Life After Graduation

“Now that you’ve finished your master’s degree what are you going to do?”

That’s the question I’ve been asked a dozen times since this past Friday when I graduated from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. I’ve felt a bit like the Super Bowl winning quarterback when the reporter asks, “now that you’ve won the Super Bowl what are you going to do?” Of course the quarterback always answers’, “I’m going to Disney World”.

Now that’s not been my answer. Instead, if I’ve had a moment, I’ve responded by sharing all the things I’ve pushed to the “back burner” during this program, including – trout fishing on opening day, taking care of a very bad lawn, tackling the ever-growing list of house projects, and most importantly, reading what I want to read and writing what I want to write, and do so in my timing.

My Systematic Theology professors, Dr Grinnell (left) and Dr. Wittmer (right)

But don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret for a moment the work, effort and commitment needed to complete this program. I gained much more than I ever anticipated in essential knowledge for my work at SpringHill (which was one of my primary goals in pursuing a seminary degree).

Plus I’ve had the satisfaction of living out, in a more formal way, one of my personal “core values” – lifelong learning. And it’s because of this core value that I’ll most deeply miss the opportunity I’ve had to sit in class, and be challenged intellectually and spiritually by both my classmates and professors.

It’s also probably why a couple of people, who know me well, have said they don’t think this will be the last of my formal education.

Well they may be right, but for now, I’m going to see if I can catch a few Brookies in the stream near our house.

The Wise, the Foolish, and the Evil

Every Thursday at lunch a number of SpringHill staff view one session of the 2011 Willow Creek Leadership Summit videos. This past Thursday we listened to Dr. Henry Cloud teach on the three different types of people in the world – the wise, the foolish and the evil, and the strategies leaders need to use for dealing with each. His talk comes directly from one of the chapters in his most recent and insightful book – “Necessary Endings“.

After finishing the video we had a short debrief about what we learned, what new thoughts we each had and what challenged us. Ironically, the one challenge we all shared was that, as we watched, we all asked ourselves “which person have I been or am I now?” For each of us, it was a challenging moment of personal evaluation that cut right to the heart of many issues and relationships in our lives.

So in the spirit of seeking the light, below are the characteristics of each type of person. Take a moment and do your own self-reflection and ask “what kind of person have I been or am I now?”

Wise Person: When the light (truth) comes to them, they adjust themselves to the light, so who they are a person matches reality. In other words they seek and receive feedback and change themselves as a result.

Foolish Person: When the light (truth) comes their way, they try to adjust the light (deflect the truth) instead of changing themselves. When receiving feedback they deflect, blame and do not take responsibility for their own actions and performance.

Evil Person: When the light shines on them they want to destroy both the light and those that shine it. They have destruction in the hearts and want to retaliate against truth and those who share it.

The Beach or the Mountains, or the …?

I remember late night debates with friends about which were better – the mountains or the beach? At the heart of the debate was the romantic calling of the sea and the laid back life on the beach versus the adventure and majesty of the mountains. What both have in common is that they show the immense size and beauty of God’s creation while often creating existential crises because they make us feel so insignificant in their midst.

When pressed in those debates I always landed on mountains as my choice. But over the last 15 years my preference has slowly shifted. As our family traveled down to Myrtle Beach for spring break I posed the question to them – mountains or beaches? After a bit of discussion they asked my choice to which I answered – neither.

You see a couple of years ago I realized that my answer was now “C. None of the above”, though I still love and appreciate both (especially the beach after a long Michigan winter), my first choice has become, what I call, the great north woods, especially the forests and glades around the Great Lakes.

There is nothing I love more than a summer morning filled with the sweet smell of firs, pine and poplar combined with the coolness that the natural air conditioning of the Great Lakes provide, or watching the sunset over a spring fed lake or over the coast of Lake Michigan. I still love to watch white tail leap a fence or catch a trout in a lake or a stream.

There’s just so much that I love about great north woods, but in the end, I find the same majesty of the mountains and the same romantic calling of the sea but in an environment that’s personal, intimate and accessible.  They have truly become my sanctuary.

What’s your favorite place?

One Step Closer to Dunking a Basketball

Our son Mitch just told my wife and I that he dunked a dodge ball for the first time yesterday. Dunking a basketball has been a goal of Mitch’s and yesterday’s feat was tangible evidence of his progress towards reaching his goal.

He was proud of his accomplishment because, as he said, “it takes lots of small steps to accomplish a goal and yesterday was one of those steps in me dunking a basketball.” Our 16-year-old understands a powerful reality about reaching goals – if we want to accomplish a difficult task or reach a challenging destination we need to break it down into achievable steps and patiently work our way through those steps.

