Last weekend, myself and five other Salt Company guys road tripped to Wichita, Kansas, for leadership training with FI. These five guys and myself are leading teams overseas this summer, so the head honchos over at FI decided it would probably be good if we got a little bit of learning in us before we leave the country.
We arrived at the church in Wichita at about 3:40 p.m. Friday afternoon, and despite being 10 minutes late, we were greeted by a big smile and firm hand shake from tall, gangly-looking guy named Rusty C.
Here are some notes on my experience with Mr. C. over the weekend:
- When he speaks, listen, because what he's saying is purposeful, pertinent, and probably profound (yes, I appreciate alliteration).
- This guy can teach you how to fly fish in under a minute.
- I have never envied a southern drawl so much in my life.
So there were somewhere between 20 and 30 of us training that weekend, from universities all over the country. I have to admit...when I saw this rag-tag group of college leaders, my initial gut reaction was, "I wonder how many of these people were home-schooled?" Needless to say, I had to do a little attitude check on myself at that point - and throughout the weekend, God did a lot of shattering and convicting me of my pride.
Here's just one such pride-shattering moment brought on by a question posed by Dave Mitchell, one of our speakers: "Are you leading out of self-promotion or selfless worship?"
If I'm completely honest with myself, I know that I sometimes pursue leadership positions simply because I like titles. Salt Company Leader, Worship Leader, Program Director, FOCUS Team Leader - they all sound really good, jot 'em down on the resume! But where was my hear when I accepted these challenges? Did I step up in order to meet a need for the kingdom, or just to quench the thirst of my own ambitions? There were probably elements of both. But the truth of the matter is God has used me in every one of those positions for the benefit of His kingdom, no matter what my original motivation was. And that's whats great about God - he is able to use even dumb people like me to do His work.
Here are some other little tidbits from the weekend:
- "Vision is the clear mental picture of what could be, fueled by the conviction that it should be."
- Gravitate toward conflict and call fouls early. "A straw never breaks the camels back if we're continually unloading the camel."
- Leadership must be earned, it's a privilege granted by the follower. Serve according to their needs - not your own strengths.
- Girls will cry. DON'T PANIC.
We had a turn out of about 100 people, which is intense - especially on a night when there were two other large (not to mention FREE) concerts in Ames.
He's one of James L.'s good friends from Des Moines who offered to take some photos and design our album art. We went down to Des Moines for a few shots, and next thing you know we've got some really legitimate looking posters, then he offered to work things out with a printing company to get our CD's packaged and shipped, then he even created a ballin' techno remix of one of our songs (by far the most radio-worthy song on the album).
Here's some links to our online stuff - yep...we're a dot com now, no big deal (thanks, Bradford!)
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