I believe a series of some reflections are in order, as we have just added 1 to our year.
Lessons learned from being volunteer staff:
1. I can't do everything.
Now, that doesn't mean I don't try. Oh, how I try. I am the type of person that tends to believe that all that's worth doing is worth doing to the highest degree. Hence, my stint in a PhD program, exhibit A. Exhibit B: My struggle to figure skate recreationaly. It is an off/on relationship. When it's on, I tend to leap into it, with some new reason to validate the expenditure of my time and money on ice time, tights, blade sharpenings, lessons, etc. And then that reason fails to come to pass, and I feel guilty and it's off again. Now, though, I'm tentatively stepping back on the ice. Because it's...it's skating. It's where my heart feels at home. Nothing cures a heart bound in string quite like the smell of the rink, the rip of your edges, the aching numbness from spent muscles and a few too many hard spills. ANYWAY, I'm getting off-track. SO, staffing and otherwise being a J personality. I felt that if I was going to give my time to college students, to love them, and guide them, and teach them, and train them, I needed to do it *right* not all wishy-washy. I needed to prove to them, to my superiors, to the people around me, to myself, that I wasn't in this because "it was a good thing to do," or "I had the time to give," or "it's what Christians do" or whatever. I had to do it ALL OUT. Which leaves me struggling with saying no to my students, with guilt at the way my work schedule conflicts with opportunities to be praying with, studying with, and otherwise hanging out with Hope students. With stress that says I can't possibly think I'm staff material, because I'm not doing this perfectly.
But I'm learning, slowly, that living faithfully and obediently is not a matter of doing everything correctly. Living faithfully and obediently is doing what God has asked me to do. It's going where he leads me, it's speaking when he gives me words, it's using the gifts he has given me in ways that bring him glory. God has not asked me, in this time, to give 40, or even 20, hours a week to Hope's campus. He has asked me to step out, to be present to the lives of college students, to encourage them, and to spur them to greater faithfulness. The other part of that is doing it in ways that are consistent with who I am in Christ. I need not fret that I am not staff material because I am not extroverted, or because I'm not a brilliant cook, or because I wasn't a religion major, or whatever. God has gifted me in other ways. And it is because of THOSE gifts that I have been called, because the gifts I have are needed, too.
2. Leading is not a matter of holding all the keys in your hand and making sure that everyone knows it.
Operating with a picture of leadership like this disconnects me in two ways. First, it disconnects me from my students. Because this picture of leadership demands that I am focused on having the keys. I am focused more on gaining what's missing than on giving what I have. I'm also focused on making sure that everyone can hear them jangling. I'm focused more on maintaining presentation than I am on doing the work of leading. I'm focused more of being heard than on listening (which hurts me, because I desire, above all else, to listen. To listen, to make space for another to speak). Secondly, it disconnects me from Jesus. If I am to have all the keys in order to be a leader, there is no room for me to come to his feet and say, Jesus, I need you. If I am to make sure that my keys are making enough noise, I'm too busy shaking the key ring to pay attention to anything other than the keys. I can't listen to anything else, such as the gentle voice that would lead me to know what to do in front of a large room of people.
I was working in a track called Transformation at Compelling this year. It's an entry-level track, if you will, a basics course. Like second semester general chemistry. All throughout that weekend, I struggled to be present, to my students, to Jesus. I would mentally check out from teaching sessions, and then I would have to reengage when it came time to work in small groups. I wouldn't listen to the teachings because I already "had that key on my key ring." I had a hard time listening to my students because I was too focused on leading right. I was operating under this dichotomy, where to lead meant to be put together, at the top, and to be led meant to be in need, at the bottom. So all throughout that weekend, I was flip flopping. Sometime mid-conference, I realized that I wasn't doing it right. To lead well means to lead out of being led. The learning and the teaching coexist. I cannot teach when I am not learning. I've seen this in my job as an instructor too--I teach the best when I am actively learning. I can explain molecular orbital theory to my intro class the best when I'm really thinking about what molecular orbital theory *really* is and what it tells us. Likewise, as a spiritual mentor, I'm leading the best when I'm leaning the hardest on Jesus. Because when I'm leaning on Jesus, I have everything I need: strength, peace, words, wisdom, the Holy Spirit.
