As we signed up for posting to the new CLHS blog I was flooded with ideas to write about. I’ve got about four blog posts “started” with ideas, notes, links, fragments, etc. to keep the creative juices flowing. It wasn’t until about four hours ago that this post was started.
This morning our Administrative Leadership team participated in a half-day retreat that was geared toward learning about each other’s strengths. We used tools called StrengthsFinder and other called Leading from your Strengths from Ministry Insights.
If you are like me it is likely that you’ve taken some sort of personality, spiritual gift, or other survey. Here are the results of some of the ones I’ve taken:
Significance - Command - Futuristic - Strategic - Ideation
INTJ
Persuading Conductor
Blue/Yellow
High D & I
The first and third ones respectively were my results on StengthsFinder and Leading from your Strengths surveys. I’ve left the “Which Lord of the Rings Character are you most like” one out.
Taken in a vacuum all of these surveys are basically rubbish. They do little to give personal insight, unless you put them in the context of your relationships with others. I’ve always thought that these survey’s get at the question “Who am I?” or “What on Earth am I doing here?” It turns out that it’s not all about me, or all about any individual. These surveys and the countless like it only become truly powerful when we take them in context of the relationships we have with others.
God didn’t make it us in a vacuum, to be alone. He made us to work with others — classmates, spouses, children, co-workers, neighbors, etc. God made each one of us uniquely and wonderfully - Psalm 139:14. He also made us to work together, to communicate, to function as one body - 1 Corinthians 12.
It was uplifting and awesome to learn about the uniqueness of the leaders around the table today. To discover how we can work together to support each other, and by doing that, better serve as leaders of Concordia as we seek God’s will for His ministry here in Fort Wayne.
I am a huge proponent of families, teams, and other communities taking surveys like this in order to understand how each member of that body functions. So please, take surveys (maybe not the Facebook ones) and learn about yourself and learn about each other, and the rich diversity that God has blessed His creation with. So that together, we can serve Him, and share His Name among the nations!
Joshua Sommermeyer
Assistant Head of School