So this is a rather long post, but I felt it was worth putting up if only because it's full of stuff I'll want to read later. So with that brief caveat...
This last week was definitely the busiest since the start of my college experience. I had two midterms, a field trip, and of course regular classes to attend.
This last week was definitely the busiest since the start of my college experience. I had two midterms, a field trip, and of course regular classes to attend.
The biggest contributor to my busy week, however, was a retreat that I helped plan and attended this last weekend.
About a month ago, I was recruited along with the other five freshmen from Catalyst (one of the fellowships I attend) to plan the winter retreat for the group. Catalyst is much smaller than the other groups I’ve gone to, so they rely heavily on student involvement to get things done. I volunteered to help plan the food for the weekend, along with one other person. So everything seemed to be on track until about a week ago. Out of five or six possible speakers, none were able to come to give the message at the retreat. This was with a week left until the retreat. So with few other options, it was suggested that we try to plan some sort of group discussion time instead of having a message.
Having experienced the general inefficiency of our meetings at planning out such specific things previously, I decided to try to avoid deadlock by writing out the general structure of what I thought would be good to discuss. We had already established the theme of the retreat, so I knew the general idea we would cover. I emailed my thoughts to the other freshmen, and I got great feedback, so I figured it might even be enough on its own to structure our "discussion time". This was on Sunday.
The next day, Monday, we had our weekly group gathering in the evening, and afterwards the freshmen met with the college pastor of the group, Matt, to check up on our progress. I mentioned to him that I had written out my thoughts on the general structure we might use, and it was decided that Matt, myself, and two other freshmen would meet the next day to make some concrete decisions about our main Saturday night session. In the meantime, I forwarded the email I had sent to the rest of the group to Matt.
So on Tuesday, we met at the appointed time to hammer out exactly what our plan would be. I met Matt at the parking lot to show him where to go, and while we walked to the meeting spot, he seemed to be really impressed with what I’d written. He asked me if I knew what my spiritual gifts were, and I told him that I didn’t really have a clear focus on what they might be. He said that judging from the email I wrote he suspected that teaching might be among them.
At this point I began to sense that I might be getting more than I bargained for.
We continued until we came to the meeting place where the other two freshmen were waiting, and our meeting began. Matt made some comments about what he thought might be good things to include that we hadn’t thought about, and we began to formulate the experience that we wanted people at the retreat to have.
Then came the question, aimed directly at me. “How would you feel about giving the main talk on Saturday night?”
I had begun to expect this question after our earlier interaction, and truth be told, it wasn’t that hard for me to say I’d be willing to do it. The thought I had put into the email had really helped me internalize the ideas it expressed, and quite honestly, I felt like it wouldn’t be a huge expansion to turn it into a spoken message.
So with a mixed feeling of nervousness and excitement (they feel so similar, don’t they?), I said I would do it. We arranged for Matt and I to meet the next day so he could just give me some general pointers for preparation and presentation.
So the next day, Wednesday, I met with Matt to discuss these things, along with logistics of how the talk would fit in with the rest of the night. I think the most important tip that he gave me was to write out the entirety of what I was going to say so that I would already have a word choice sorted out in my head instead of having to come up with phrasing on the spot. So later that night, I wrote out the first half of the talk, to be completed the next day.
Additionally, on Thursday, I went shopping for the food with two other planners. Another issue on its own burner, so to speak (no pun intended, of course).
Then, Friday, we left for the retreat (after my calculus midterm). Everyone got there in fine shape—it was at a Cabin in South Lake Tahoe. There was lots of snow, and everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time in the cabin playing various games and engaging in conversation. Food was a little bit sketchy throughout the retreat due to last minute realizations of missing items and quick trips to the store, but overall it worked out fine. I was also one of four small group leaders, and that went really well. People opened up willingly and I felt like relationships were nurtured extensively.
About a month ago, I was recruited along with the other five freshmen from Catalyst (one of the fellowships I attend) to plan the winter retreat for the group. Catalyst is much smaller than the other groups I’ve gone to, so they rely heavily on student involvement to get things done. I volunteered to help plan the food for the weekend, along with one other person. So everything seemed to be on track until about a week ago. Out of five or six possible speakers, none were able to come to give the message at the retreat. This was with a week left until the retreat. So with few other options, it was suggested that we try to plan some sort of group discussion time instead of having a message.
Having experienced the general inefficiency of our meetings at planning out such specific things previously, I decided to try to avoid deadlock by writing out the general structure of what I thought would be good to discuss. We had already established the theme of the retreat, so I knew the general idea we would cover. I emailed my thoughts to the other freshmen, and I got great feedback, so I figured it might even be enough on its own to structure our "discussion time". This was on Sunday.
The next day, Monday, we had our weekly group gathering in the evening, and afterwards the freshmen met with the college pastor of the group, Matt, to check up on our progress. I mentioned to him that I had written out my thoughts on the general structure we might use, and it was decided that Matt, myself, and two other freshmen would meet the next day to make some concrete decisions about our main Saturday night session. In the meantime, I forwarded the email I had sent to the rest of the group to Matt.
So on Tuesday, we met at the appointed time to hammer out exactly what our plan would be. I met Matt at the parking lot to show him where to go, and while we walked to the meeting spot, he seemed to be really impressed with what I’d written. He asked me if I knew what my spiritual gifts were, and I told him that I didn’t really have a clear focus on what they might be. He said that judging from the email I wrote he suspected that teaching might be among them.
At this point I began to sense that I might be getting more than I bargained for.
