Team training

Another packed day of summer project…can’t believe the students aren’t even here yet! This morning we had several training times…Some highlights:
* Shelley (our Tribeca Assistant Project Director) gave a devo on the “theology of ability” versus the “theology of inability” based on Romans 7 and 8. The one thing I took away from this is that the cost of living out of an “ability based theology” (that is, that I am able to live out the Christian life by what I do) is that failure doesn’t become an option, and we create a culture where we don’t take risks. We may even  end up limiting the Great Commission by pre-selecting those we think are good enough. I admit I tend to do this. I shared how I had a student say to me that she often did stuff to please me (her staff) rather than because God asked that of her. How sad!
* Heard Joe (our Tribeca Operations Director) give his famous Holy Spirit talk with the pop-quiz on some controversial Holy Spirit assertions. I’ve taken this quiz a dozen times, and still have not gotten 100%. The 2 I got wrong:
“To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with Christ” (Supposed to be agree…I still debate this, but ok.)
“The first step from the carnal life-style to the Spiritual one involves confession and repentance” (Supposed to be agree…I think I thought this was a trick question.)
* Regina (my co-director for the Epic track) lead an exercise contrasting Asian and Western Cultural Values. This was very interesting. I always had the assumption that non-Asians will tend towards Western values and Asians tend towards Asian values. But for our exercise, I was surprised to learn that this was not always the case (although I found myself always on the more Asian side). We discovered that many of our teammates from the South also tended towards “collectivism”, “duty & obligation” and being “hierarchical.” Apparently this is important in the very family-centered South. I was also suprised to see that most of the group (our staff team of 40) tended towards “Shame-based condemnation” rather than “Guilt-based condemnation.” I wonder if this is more of a Christian-cultural tendency?

Afterwards, we had a track-specific afternoon of discovering our staff team’s strengths and talents. I have to say, I am serving with a strong and talented staff team But of course, as Asians, we will say, “aw,…its nothing!” Another interesting thing about our Epic track staff team is that most of our strengths  fall in the “friend/sage” themes, with none of us having an “ruler” (i.e., directing) strenghth. What will this mean for our summer?? At least we know we’ll be good friends offering good advice to each other

Plus, I finally learned how to play Settlers of Catan today! (and if you know Crusade culture, its like….you’re totally missing out if you don’t know how to play.) I now understand why its so popular. When will we play again, team?