Two weeks is a LONG time to be away from my family! I'm so thankful that my wife is a hero, and I'm also thankful for the prayers and support that I have felt from my friends. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. Despite the difficulties involved in life away from home, this Overture I class in Seattle has been a life changing experience.
This morning Grace Barnes talked to us about balancing our lives while we're working on a doctorate degree. Balance is not really a good word to use, because it makes it seem that we have to make room in our lives to juggle another major commitment. Instead, she asked us to integrate. Achieving balance is not possible, but we can integrate. As an example of this, I should connect what I'm learning, researching, and writing into everything I'm doing with LAMP and North Way. This way it just integrates into what I'm already doing, and my work will benefit as well. I also need to find good mentors in Pittsburgh who will help me along the way. Mind mapping is another helpful tool in staying on top of this amount of work. It's a process where I take the time to focus on using my right brain to think creatively about my work. Finally, I could try different reading and scanning styles to process through all of the information I'll be reading (at least 150 books are required for these DMin classes).
Judi Melton then talked to us about the importance of our personal learning community. All of my assignments, including these journal entries, should be written to people who know me. BGU requires students to involve their family members, friends, and colleagues so that the innovative work can have a broader impact in the kingdom of God.
Ken Fong then lectured about organizational leadership. He believes that all organizations are constantly changing. Organizations, including churches, that are static are actually dying a slow death. All organizations are either experiencing a slow death or deep change. He then shared a seven step process that all organizations can apply to help deal with deep change. It involves leadership (is there sufficient leadership to initiate and manage desired organizational change?), opportunity (what opportunities and challenges are facing us today?), vision (given who we are today, what do we see ourselves becoming in the future?), energy (do we have sufficient energy / motivation to take advantage of our challenges and opportunities, while moving toward our future?), planning (how will we develop goal oriented strategies on both organizational and individual levels that will most effectively enable us to realize our future?), partnering (with whom do we need to partner organizationally and individually in order to effectively carry out our strategy and how should we best develop these partnerships?), and leadership (is there sufficient leadership to sustain desired organizational change?). He finished with a quote from Raymond Rood, "The future belongs to those who are willing to assess their current reality, envision what they believe will happen, and then take responsibility for translating their vision into a new reality."
In the afternoon, Dave Pollard and Wes Johnson talked about spiritual formation. Pollard described spiritual formation in terms of longing, listening, knowing, and celebrating. He referred to Dallas Willard's argument that spiritual formation is character formation. Johnson led us through a process of transformational prayer and biblical meditation. We basically studied some scriptures and spent some time in them to apply their meaning to our hearts. It required a certain level of silence, which is not something I am used to. I am more of an "active" learner, so silence and meditation on scripture are not practices that I spend a whole lot of time doing. I'm hoping to learn how to rest quietly in the Lord more often.
As I reflect on this day, I learned that I need to take more time to focus on the spiritual discipline of being quiet and resting in God. Also, I can work with LAMP kids to focus on being more contemplative when much of their lives are based on distraction (music, video games, TV, movies, internet, etc.).
I was able to connect the organizational leadership principles to both North Way and LAMP. With North Way, I gained a new appreciation for the way that Pastor Jay and the executive team have navigated through change over the past couple of years or so. Although it has been a rough road at times, they were not afraid to take risks and lead the organization in a new direction to overcome the forces of change in Pittsburgh. With LAMP, I am learning that I need to continue to lead and cast vision well to navigate through the various changes that we have encountered and will continue to encounter as we move forward. We can never land in a place where we are comfortable with the status quo (especially since we have children on a waiting list for a mentor).
2 comments:
Bryan
First: change. The world is in a continous, ever increasing state of change, much of it technology driven. Just as we have seen in business, where a corporation that does business today like it did 30, 20, even 5 years ago isn't going to survive, the Church has to embrace change if it is going to be relevant. That's not to say that our view of Biblical principles or doctirne needs to change, because it shouldn't (Biblical principles are 'timeless') but rather the way we engage the world must change as the world changes.
Second: spiritual formation and internal quiet. This is a lost art in Christianity. The Church has allowed the world's habit of being constantly busy (and entertained) to overpower the habits of quietness and contemplation, and to her great loss. Christians need to relearn and practice quietness and contemplation.
John
Bryan,
Sorry for my lack of response on this blog - Your two weeks away corresponded to two extremely busy weeks for me at work. Excuses, excuses, I know...
This post on change reminds me of a book I read once called "Surfing the Edge of Chaos." It's about leadership that is about intentionally disturbing the status quo - and how when the leader does this, it pushes the organization into new and innovative ways to self-organize and re-adjust.
On the practice of silence - I dig the idea of discipling young men in the practice of being quiet. Talk about a counter-cultural practice! I sometimes wonder if things like silence (and other intentional practices of non-participation) are a Christ-followers most potent forms of witness as well as spiritual formation...
Tim
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