We continued until we came to the meeting place where the other two freshmen were waiting, and our meeting began. Matt made some comments about what he thought might be good things to include that we hadn’t thought about, and we began to formulate the experience that we wanted people at the retreat to have.
Then came the question, aimed directly at me. “How would you feel about giving the main talk on Saturday night?”
I had begun to expect this question after our earlier interaction, and truth be told, it wasn’t that hard for me to say I’d be willing to do it. The thought I had put into the email had really helped me internalize the ideas it expressed, and quite honestly, I felt like it wouldn’t be a huge expansion to turn it into a spoken message.
So with a mixed feeling of nervousness and excitement (they feel so similar, don’t they?), I said I would do it. We arranged for Matt and I to meet the next day so he could just give me some general pointers for preparation and presentation.
So the next day, Wednesday, I met with Matt to discuss these things, along with logistics of how the talk would fit in with the rest of the night. I think the most important tip that he gave me was to write out the entirety of what I was going to say so that I would already have a word choice sorted out in my head instead of having to come up with phrasing on the spot. So later that night, I wrote out the first half of the talk, to be completed the next day.
Additionally, on Thursday, I went shopping for the food with two other planners. Another issue on its own burner, so to speak (no pun intended, of course).
Then, Friday, we left for the retreat (after my calculus midterm). Everyone got there in fine shape—it was at a Cabin in South Lake Tahoe. There was lots of snow, and everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time in the cabin playing various games and engaging in conversation. Food was a little bit sketchy throughout the retreat due to last minute realizations of missing items and quick trips to the store, but overall it worked out fine. I was also one of four small group leaders, and that went really well. People opened up willingly and I felt like relationships were nurtured extensively.
So I’ll spare you too much detail, but it all went well leading up to the talk on Saturday night. A couple of hours before the message was scheduled, I gave it a whirl privately in front of Matt, and he gave me some last minute touches to add, but was overall very positive in his response.
Then the time came to give the talk. Before I knew it, it was over. And it went well. I got very encouraging feedback from several people afterwards, and while there were inevitably things I would have done differently in retrospect, I was quite happy with how it went on the whole. I felt like God was really speaking to me and enabling me to speak His words to others throughout the experience. In hindsight, even the process of writing the original email was very strange in that a lot of the content just kind of came to me. God was definitely at the center of whatever good I managed to express to the group.
Now, if you’re at all similar to the people I’ve talked to this about, you’ll be wondering by now what the talk was about. And I suppose that I might as well sate your curiosity while I’m writing about it.
The theme for the weekend was One Life. Here’s the basic idea from the summary that I wrote:
One Life
It is easy for us to neatly partition our lives, separating our different circles of relationship, effectively becoming a different person in each of them. Whether it's "saying all the right things" to blend in with Christians or abandoning our values around non-Christian friends, we constantly face opportunities to shift our identities for the sake of reputation or comfort. Our goal is to eliminate these personal divisions, to live one life authentically in Christ, with Him permeating our identity and actions in all circles.
So that was the basic idea, as well as how we can actually live one consistent life. For the exceptionally curious, here’s a link to the full manuscript that I used to organize my thoughts.
Aside from the fact that I’ll probably speak again at some point, and of course God’s great ability to speak into our lives, I think that an amazing take-away from this experience is just another confirmation of Parkinson’s Law. If you haven’t heard of it (I suspect most have not), it basically states that work will expand to fill the time you allot for it. In other circumstances, I probably would have wanted months to develop my first message just out of sheer intimidation. But in this case, a week was all the time that was available to get it done, and that turned out to be quite adequate. So we might not always need as much time as we give ourselves to accomplish certain goals or tasks. We just have to go for it without over-thinking it and prevent procrastination from being an option.
So that's all for now. More to come soon.
Then the time came to give the talk. Before I knew it, it was over. And it went well. I got very encouraging feedback from several people afterwards, and while there were inevitably things I would have done differently in retrospect, I was quite happy with how it went on the whole. I felt like God was really speaking to me and enabling me to speak His words to others throughout the experience. In hindsight, even the process of writing the original email was very strange in that a lot of the content just kind of came to me. God was definitely at the center of whatever good I managed to express to the group.
Now, if you’re at all similar to the people I’ve talked to this about, you’ll be wondering by now what the talk was about. And I suppose that I might as well sate your curiosity while I’m writing about it.
The theme for the weekend was One Life. Here’s the basic idea from the summary that I wrote:
One Life
It is easy for us to neatly partition our lives, separating our different circles of relationship, effectively becoming a different person in each of them. Whether it's "saying all the right things" to blend in with Christians or abandoning our values around non-Christian friends, we constantly face opportunities to shift our identities for the sake of reputation or comfort. Our goal is to eliminate these personal divisions, to live one life authentically in Christ, with Him permeating our identity and actions in all circles.
So that was the basic idea, as well as how we can actually live one consistent life. For the exceptionally curious, here’s a link to the full manuscript that I used to organize my thoughts.
Aside from the fact that I’ll probably speak again at some point, and of course God’s great ability to speak into our lives, I think that an amazing take-away from this experience is just another confirmation of Parkinson’s Law. If you haven’t heard of it (I suspect most have not), it basically states that work will expand to fill the time you allot for it. In other circumstances, I probably would have wanted months to develop my first message just out of sheer intimidation. But in this case, a week was all the time that was available to get it done, and that turned out to be quite adequate. So we might not always need as much time as we give ourselves to accomplish certain goals or tasks. We just have to go for it without over-thinking it and prevent procrastination from being an option.
So that's all for now. More to come soon.