This process of breaking down a goal, task or project into smaller steps does a number of important things that increases the odds we’ll reach our desired end.

First, it forces us to think through, plan and count the cost of all that needs to be done to ultimately accomplish a goal. Mitch knows there’s more work to be done if he’s ever going to compete in a slam dunk contest.

Second, if we ultimately don’t achieve our goal, we have the consolation of having improved and being in a better place than we were before we started. Yesterday Mitch jumped higher than ever before.

Finally, and maybe the best reason for breaking down our goals into manageable steps, is it creates many opportunities for small victories which give us confidence and motivation to keep going forward. Dunking a dodge ball is a small victory and it fired Mitch up to keep moving along his journey to achieving his goal of dunking a basketball.

What goal do you have that would become more achievable if you broke it down into smaller steps?

Funeral Perspective

I attended two funerals last week. I’ll admit I don’t like the reality of death. The Scriptures are clear – God created us to live forever. Instead death stole into the world, not as a welcomed friend, but as an enemy. So I have biblical support for my strong dislike of death.

But, though I despise death, I’ve come to appreciate funerals.

First, I appreciate funerals for the reasons we have them – they provide an opportunity to grieve our loss, to celebrate the life of a loved one, and to be with family and friends.

Yet there’s one more reason I’ve grown to appreciate funerals. It’s the serious perspective that can be gained, whether we like it or not, when we come face to face with death.

These funerals were for two very different people who died at two different places in their lives, one at the end of what we’d call a good long life, the other passed in mid-life. As I sat quietly in each service I asked myself two perspective giving questions. Each question had an eye on my potential funerals – one at the end of a long life and the other, more immanent, at mid – life.

The first question was simply “who’d be at my funeral and why”? The answer’s very revealing about the significance my life has had on others – whether it was positive, negative or neutral.

The second question is “what would be said about me?” Again the answer shines a needed light, showing what, if any, difference I made in the world. It also points to what I did or didn’t do with the gifts and abilities God gave me throughout my life.

So last week I not only attend two funerals, I had a needed perspective checkup on my life and how I’m living it.

Running for Clarity

For years I’ve been a runner. I run because it’s a simple, inexpensive way to stay in shape. Running is also an excuse to be outside, regardless of the weather. As such I’ve never owned a treadmill because, when I’ve had the opportunity to use one, I’ve found them to be well… torturous.

I have also discovered another significant benefit of running – when I run I find better solutions to pending problems, gain new perspectives on relationships, have better focus on a message that needs delivering or pray with more clarity.

The only reasonable explanation I’ve heard for this phenomenon is that running, with its physical rhythm of moving and breathing, especially outside, clears the mind of the clutter that can so easily cloud our thinking.

When I’ve had periods when I’m not running or not running much, I see a decrease in the quality of my thinking, especially around complex issues. On the other hand, as I look back on the last 30 years of my life, I can almost connect every good decision I’ve made, or idea I’ve had, to a run I’ve taken.

Now running isn’t for everyone. But doing something that includes the following three elements is a must if we’re to have any hope of experiencing clarity of thinking:

    Rhythmic physical activity

    That’s so simple to do it requires no thinking to do it

    And keeps any potential distractions away

Such things as biking, walking, swimming or rocking in a chair (my 2^nd favorite activity after running) can create the right combination of these elements as well.

So whatever the activity, making the effort to do it on a regular basis will de-clutter our minds and give us the clarity of thinking that’s necessary to deal with the complex world in which we live.

The 360⁰ Evaluation

Recently I initiated a 360⁰ evaluation of my leadership. I did it in response to a recommendation in the book What to Ask the Person in the Mirror and after discussing the topic with my peer learning group.

It’s important I understand my leadership strengths and weaknesses including any blind spots I might have. Knowing this information is especially critical in light of SpringHill’s current and future growth.

As I expressed to the folks I asked to participate in the evaluation, I do not want my leadership to be a hindrance to SpringHill reaching its potential. Because the truth is, the effectiveness of an organization is always less than or equal to the leadership capacity of its chief executive, never greater.

So if you’ve ever contemplated having a 360⁰ evaluation of your leadership, consider the following recommendations from my experience and the experience of my peers, in helping make the process more fruitful and productive.

1. Have an outside human resources professional administer the evaluation on your behalf.
2. Use a reliable and valid 360⁰ process. I used The Center for Creative Leadership’s evaluation tool. It’s proven and compares your feedback to a database of 100,000′s of leaders from around the world.
3. Don’t make it part of your performance appraisal, it’s better used for developmental purposes.
4. Initiate the review; don’t wait until someone initiates it for you. You want feedback sooner than later and not when someone (like your boss) thinks there might be an issue, because, in that case, it might be too late.
5. Be open to all the feedback and be prepared to make changes.

