Yesterday I highlighted my involvement with Youth Leadership Reno County.  I had a super busy weekend last weekend.  After the trip to Topeka with Youth Leadership, I traveled to Hesston on Thursday and Friday to help kick off the adult Leadership Reno County program.  It’s another program of the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce.  I love the vision our local Chamber has to build the bandwidth of people in the community.  They recognize that for our community to make progress, some leadership development has to be pursued among the people who are engaging in acts of leadership in our community.  We use the principles and competencies of the Kansas Leadership Center to help our participants have a meaningful experience.  We also do some work to help orient them to both the problems and opportunities that our community affords them.  We’re looking forward to seeing this class engage in acts of leadership for the good of our community.

I’m privileged to facilitate Youth Leadership Reno County with Amy Conkling.  We’re a program of the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce and enjoy a remarkable partnership with local public and private school districts.  Thirty-two 7th and 8th (four from each public/private school in Reno County) participate in our program.  We usually kick off in late October and go until late January/early February.  We get to experience so many great things about Reno County.  And, in a deeper way, I’m very grateful for the deep work that our students do around leadership challenges they face.  This year, I had students working on projects related to fundraising for important school infrastructure (in the private schools), offering electives, how rumors in local communities affect student morale, relationships between teachers and students, bullying, helping students in districts maintain eligibility, and how a shrinking enrollment affects local school life.  Digging into challenges like these can be daunting for any of us, but these students considered what their purpose was, who stakeholders were on these issues, how they might find a collective purpose with those stakeholders, as well as some experiments they could try.  Our program culminates with a trip to Topeka where we get to meet the governor and local legislators.  We had graduation this past Sunday at 1 PM.  It was a full year, but I’m grateful to get to be a part of the work of such amazing people.

I’ve struggled a lot with those who like the play “the Devil’s advocate” because I’ve often interpreted this way of thinking to be anti-progress.  It’s felt more like an effort to squelch discussion rather than further the group.  But, I’ve been working on this.  Many years ago (now) I identified this as a trigger for me and have worked on how to respond to this way of thinking and use it to make progress.

I was helped, most recently, by Eric Geiger’s post 3 Better Alternatives to Playing “Devil’s Advocate”.  In particular, he urged these three alternatives to taking up the mantle of “the Devil’s Advocate”:

1. Anthropologist – thinking about how real people will be impacted.  Take the discussion from heady, ethereal realms to the ground floor, boots on the ground, impact.
2. Experimenter – consider how something could be tried on a small scale before you explain all the reasons it will fail
3. Hurdler – quickly recognizing challenges that changes may pose and considering how they can be cleared for the good of the organization

You might drift into the devil’s advocacy.  If that’s how you’re wired, consider these approaches for the good of those you are seeking to serve.

I’m privileged to get to serve the community of Reno County in a couple of ways (besides my service as pastor).  One of those is through a program of the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce called Youth Leadership Reno County.  This program brings together 4 7th and 8th graders for each public and private school in the county (that’s 32 middle school students) to help them make progress in: 1) learning about leadership, 2) learning something about themselves, and 3) helping them be better citizens of Reno County.

We met for Day #1 in Haven, KS today.  We got to introduce one another, thinking about “What is leadership?”, and tour downtown Haven, thinking about acts of leadership in the community there.  This program meets 7 times between now and February.  It’s an amazing journey. And, it’s only just begun.

I’m happy to be participating in a You. Lead. Now. experience this week at the Kansas Leadership Center with the 2016 Leadership Reno County class.  We’re hoping that our participants are equipped with tools to help them make progress on issues they care about.