, or the man on second base waiting to advance to third as soon as I made a throw to first. Then what became easy was to “take my eye of the ball” and try to see, at the same time, more than just that ball coming my way. When I did this it almost always led to me missing that ball and still getting hit or the guy still advancing to third.
Keeping my eye on the ball required discipline, focus and courage. It’s probably why I heard so often my coaches yell “Perry, keep your eye on the ball” and why it’s now burned forever into my consciousness.
Looking back I’m thankful for my coaches’ consistent instruction and the fact that their words continue to be front of mind now that the “sports” I’m participating in have changed and become more significant. Mishandling the ball, be it SpringHill’s mission, vision and values, the stewardship of my health, my role as father and husband or my relationship with Christ, has significantly more serious consequences than that ground ball that went through my legs.
And it requires even more discipline, focus and courage, three qualities I continue to ask God to provide so I will never take my eye off these important balls.
Why I’m Still in School
Wednesday mornings this school year I’ll be in class finishing up my MA in Ministry Leadership. I’m not sure I’m the oldest student in class but, if I’m not, I’m certainly near the end of the age curve.
Which is no big deal, but it has caused me to think…
Or when I’m doing homework – reading many pages of theology or writing papers – instead of let’s say, steelhead fishing or working on house projects, I’ve thought more than once….
Why am I doing this?
But it doesn’t take long to fill in the blanks, because I’ve always known the answer.
It’s simply because I love to learn. It’s one of my personal core values.
That’s why I read what I read, it’s also why I’m occasionally taking up new hobbies and it’s why I’ve committed myself to finishing this portion of my education.
I believe learning’s a lifelong pursuit because God and the people and the world He’s created are His gifts to us and the best way to appreciate these gifts (and Him) is to continually learn more about them.
Also, truth be told, I’m a bit afraid of growing stale. I’ve convinced myself that if I continue to pursue learning I can stop the cobwebs from gathering and keep my mind and spirit young even as my body grows old.
Then there’s the stewardship God’s given me here at SpringHill. One of our core values is “we’re a learning and mission-driven organization”. So if this value’s to be a part of the fabric of SpringHill it needs to start with me. We can only be “a learning organization” when I’m “a learning leader”.
So why am I still sitting in a classroom? Well, for all the reasons above and, simply, I just can’t help myself.
Being a SpringHill Camper for the Weekend
What do you have when you combine over 600 women and a camp designed, built and loaded with activities for kids? You have a SpringHill Women’s Retreat.
We’ve been doing women’s retreats for decades including this weekend and I’m always amazed, amused, honored and humbled that we have this incredible privilege to serve so many women in this way.
I’m always amazed because so many women want, for a weekend, to become campers just like kids. They eat, sleep, and do all the things our youth campers do on a weekend retreat or in a summer camp program.
I’m also always amused, because as good campers, these women participate enthusiastically in every activity SpringHill offers, from our ziplines to riding horses to trap shooting to scaling one of our climbing walls. It’s literally one of our busiest activity weekends of the year.
I’m honor that we can provide these women a SpringHill style worship experience with engaging speakers such as this weekend’s teacher Liz Curtis Higgs.
And most importantly, as with any SpringHill Experience, I’m humbled that the combination of all these elements help 100’s of women know and grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.
The Underappreciated Work of Making Vision a Reality
We’re enamored with strategic thinking and vision casting. Most leaders want to be seen as strategic and visionary thinkers who cruise around at 30,000 feet. We value this skill set so much that we make heroes out of these same leaders.
But I’m convinced that being just a visionary leader isn’t nearly enough. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not minimizing the importance of these skills – creating strategy and vision need to be a part of any leaders work. Too often, though, leaders spend too much energy on vision and strategy and too little energy on tactics and execution.
We often look down on tactical work and the execution of strategy because we misread people like Steve Jobs and credit Apple’s success to his vision and strategic thinking.
But if you’ve read any of the 100’s of recent articles and blogs about Jobs after the announcement of his retirement as CEO you see a different picture. What you find is a leader who spent much of his time in the “trenches” working on the details of new products – in other words doing the tactical work. This is what made Jobs truly visionary. It was his willingness to do the hard, everyday work required to assure that his vision and strategy succeeded.
So as a leader my goal’s to spend only a small percentage of my time on vision while spending most of my time working side by side with our staff, board, supporters and volunteers in the hard work of making our vision reality. Because at the end of my time at SpringHill, if anything’s written about me, I want it to be said, not that I was just a visionary, but that I led an organization that turned its vision into a world transforming reality.
The Weight of Glory
It’s SpringHill’s Labor Day Family Camp weekend at our two overnight camps. There are nearly 300 families and 1500 people enjoying family time, pursuing fun and adventure and worshipping together with great music and inspiring speakers.
Our Michigan camp speaker is Clint Dupin, a Teaching Pastor for Kensington Community Church in Troy, Michigan. His theme for the weekend is the “weight of God’s glory and its significance in our lives”.
As he was speaking on Saturday morning I couldn’t help but think about some of my favorite words from a sermon from one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, titled “The Weight of Glory“.
Since you might not be listening to Clint this weekend I thought you might be blessed and challenged instead by C.S. Lewis’ words.
“The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbors’ glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours….
Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
The End of Summer Camp – I’m Sad but Satisfied
Today’s the last day of the SpringHill 2011 summer camp season and there are two words that describe how I feel – “sad” and “satisfied”.I’m sad because we had an incredible summer of creating life changing experiences for 1000’s of young people but if feels like we’re ending too soon.
Sad because of the many new friends I’ve made with summer and resident staff, parents and even a few campers knowing our daily and weekly interaction has ended. Facebook’s good but it’s not the same as being together at camp.
Sad because I know the regular interaction I’ve had with our year around staff and their families has come to an end. We’ve spent the summer eating meals together and watching our kids catch fish and play six square with each other and with our summer staff.
But I’m satisfied because I watched our team deliver the SpringHill Experience to the largest number of campers in our history – 17,470 and do it in a passionate and professional way.
I’m satisfied because we had an incredibly safe summer for our campers and staff. Nothing keeps me awake at night more than the safety of those God’s entrusted to us.
Finally and most importantly, I’m deeply satisfied and humbled because it’s clear from camper and parent feedback that we fulfilled our mission of creating life changing experiences for young people where they can know and grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. This is why we exist so to know we been used to this end leaves me exhausted but satisfied.
So I’m both sad and yet satisfied. But the great news there’s only 283 days left before the first 2012 summer staff arrive and summer camp officially begins once again (not that I’m counting or anything).