Feedback isn’t always easy to get and receive, but as Proverbs 10:17 says “He who heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.”

The Symptoms and the Cure for the Out of Control Schedule

This week I met with my friend and advisor Bill Payne. The topic I sought his input on was prioritizing and managing my time. It’s become a bigger challenge as my job continues to evolve in light of SpringHill’s growth (see my post Time – One of Most Valuable Gifts). As always, Bill provided wise and practical input.

Below are the symptoms I’ve been experiencing over the last year and some of Bill’s wisdom to help cure the out of control schedule I’ve had. As you read, ask yourself – “are you experiencing any of these same symptoms?” If you answer yes, then join me in trying some of Bill’s input for yourself.

Symptoms:

My time and schedule feel like they’re being driven and managed by everyone else but me.

I’ve had barely enough time to do all that I need and should do in my role.

To accomplished both what I need to do and what everyone else has expected me to do, I’ve cut short or cut out such things as exercise, sleep, house and home projects, reflection time and planning, time with friends and even, I hate to admit this, at moments, time with my family.

The Cure:

Block out time in my daily and weekly schedule as “no meeting” times to assure I have space to do both the important things and the things only I can do.

Trust my team to do their work and to do it well.

Stop trying to please everyone by saying yes to everyone’s requests and begin to say no in appropriate ways. Bill promised that saying no becomes easier the more you say it.

Then stop feeling guilty when I say no.

Finally, stop over playing my desire to please, a good quality I have, until taken to the extreme – which is trying the impossible – to please everyone all the time.

Wisdom is Supreme

“Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding”. Proverbs 4:7

This week our Development team received wisdom. It cost us three long days away from our families and the office, but it was worth every minute.

Actually, it maybe the best 3 days of any professional investment I’ve made in a long time. Not because of the subject matter – yes development and fundraising are incredibly important for ministries like SpringHill – but because of the wisdom of our seminar leader Bill McConkey of McConkey Johnston International.

Bill has been a development professional for 50 years as well as a local church pastor for over 40. He sits on boards of well-known and significant ministries while continuing both his consulting and pastoral work. Bill embodies wisdom.

Which had me thinking, why is there such a serious lack appreciation in our culture for true wisdom and its sources?

First we need to understand wisdom. Wisdom is the accumulated learning and knowledge one has gathered from personal experience or the experience of others. The two key words are “accumulated” and “experience”, both of which can only happen over a long period of time, such as a… life time. By implication then, the only truly wise people walking the earth are those who’ve been around a long time and those who have learned from them.

Which is why our culture doesn’t value true wisdom, we don’t value the people who have it. There’s a bias against older people because they’re not always “current”. Bill McConkey doesn’t own a computer, thus never does email. So it would be easy to dismiss things Bill has to say, but oh, what a mistake that would be (could it be that Bill’s wiser because he doesn’t have email?).

So beyond all that I learned about fundraising this week I also reminded of my need to be with and around wise people, those who’ve traveled life for a long time, because “wisdom is supreme”.

 

 

Time – One of Our Most Valuable Gifts

If I learned anything in 2011 it’s that time isn’t just my most valuable resources, it’s a gift.

It’s a gift because it’s part of God’s creation. It’s one of God’s most valuable gifts because (along with space) it’s the context in which we experience all His other good gifts.

In the book What to Ask the Person in the Mirror (see my post) Robert Steven Kaplan recommends leaders do an audit of how they spend their time. Sensing, that with the growth of SpringHill, I was beginning to lose my grip on this gift, I did a time audit in November and early December.

I accomplished this audit by carrying around an Excel spreadsheet with a list of key activities I do, or should do, during a typical week. Then I marked down, in ¼ hour segments, where I spent my time. I did a tally at the end of each day and at the end of the week. After the first week I made adjustments in the spreadsheet to better reflect where I was actually spending my time. It was a simple process, requiring little time and, most importantly, it was enlightening.

After five weeks one major theme became apparent – the time I’m committing to my work has increased as SpringHill has grown. The trouble is, if this pattern continues, one day I’m going to run out of time  (time being a finite resource), which could result in me becoming a hurdle instead of an aid to SpringHill continuing to reach more kids in more places more effectively.

This result would be unacceptable. So I’m taking intentional steps in 2012 to do a better job with the gift of time God’s given me. (See my post on questions to ask yourself in preparing for 2012).

What will you do with your gift this year?