Two Lessons from Beauty and the Beast

Without a doubt my favorite Disney movie of all time is Beauty and the Beast. So it thrilled me when the school our kids attend, Northern Michigan Christian School, decided to perform it for its spring musical.

The performance was this past weekend and it was inspiring to watch our son Mitch as Gaston, along with many of his school mates, act and sing so masterfully. The entire cast, directors and orchestra did an incredible job. Watching it twice wasn’t enough.

Though the story isn’t perfect, as I watched it again, I remembered why Beauty and the Beast became my favorite Disney movie. It’s because it communicates two valuable lessons about the realities of life.

The first one is the most obvious, it’s the warning not to judge another person by their appearance, because what’s on the inside a person is more important than what is on the outside.

The second lesson, admittedly more clearly communicated in the stage version, is the fact that our decisions and actions always have serious ramifications for those around us. We don’t live on islands. It’s best expressed when Cogsworth, the talking clock, asks “why did we have to get involved in all this spell business? It’s not like we’re the ones who threw the old hag out of the castle.”

It’s this second lesson that’s the most uncomfortable for us to face. You see, we want our personal freedom but we don’t want to believe our choices impact those around us, because if they do, then we’d have to choose between our own desires and the welfare of others. And the fact is, we place a higher value on our freedom of choice than on the good of others. So we too often try to ignore this inconvenient connection between our actions and their impact on those around us. But it’s a truth we can’t escape.

And it’s a truth so clearly and compellingly communicated in Beauty and the Beast, and one we all desperately need to take to heart.

Being Called Together For Kids and a City

Brian ( on the right) and the staff at Cafe Mosaic, one of Overflow’s non profit social enterprises

In 2007, Brian Bennett (former SpringHill summer staffer) and his wife Cindy packed up their belongings, along with their young children, and moved into heart of Benton Harbor, Michigan to plant a church.

If you know anything about Benton Harbor, it’s a city that unfortunately resembles many small, Midwest cities where the loss of industry, and the work that goes with it, has gutted the life of the community. Abandoned buildings, struggling schools, broken families, and the loss of human dignity and hope that poverty so mercilessly steals away, all fills the Benton Harbor landscape.

It’s into this city that Brian and Cindy have brought the hope and dignity that only comes through Jesus Christ. Their church, Overflow, has brought the Good News to Benton Harbor through the Word and the deeds of its church family. And in 5 short years under Brian’s leadership, significant work, impacting the lives of many in this broken community, has occurred.

This past week, Todd Leinberger, our Great Lakes Vice President, Jeffery Wright, President and CEO of Urban Ministries Inc and Chairman of the board of Circle Y Camp, and myself met with Brian to discuss, pray, and dream about how our respected organizations could help Overflow in its ministry to the children and young people of the Benton Harbor community.

The story of how the four of us, and our organizations, have come together is for another post, but it’s because of this story that we sense that God may be leading us to work together in such a way that the transforming power of Christ is brought to the lives of 1000′s of young people of Benton Harbor area.

I’ll keep you posted to how this story of possibilities unfolds.

SpringHill’s Journey to Discovering Its New Vision

As I said in my last post, my goal for the process of discovering and articulating SpringHill’s new vision is that it would be a shared vision.  Meaning it would be understood, embraced and committed to by the entire SpringHill community. 

To this end we’re taking the following intentional steps on our journey.

In small groups or in one-on-one meetings, I’ve asked our staff, board and other key constituents to answer these three questions (taken   from the book “What to Ask the Person in the Mirror”):

     What do you hope SpringHill will achieve in the years ahead?

     What is special about SpringHill?

     Why do you give your precious time and energy working for SpringHill?

 Then I summarized all the answers into prevailing themes and created four example vision statements incorporating these different themes. 

 The next step is to meet once again with staff, board and other constituents to ask for their thoughts on the themes and the four example vision statements.  The goal is to hear what’s on their hearts and minds, and to seek for God’s voice in theirs.

 Next I’ll prayerfully consider what I’ve heard, in light of the reality of the world we live in, SpringHill’s history, and our understanding of the future.  From within this context my goal, God willing, is to articulate our new vision. 

 I’ll present this vision, along with 3 to 5 key strategic thrusts necessary for the vision to become a reality, to our Leadership team for their advice.

 Then I’ll present a final vision, the key strategic thrusts, and the supporting thinking, to the Board of Directors for their adoption.

 Finally we’ll share our new vision and the key strategic thrusts with our staff, followed by a full roll out to our greater constituency.

Then all we have left to do is make the vision a reality!

Discovering Vision

“God’s will is more about who we are than what we do or where we go. Being always precedes doing.” Enoch Olson, SpringHill’s Founding Director

Over the past few months I’ve been deep into the journey of discovering SpringHill’s vision for its next season of ministry. I’m on my second round of meetings with our staff, board and other involved constituents. Meeting with these committed, intelligent and insightful people is inspiring. I have no doubt God’s speaking through SpringHill’s community of people.

But exactly what is vision? It’s a term that’s used differently by different people and organizations. So it’s important to know exactly what you’re after if you’re on the journey to discover your vision.

At SpringHill, we use vision to answer the question “what does God want us to become, as a ministry, over the next 10 to 25 years?” We like to say vision answers the “Be” question and not the “do” questions (effective organizations need to answer both types of questions – click here to read my post on the 6 Key Questions Every Organization Needs to Answer).

We also believe that there are certain truths about God centered visions, including:

1. You discover visions not manufactured them.
2. In mature organizations like SpringHill, vision does not come to just one person but is expressed through the community of constituents involved with and committed to that organization.
3. Thus to be shared, a vision requires the input from all of an organization’s constituency groups.
4. The leader’s job is to discover and articulate the vision of God from the voices of the community, the reality of the world, history, and an understanding of the future.