TO BE CONTINUED!
Lessons learned from being volunteer staff:
1. I can't do everything.
Now, that doesn't mean I don't try. Oh, how I try. I am the type of person that tends to believe that all that's worth doing is worth doing to the highest degree. Hence, my stint in a PhD program, exhibit A. Exhibit B: My struggle to figure skate recreationaly. It is an off/on relationship. When it's on, I tend to leap into it, with some new reason to validate the expenditure of my time and money on ice time, tights, blade sharpenings, lessons, etc. And then that reason fails to come to pass, and I feel guilty and it's off again. Now, though, I'm tentatively stepping back on the ice. Because it's...it's skating. It's where my heart feels at home. Nothing cures a heart bound in string quite like the smell of the rink, the rip of your edges, the aching numbness from spent muscles and a few too many hard spills. ANYWAY, I'm getting off-track. SO, staffing and otherwise being a J personality. I felt that if I was going to give my time to college students, to love them, and guide them, and teach them, and train them, I needed to do it *right* not all wishy-washy. I needed to prove to them, to my superiors, to the people around me, to myself, that I wasn't in this because "it was a good thing to do," or "I had the time to give," or "it's what Christians do" or whatever. I had to do it ALL OUT. Which leaves me struggling with saying no to my students, with guilt at the way my work schedule conflicts with opportunities to be praying with, studying with, and otherwise hanging out with Hope students. With stress that says I can't possibly think I'm staff material, because I'm not doing this perfectly.
But I'm learning, slowly, that living faithfully and obediently is not a matter of doing everything correctly. Living faithfully and obediently is doing what God has asked me to do. It's going where he leads me, it's speaking when he gives me words, it's using the gifts he has given me in ways that bring him glory. God has not asked me, in this time, to give 40, or even 20, hours a week to Hope's campus. He has asked me to step out, to be present to the lives of college students, to encourage them, and to spur them to greater faithfulness. The other part of that is doing it in ways that are consistent with who I am in Christ. I need not fret that I am not staff material because I am not extroverted, or because I'm not a brilliant cook, or because I wasn't a religion major, or whatever. God has gifted me in other ways. And it is because of THOSE gifts that I have been called, because the gifts I have are needed, too.
2. Leading is not a matter of holding all the keys in your hand and making sure that everyone knows it.
Operating with a picture of leadership like this disconnects me in two ways. First, it disconnects me from my students. Because this picture of leadership demands that I am focused on having the keys. I am focused more on gaining what's missing than on giving what I have. I'm also focused on making sure that everyone can hear them jangling. I'm focused more on maintaining presentation than I am on doing the work of leading. I'm focused more of being heard than on listening (which hurts me, because I desire, above all else, to listen. To listen, to make space for another to speak). Secondly, it disconnects me from Jesus. If I am to have all the keys in order to be a leader, there is no room for me to come to his feet and say, Jesus, I need you. If I am to make sure that my keys are making enough noise, I'm too busy shaking the key ring to pay attention to anything other than the keys. I can't listen to anything else, such as the gentle voice that would lead me to know what to do in front of a large room of people.
I was working in a track called Transformation at Compelling this year. It's an entry-level track, if you will, a basics course. Like second semester general chemistry. All throughout that weekend, I struggled to be present, to my students, to Jesus. I would mentally check out from teaching sessions, and then I would have to reengage when it came time to work in small groups. I wouldn't listen to the teachings because I already "had that key on my key ring." I had a hard time listening to my students because I was too focused on leading right. I was operating under this dichotomy, where to lead meant to be put together, at the top, and to be led meant to be in need, at the bottom. So all throughout that weekend, I was flip flopping. Sometime mid-conference, I realized that I wasn't doing it right. To lead well means to lead out of being led. The learning and the teaching coexist. I cannot teach when I am not learning. I've seen this in my job as an instructor too--I teach the best when I am actively learning. I can explain molecular orbital theory to my intro class the best when I'm really thinking about what molecular orbital theory *really* is and what it tells us. Likewise, as a spiritual mentor, I'm leading the best when I'm leaning the hardest on Jesus. Because when I'm leaning on Jesus, I have everything I need: strength, peace, words, wisdom, the Holy Spirit.
TO BE CONTINUED!
