{"id":238,"date":"2014-03-13T02:37:38","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T02:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=238"},"modified":"2014-08-12T17:07:50","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T17:07:50","slug":"i-got-the-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/i-got-the-power\/","title":{"rendered":"I Got the Power…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space and Influence <\/em>\u00a0by MaryKate Morse was this week\u2019s assignment for my D.Min program. It dissects the intersection of body, leadership and power. \u00a0She writes, \u201cLeadership happens all the time, and it happens when we use our bodies to influence others. \u201c(Loc 143).\u00a0 Prior to our London Advance I hadn\u2019t given much thought about the connection between these things so I was excited to delve into Morse\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

I often want to minimize my connection to power.\u00a0 That comes from a combination of false humility and a desire to not acknowledge the \u2018leg up\u2019 I\u2019ve had in life. I grew up in a home where my parents cared about me, I played sports, I had a good education and I never knew poverty. To use a sports analogy I was already on second base when the game started. I didn\u2019t have far to get to \u2018home base\u2019 and be \u2018successful.\u2019 It has taken me years to come to accept that reality. Recently, my wife and I were looking at whether to adopt a particular child from China. There were some questions about a Mandarin medical report and we couldn\u2019t move forward on until we had our answers. So, we pulled out all our networks and contacts and began looking for someone(s) who could help us answer our question. Within three hours we had three different people from the US, Canada and China who were looking at our reports. These were highly trained specialists in Mandarin and English and certainly not someone who stayed in a Holiday Inn last night. When that happened, it hit me again that I\u2019m in a position of power. My networks, education and personality made what ought to be a very difficult thing to accomplish, rather easy. Morse is right to challenge us to acknowledge our power and then to push us to ensure that our power heals and not harms. She writes, \u201cIf we are to be God\u2019s influencers, we need to come to grips with the role of power in our lives. If we are to incarnate the living presence of Christ, we must understand that combination of his power with our own. When we hold the dynamite, we need to know where we are using it for God\u2019s purposes or for selfish ends (loc 327)<\/p>\n

One of the most insightful chapters that helped me gauge power in my life was chapter six. \u00a0Morse gave several factors that influence power and after looking at them, I find myself on third base and able to \u2018walk home\u2019 and be successful.<\/p>\n

Gender <\/strong>\u2013 I am a male.<\/p>\n

Culture<\/strong> \u2013 In moderate Baptist life I am at the center of my culture.<\/p>\n

Extroversion\/Introversion<\/strong> \u2013 I\u2019m an extrovert who loves being able to meet and network with people which makes connecting with others who have power easy.<\/p>\n

Age<\/strong> \u2013 I\u2019m young, 34 to be exact.<\/p>\n

Physical Features<\/strong> \u2013 I would say that I\u2019m average looking. Though if you want to say I\u2019m Brad Pitt, I\u2019m okay with that.<\/p>\n

Economic and Social Status<\/strong> \u2013 Both my wife and I have jobs that enable us to live without the usual stress of money.<\/p>\n

Style of Dress \u2013<\/strong> I have the freedom to dress however I want. I can dress down to make a certain segment of our society feel welcome or I can dress up to connect to another segment.<\/p>\n

Education \u2013<\/strong> I have a BA, M.Div. and will hopefully have a D.Min. in 2015 (Lord willing and the creek don\u2019t rise). All of these are without debt.<\/p>\n

Martial Status <\/strong>\u2013 I\u2019m married with two great kids (and one on the way).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very fortunate to have the power that I do. Unfortunately, it\u2019s too easy to allow my power to serve me and only me. \u00a0I need to continually find ways to use whatever power I have to advocate for others who weren\u2019t born on second base, but in the parking lot and find themselves just trying to get in the ballpark to play.<\/p>\n

How have you used your power to benefit others?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space and Influence \u00a0by MaryKate Morse was this week\u2019s assignment for my D.Min program. It dissects the intersection of body, leadership and power. \u00a0She writes, \u201cLeadership happens all the time, and it happens when we use our bodies to influence others. \u201c(Loc 143).\u00a0 Prior to our London Advance I hadn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,8],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-morse","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1556,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions\/1556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}