Leadership & Change
It's been too long...
…since I’ve sat down to share a few words from the heart. I have been thinking much lately about how it was five years ago now I had just accepted this position at Calvin Crest. There was such a clear sense of God’s leading us here, and He lined up all the details as only He could do. Sometimes I laugh and wonder if we had had any idea of everything we would face, would we still have chosen to come? I believe God, in His grace and wisdom, doesn’t show us what the future holds even when we think we want to know. I am now at the age where I’d rather not know what future days will hold and will simply cross that bridge when we get to it. Change and challenge are inevitable.
While I am so grateful for the gift of seeing lives changed through the ministry here at Calvin Crest, I am also incredibly grateful for the change that is happening in me. I am a different leader than I was five years ago, and I am continuing to feel a subtle but seismic shift in my leadership soul. I can’t fully wrap words around it yet, but God is slowly helping me learn what it looks like…
to die to myself and my need for control,
to not need to be the smartest person in the room,
to not push myself and others quite so hard,
to abandon outcomes and trust Him,
to learn how to rest and play,
to prioritize relationship over efficiency,
to see crises as amazing opportunities for growth,
to truly understand that who I’m becoming is more important than what I am doing,
to allow God to transform me so that I can invite others into the process of transformation.
We are facing new, uncharted territory in the church and in Christian camping. (I just spent an hour writing about this, and somehow, Constant Contact did not save my work. Maybe it’s a sign that this was getting too long. Perhaps I will rewrite that another day.) In his phenomenal book, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory, Presbyterian minister and Vice-President of Fuller Seminary Tod Bolsinger writes,
“We exist to reveal the presence and character of God in the world, being transformed as we participate in God’s transforming work in the world. Leadership requires a commitment to transformation, and transformation is the goal of leadership. To put it another way: leadership into uncharted territory requires and results in transformation of the whole organization, starting with the leaders. Only as leaders are transformed and grow in competence, congruence and adaptive capacity do they have the ability to face the challenges of a new day, a new geography, a new set of circumstances and a rapidly changing world.”
2024 is going to be a year full of adventure and change (hopefully all good change!) While change can be unsettling and daunting, I am so hopeful and excited to see how God will continue to lead us in a process of transformation at Calvin Crest. Indeed He goes before us, and we are assured that His mission will not fail. May we all have the courage to embrace this process with a spirit of adventure! In the meantime, I hope you can join us this fall at Crest Fest, Men’s Camp, or the Women’s Advent Retreat of Silence. Each one will feed your soul in different ways. You can see the details below and check out our website for more info. We look forward to seeing you at camp soon!
