True Leadership

"True greatness, true leadership, is achieved not by reducing men to one's service but in giving onself in selfless service to them."

J Oswald Sanders in Spiritual Leadership

When HCA was established four years ago, one of our first priorities was to develop opportunities for students at HCA to be actively involved in service outside the school itself.  Toward that end, I met regularly with several moms who were passionate about this topic, and it quickly became evident we wanted to find a way for the students to develop long-term discipleship relationships through this service, not just a series of one-shot projects.

In God's providence, a new ministry was starting in Johnson County seeking to reach out to the unreached ... a ministry with a "neighbor's heart - taking Jesus to people in need by extending help and hope."  As we talked with the leadership of this new ministry, Mission Southside, it became clear that a partnership would be mutually beneficial.  In the spring of 2011, we began a student-led discipleship ministry to a group of elementary students in a local community.  Every Wednesday afternoon for the past four years, HCA students travel through this community on one of the HCA buses and pick up kids as they arrive home from school.  After arriving at a local church which has generously provided their facility, these students lead a Bible study and activity time for these elementary students.

This is truly a student-led ministry.  They prepare the weekly Bible studies, plan the activities, promote special events, and basically "love on" these kids each week.  They recruit students from HCA to participate and even disciple their own leaders to take their place when they graduate.  The current leaders have all "come up through the ranks" ... Listen to them as they share a little of their passion for this ministry.

"More than anything else, I love seeing the smiling faces on the students as they see our bus arrive; they are so excited to see us.  It is so gratifying when we can see them grasping the Bible story, asking questions, being involved ... It makes it worth going every week." Senior Emily Hocker

"I go because of the kids; I feel like I'm making a difference in their lives.  It's exciting to see growth in the kids that have been coming for four years.  I recently heard of one of "our kids" who was sharing from the Bible at lunch in her own school!  That's why we are doing this."  Senior Jared Finley

"My passion is to see the kids respond to the message of Jesus for the first time.  It's powerful to think that we can be a part of that.  It has also really helped me look outside of my self.  There is so much brokenness in the families in this community; the one-on-one time with the kids helps me put myself in their shoes." Junior Adam Asselta

This is "true leadership" in action!

Just Say "NO" to Negativity

Shhhhh .... Listen carefully!! What is that sound?  It is the sound of silence; for the first time in weeks I enjoyed an evening at home without a flood of "robocalls" on behalf of candidates running for office.  Here in Kansas, we had competitive races with national implications, and we got a taste of what swing states like Ohio must experience every election cycle.  The big money rolls in, and our voice mail and mailboxes are filled with messages and postcards.  And most of those are messages are negative, warning us of the dangers of the opposition candidate, attempting to "drive up the negatives" for the opponent.  And every candidate expresses their distaste for these ads, and yet they do it anyway.  Why?  Because it works!

I recently came across a blog post by Square2Square marketing where they talked about the power of negative marketing.  Among their conclusions were that "negative emotions are always the strongest ones" and that "we can't ignore the fact that negative emotions are the strongest drivers of
behavior."  They pointed to a study in the Harvard Business Review that noted that the top three "viral emotions" in marketing strategy are anger, disgust, and surprise.  It works!

So the negativity works in campaigns.  But we also have learned that negativity doesn't work for governing.  That reminds me of a change in approach I took many years ago when talking to people about the value of Christian school education.  People often give their reasons for considering Christian education in terms of what they don't want ... "I don't want <fill in the blank> that I will find at the public school."  At the point, I gently turn the discussion to talking about what is positive about Christian education ... what we do want.   At a Christian school, students are taught to view every discipline from a Biblical worldview, a "real world" education.  Students are taught and mentored by godly Christian teachers, passionate about discipling the next generation of Christian leaders.  The Cardus Education Survey found that Christian school students are uniquely prepared to be productive members of their local churches.  Every child is seen as a unique creation, formed in the image of God to be respected and nurtured.  This whole positive approach is well articulated in this post by James K.A. Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College.

Consider what Christian school education has to offer ... I'm "positive" you will be impressed!

Unquestioned Answers

Goodbye grey sky, hello blue

Nothing can hold me when I hold you

Feels so right, can't be wrong

Rockin' and rollin' all week long

This song introduced America to the coolest guy on TV in the late 70's ... leather jacket, cycle, the hair, babe magnet ... The Fonz.  Happy Days was a nostalgic look at adolescent life in the 1950's and featured the antics of Richie, Joanie, Chachi, Potsie, and Ralph.  I'll never forget Richie's line upon returning from a conversation with his father: "Grounded for life! I don't even know what that means!"

But embedded within the lyrics of the theme song is a worldview statement ... an unquestioned answer.  "Feels so right, can't be wrong" ... Is that really the standard for morality? It certainly accurately expressed the hedonistic philosophy of the day, consistent with occultist Aleister Crowley who famously proclaimed "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."  The only reason sin is tempting is because it "feels so right".  If it didn't, we wouldn't be tempted!

This message was recently repackaged by Pharrell Williams in his hit Happy:

Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

At first glance, these lyrics seem harmless enough, but is happiness really the truth?  If it makes me happy, it must be truth!  How does this square with Christ's claim - "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"?

Unfortunately, our entertainment culture is filled with "answers" to life's biggest questions, and often those answers are left unquestioned.  Recently our students in grades 9-12 watched a presentation by AXIS (www.axis.org) where they were challenged to view their culture with a critical eye.  AXIS likes to say, "The problem we have is not unanswered questions; the problem is unquestioned answers."  At HCA we are working to help our students and families question the "answers" provided by our culture.

Created For Relationship

The focus at our recent S.T.A.R.T. (Student Teamwork and Readiness Training) event for incoming 7th grade students was TEAMWORK.  We spent a great deal of that time talking about the foundation of teamwork, relationships.  Early in Genesis we find God saying "It is not good for man to be alone"; although the immediate context is Adam's need of a helpmate, the larger application is that man is created for relationship.  This is confirm by the nearly sixty references to "one another" in the New Testament.  John Donne repeats this them in classic literature, observing that "no man is an island, entire of itself..." And popular culture recognizes this truth, poignantly illustrated by the movie Castaway where the Tom Hanks character, in the absence of human interaction, famously established a "relationship" with a volleyball he names Wilson.

In many ways, a Christian school is an ideal place to develop the "one anothers" of the Christian faith in the student's formative years.  Just like the "real world", a Christian school is filled with imperfect people living out their faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Encourage one another, bear with one another, forgive one another, love one another, serve another, spur one another on to love and good works, clothe yourself in humility toward one another .... what better place to practice the exercise of these traits than in a Christian school.  There, under the care of godly teachers, students are able to be "iron sharpening iron" as they learn how to be cooperative members of the Body of Christ as described by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 12, the team to which God has called all believers.

At the end of the S.T.A.R.T. program, we gave the student teams thirty minutes to create a video illustrated some of the teamwork ideas we talked about.  I thought you might enjoy a couple of those videos.