Friday, July 11, 2008
Bob Eames: steak and leadership styles
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This past Monday night we enjoyed a good talk and some great food with Bob Eames. We were told to come a half hour early to our meeting to the cookout shelter with a knife and a fork. This was good news. As we hungrily waited to eat, Bob had us take a quiz about what our leadership style is and what role we prefer to be in with a group setting. The results of the quizzes showed that each student was either a Structural/Acheivement leader, a Cultural/Affiliation leader, or an Informal/Influential leader. Then we discussed in our small groups if the quiz proved to be correct about each other, and we also had to discuss which type of leader would take on which role in grilling food with a group of people (which only added to our hunger!). After this, we ate to our hearts’ content: steak, barbeque chicken, grilled vegetables and potatos, sweet corn, rolls with butter, and pie! Thank you Eames for the break from Commons food!
On Wednesday for our Calvin activity, we enjoyed some more amazing food by going to Hernando’s in Winter Park for pizza with the Eames. We have quickly learned this summer that you can never get enough of their pizza. Following that, we had a campfire at SMR with s’mores. It was a great evening!
The weeks just fly by here at SMR. We are having a hard time believing that most of us only have one month left! Between work, hiking, camping, biking, climbing, Calvin activities, worship services, small groups, one-on-ones, just hanging out, getting to know people, and other things, the time just flies by. We are having a great time!
Don’t forget to check out extra photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/snowmountainranch. There are now two albums.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support as we work and play here at SMR, and please continue to pray for and think of us!
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Finding Your “Sweet Spot” with Henry DeVries
This past Monday we had Henry DeVries come out to deliver the latest of our leadership talks. In his talk, Henry got us to not only consider how we operate as leaders, but also helped break our traditional views of leadership. Typically, we find leadership to be an administrative and organizational (from the front) kind of role. However, leaders can emerge in friendship, encouragement, team building, and working alongside others (from the middle and the back).
What is important, said Henry, is finding your “sweet-spot” and incorporating that role into the various facets of your life. This sweet spot is where you’re happiest, most effective, called to be, and where you most often find yourself. We were also encouraged to look at the perfect model of leadership- Jesus Christ as a servant leader. In all, it was a good combination of the past weeks with some new insight.
On Friday, we had an impromptu cookout outside of Blue Ridge Lodge. Afterwards, we loaded our cars and drove to Grand Lake for fireworks. It’s hard to top fireworks over a still lake on a clear night.
Also, we’ve been asked to put up more pictures from this summer online. For space reasons, we’ve made a picasa page through Google. Here’s the link to those: LCI- PicturesWe will update these as often as we can. You can still read more for a few pictures.
-Dave and Melissa
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Deb and Randy Buursma Take 2: Emptying Ourselves
Week four of the Calvin LCI was concluded with a second helping of Deb and Randy Buursma’s wisdom. In the typical Buursma fashion of interactive and energetic learning, the Calvin Staff at Snow Mountain Ranch was encouraged to think about our listening skills as well as the effort involved in emptying ourselves before God. We were encouraged to think again about Jesus in Philippians 2:6-7.
We were urged, using this model of servant-leadership, to empty ourselves before God and humble ourselves as leaders. To empty ourselves, we learned, comes not as a spiritual discipline, but with a broken heart in need of healing.
On Saturday a large majority of the Calvin group, along with the Buursmas, spent most of the day in Denver. We went to the Denver zoo, walked around downtown and saw the Rockies smoke the Mets in a 7-1 victory. On Wednesday, we went to Winter Park to take advantage of their Alpine Slide and other activities. Overall, we had a fantastic two-week period. Almost everyone was able to take advantage of hikes, fires, meals and one-on-ones with the Buursmas.
Read on for a few pictures from the week.