]]> http://www.wellspringschoolofleadership.com/honoring-and-respecting-family/feed/ 0 http://www.wellspringschoolofleadership.com/lead-with-your-words/ http://www.wellspringschoolofleadership.com/lead-with-your-words/#comments Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:00:52 +0000 mikemckinniss http://www.wellspringschoolofleadership.com/?p=210 The Wellspring School of Leadership is excited to host the second offering in the 2012 Saturday seminar series.  Lead with Your Words: Biblical Principles for Effective Communication is led by Bill Harris, a master facilitator for The Institute of Professional Practice.  Mr. Harris will concentrate on two key principles in interpersonal communication: soliciting and receiving feedback and setting expectations.  The lessons learned with Mr. Harris will positively impact both our work and social environments.  Register now!

When Michael asked me to share my experience with the School of Leadership tonight, my first thought was that I was very honored.  I am excited to be able to share the impact the school has had on me, both personally and professionally.

My second though was “I’m opening for John Rowland!”

It’s all about perspective.  And if I had to boil down everything I have learned in the past year to just one statement, it might be just that: It’s all about perspective.

The Wellspring School of Leadership teaches perspective – God’s perspective, Kingdom perspective.

Who am I?  Who does the world see me as?  Who does God say I am?

How does God view the circumstances of my life versus how do I think God views the circumstances of my life? What can I do when those two things don’t come into alignment?  How can I change the way I think and see things so that they line up with what God thinks and sees?  It’s all about perspective.

Five years ago, my husband and I started Sarah’s House, a ministry to women who struggle with addiction and abuse.  What started as a small dream very quickly exploded into what the Bible would refer to as “immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine.”  From one house to four houses, from 14 beds to 38 beds, from me having enough time to do what needed to be done to not having nearly enough time to do it all alone, I have learned about ministry; I have learned about business; I have learned about people; and I have learned much of it on the fly.

Very quickly we realized that this was going to be a lot bigger than we had anticipated.  We formed a board of directors and became a 501(c)(3).

My testimony in those early days was this.  When I said Yes to the Lord, this is what I brought to the table: three years of case management experience and faith that wavered on a good day.  God brought all the rest.  I basically hung myself out on a wing and a prayer.  At least, that was my perspective.

This past year I have been in something of a turning point.  Our classes at the Wellspring School of Leadership are raising questions I hadn’t asked myself before.

What do I really believe?  Not just to give lip service to, but what beliefs do my actions reflect?

What is the truth?  Who decides what is true and what itsn’t?

How would my life and ministry look different if I really believed all the promises of God were real and really for me?

It is no mistake that I have been in this school this past year.  This, our fifth year of ministry, is pivotal for us.  We just took another leap of faith and hired a full-time case manager and a full-time office assistant.  Our budget now has a God factor in it – a rather large one.

God is opening many doors and inviting me through.  Our vision for the next five years includes purchasing property (we currently lease our properties).  It includes a home for women and children (we currently serve only women).  And from the beginning of the next five years, which is essentially now, I am including God’s promise of “immeasurably more than all I can ask or imagine.”

You see, He took me somewhat off guard with the first go round.  At first I thought, One little house, 10-15 women at a time, love them and lead them to Jesus … Boom.  It exploded.

This time I am asking for more than I can ask or imagine.

This time I am wearing my fatigues.  This time my questions are different, my premise is different.  I am no longer on a wing and a prayer.  My faith doesn’t waver on a good day.

Instead of asking if there are resources, I am asking where the resources are and trusting that He is going to lead me to them.  I know where He wants me to go and I am trusting Him to get me there.  Instead of wondering if this is exactly right, I am trusting that God’s grace is sufficient to guide and correct me and that the whole thing isn’t going to fall apart.  Because of all the things I have learned both in this school and in the last five years, I know that God loves his people.  And I am privileged and honored to be taking care of His people.

When I started the Wellspring School of Leadership, I was a good leader.  Today, I am a better leader.  One day, I will be a great leader.  That’s how God sees me.

I’m not sure where you are tonight – what dreams or visions you hold close to your heart – but if you’re looking for God’s perspective – if you know where you want to go, but are just not sure how to get there – this could be a great place for you to learn.  Or if you don’t know, if you are not sure what God’s plan and purpose for your life is, this can be a platform for figuring that out.  What I know is that my life and ministry have been changed by the things I have learned at the Wellspring School of Leadership.

To start your journey down this life-changing path, click here.

In mulling over the story of Elisha, for example, I might wonder about the incident with the widow’s oil (2 Kgs 4:1-7).  Here, the widow of a righteous man is in debt and is in danger of losing her two sons as payment for that bill (her sons being her only hope for her sustenance the rest of her life).  She is desperate and asks Elisha what she could possibly do to escape her despair.  The prophet instructs the widow to collect empty jars from her neighbors and begin filling them with the little bit of olive oil she has in the house.  In the end, the very small portion of oil that she had was multiplied to fill all the jars in town.  This new oil, Elisha assures her, will be enough to cover her debts plus leftovers beside.

As I think about this story, I can’t help but ask, “How did Elisha know that this would work?  How did Elisha know that if the woman simply kept pouring the small amount of oil that she had, it would miraculously expand in abundance?”  The physics of this world haven’t changed in the three thousand years since Elisha’s day.  An ounce of oil in one vessel is an once in another is an ounce in still another.  On what basis could Elisha recommend this to the desperate widow?

Comedian and actress Lily Tomlin has asked, famously, “Why is it that when we talk to God we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us we’re schizophrenic?”  Elisha, in his day, may have been considered by many as a prophet, but many would have felt justified in labeling him a kook.  Yet it was his ongoing conversational relationship with the Lord, I believe, that gave him the confidence to suggest a crazy course of action for the widow and expect an outrageous outcome.

It is just these types of characters that the Wellspring School of Leadership is seeking to form, particularly over the next several weeks, as we pursue our third course, Hearing God.  It is these types of people, who claim to hear God’s voice, that writer and professor Dallas Willard says “become quite unmanageable once God starts ‘talking’ to them.” [1]  No doubt Elisha (or Moses or David or Elijah or Ezra or Jesus or Peter or Paul) was unmanageable.  Had they been mild, however, we’d have no Exodus, no Psalms, no Mt. Carmel, no Resurrection, no Romans.

Par for the course in leadership, it seems, is being crazy: hearing God’s voice, acting on His ridiculous recommendations, and seeing the miraculous unfold before them.  Part of our goals in the Wellspring School of Leadership, then, is to all become a little more wild and a little more wacky.

[1] Dallas Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1999), 19.

Think about it: the Creator of all that we can see or touch knows you intimately.  He knows what you love and what you despise.  He knows the dreams you carry in your heart and the problems you face.  And, because He desperately cherishes you, He is longing to speak with you on a personal level, one-on-one.  He holds in His hands the keys to unlock the dreams in your heart and the solutions to the issues confronting you at home and in your work.  Hearing God, the third course at the Wellspring School of Leadership, shows us how to open our ears to the One who created us and everything around us so that we may work along side Him to restore our world.

If you are already registered for Hearing God, download the documents below to get started.

Hearing God Syllabus

Reading #1: Reading #1: “The Mind Is a Gatekeeper”

Reading #2: Reading #2: “Where Does Your Thought Life Begin?”

Reading #3: Reading #3: “Gates of Praise”

Reading #4: Reading #4: “A Thankful Heart”