Monday, January 26, 2009

A Not So Good Start

Our junior high basketball team lost their first game with me at the helm. They were leading early on but then just didn't play consistently enough at either end of the floor to hang on for the victory. It was a close game against a tough team (Turtle Lake-Mercer) but in the end we came up a couple baskets short. I told the kids afterward that it simply came down to us not meeting our team goals. We got outrebounded and turned the ball over too many times. At least it's still early on in the season and we now know there are some things we need to dedicate more time to working on in practice in order to be successful.

Last Thursday was the first session of the Horizon's LeadershipPlenty training. This is part of the economic development program that my wife and I are helping with in town. The twin goals of the Horizons program are poverty reduction and leadership development. After working to brainstorm how we can tackle poverty issues in Underwood, now we're embarking on the second goal of building community leadership.

The LeadershipPlenty program is nine session long and is aimed at sharpening current leaders, preparing future leaders and identifying potential leaders. One of the activities during session one was to create our "river of life" by identifying graphically key moments in our lives (good or bad) and how we grew as leaders or developed leadership skills through those events. I'm excited to take part in this program because I know I have room to grow as a leader.

On wednesday I accompanied my wife down to Bismarck as she had a monthly library meeting. During her meeting I went to Starbucks with my laptop and books to try to get some work done for Sunday. As I was working on our current Sunday school series on understanding and applying Scripture and reading the book "How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth," I struck up a conversation with a couple of fellow Christians sitting at a nearby table. They had both been part of Young Life in the Bismarck area and now continue to meet for accountability and bible study. It's amazing at how often that happens when I'm reading a "Christian" book in public. Suffice it to say, I didn't get much work done but did have some good fellowship!

By God's Grace, Jeff

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