My ultimate goal in this process is to discover God’s vision for SpringHill’s future and do so in such a way that it will be a shared vision, one that everyone committed to SpringHill will work passionately to see become a reality.

In my next post I’ll walk through the specific steps I’m taking in this discovery process.

What it Takes to Be Influential

This week I had the opportunity to have lunch with Enoch and Joan Olson. Enoch is SpringHill’s Founding Director and under his leadership the vision, core principles and values of SpringHill were clearly developed, articulated and built into our organization.

I asked to have lunch with Enoch and Joan so I could hear their current perspective on SpringHill, and what they believe God could be calling SpringHill to be and do in the future. As with all my meetings with Enoch and Joan, I walked away with a some helpful and challenging thoughts.

One of the more provocative perspectives Enoch shared is his belief that SpringHill needs to continue to expand its influence in Christian camping, youth ministries and, most importantly, in the lives of young people. This led to the discussion around the question “how does a person or an organization become influential?”

Enoch provided the following insightful answers.

First, we need authority. Not authority which comes from power or position but the kind of authority that is the result of wisdom, knowledge, and depth and breadth of experience in a particular field or subject. The more authority we have in this sense, the more potential influence we can have.

Second, we need to have relationships with others. True influence comes through and in the context of relationships. We gain relationships through networking, and we build relationships through quality time. Quality time means asking lots of questions and doing even more listening. The greater the number and the depth of relationships we have, the more potential influence we can gain.

On my way back from my time with Enoch and Joan, I thought to myself, as I’m sure you’ve just thought,  ”Wow what a lunch. I may have just been blessed with a glimpse into SpringHill’s future.”

 

 

 

 

 

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.

When Plan B is really the A Plan

Over the last couple of months our two oldest children, MD and Christina, have experienced the disappointment of being turned down for college jobs they really wanted. In walking with them through this process my wife Denise shared her own disappointment concerning a job she applied for in college.

During Denise’s sophomore year she decided she didn’t want to go back to her old summer job at the local K-Mart. Her A Plan was to stay on campus and become an orientation mentor for incoming students. It was a highly sought after job. But in spite of the competition Denise applied and went through the entire process before being told she would be an alternate.

Disappointed, Denise turned to her Plan B, which was to apply for a job as a counselor at a Christian camp near Evart, MI. Her good friend, Jodi Urban Blanchard, had been both a camper and a summer staffer and raved about the camp. So when Denise received the offer for the job by the program director, Mike Hollenbeck, she took it.

Well, you know the rest of the story. The camp was SpringHill, and it was during this summer that Denise and I fell in love with SpringHill and became good friends with Mark Olson (we were dating at the time so I’d come visit on her day off).

It was through our friendship with Mark that we continued our involvement with SpringHill, first as ambassadors and donors, then eventually, in 1998, going on full-time staff.

With hindsight we clearly see how God used this disappointment in Denise’s life to lead us to the place He wanted us to be and to do the things He planned for us to do. It was this lesson that she shared with MD and Christina – “God has a better plan for you, though you might not see it now, one day you may be able to look back and see your B Plan was really God’s A Plan.”

The Culture of Opinion

Over the last few months I’ve traveled 90 minutes to and from Grand Rapids on a weekly basis. As I started this routine, I turned to the local sports talk radio for my on road entertainment. But within a few trips I grew weary of listening to the callers spouting off with their opinions about local teams, coaching decisions and player performance.

I grew weary because I had just come off of 5 years of coaching middle school and high school sports and I had discovered that there’s much more to coaching decisions than what the average fan sees during a game. I came to appreciate that coaches have significantly more information about their players and their team than any person could conceivably gain just by being a fan.

And what made sports talk radio even more wearisome was simply that most of the callers had so little experience playing or coaching, and none at the highest levels, yet felt they could, with authority, criticize coaches and players. They seemed to ignore the obvious fact that those they criticize have significantly more knowledge, experience and ability than all the callers combined.

Yet this culture of opinion isn’t limited to the world of sports. It’s in every facet of our society including politics and business. So as I listened during those first few trips I realized I no longer want to be filled with a litany of uniformed and inexperienced opinions, instead I need facts and perspective that I can trust, value and act on (such as a good interview with a player or coach). And I also decided I will not be one of those people who criticize others, whether they’re close to me or far off, when I’m not capable of doing any better myself, and when I know I have significantly less information and experience than they do.

 

“Strategic Planning is Not Strategic Thinking”

As part of my work in re-articulating the SpringHill vision I’ve turned, once again, to one of the best books on leadership ever written The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. In the section titled Inspiring a Shared Vision Kouzes and Posner write…

“Strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking because it causes managers to believe that the manipulation of numbers creates imaginative insight into the future and vision. This confusion lies at the heart of the issue: the most successful strategies are visions; they are not plans. McGill University professor Harry Mintzberg explains that planning represents a “calculating” style, while leaders employ a “committing” style – one that ‘engages people in a journey. They lead in such a way that everyone on the journey helps shape its course. As a result, enthusiasm inevitably builds along the way. Those with a calculating style fix on a destination and calculate what the group must do to get there, with no concern for the members preferences. But calculated strategies have no value in and of themselves…Strategies take on value only as committed people infuse them with energy.’

Leadership that focuses on a committing style is what leadership scholars have called transformational leadership. Transformational leadership occurs when, in their interactions, people ‘raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. Their purposes, which might have started out as separate but related, as in the case of transactional leadership, become fused…. But transforming leadership ultimately becomes moral in that it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both the leader and the led, and thus it has a transforming effect on both.’”

I’ve taken these words to heart and am using them as guides as I lead SpringHill in the re-articulating of its vision.

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?