{"id":687,"date":"2013-09-20T03:23:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T03:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=687"},"modified":"2014-08-13T22:18:54","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T22:18:54","slug":"the-falling-hedgehog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-falling-hedgehog\/","title":{"rendered":"The Falling Hedgehog"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the spring of 1997 I married my college sweetheart Naomi.\u00a0 Like many newlyweds, our first few months were spent learning new an interesting details about your spouse.\u00a0 Not long into our second month, Naomi shared that she had a hedgehog by the name of Loofa<\/strong>, which she was keeping\u00a0 at her classroom at the school she taught in during the time.\u00a0 Due to classrooms being moved, she now needed to bring Loofa home, and I was now the proud co-owner of a hedgehog!<\/strong>\u00a0 Hedgehog, what is a hedgehog anyway?\u00a0 Somewhere between a porcupine and a prairie dog Loofa our hedgehog loomed.<\/p>\n

One night my wife grabbed Loofa out of his cage and began to play with him.\u00a0 Not long into the time he began to squirm and jump out of my wives arms.\u00a0 Like most good husbands, I reacted, immediately reaching out to catch Loofa before this little rodent hit the ground. Wow!!!!!<\/strong>\u00a0 I caught it.\u00a0 And immediately screamed.\u00a0 What seemed like a good idea ended in my hand having approximately 30 little quills pierce my skin.\u00a0 It burned to say the least.\u00a0 Naomi laughed and said, \u201cHe\u2019s really good at protecting himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This past week while reading Good To Great by Jim Collins I was reminded of a principle known as the Hedgehog Concept.<\/strong>\u00a0 While first reading this book almost ten years ago, I was struck by the concept of how a hedgehog is so suited for defending itself from a fox in its natural setting.\u00a0 The hedgehog doesn\u2019t try to be another animal or use other defenses, it simply leans hard into what it was made for and is ultimately good at.\u00a0 While reading Collins again this past week, I began to ask myself as to how I would respond to the questions in each of the three circles.\u00a0 As well as, am I currently leaning hard into each of these three areas with my current role, job and ministry position?<\/p>\n

Three Circles\u2026\u00a0 One Passion\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

What you are deeply passionate about\u2026<\/strong>\u00a0 I have come to realize in recent years that I am deeply passionate about Spiritual Formation and its relation to us as individuals as well as the church.\u00a0 Richard Rohr in his book, \u201cFalling Upward\u201d speaks of a life which can be lived undivided.\u00a0 A life which captures internal soul development intertwined simultaneously with external practice of care and loving our neighbors as ourselves.\u00a0 These concepts get me out of bed in the morning.<\/p>\n

What you can be the best in the world at\u2026<\/strong> When speaking with mentors, I am consistently affirmed in three primary areas.\u00a0 These three areas are shepherding, care giving and teaching.\u00a0 In each of these areas, I sense living out my passion through spiritual formation principles combined with one of these three skill set areas, would begin the process of playing into my sweet spot.<\/p>\n

What drives your economic engine\u2026<\/strong> I sense my future has something to do with caring for the souls of ministry leaders who are in need of soul care.\u00a0 With the current state of the Western church, pressures from a digital society\u00a0 and non formational models being pushed in droves, young ministry leaders between the ages of 25 and 32 are burning out and leaving the ministry never to return.\u00a0 It seems plausible with such an epidemic would provide work in this area of formational soul care for a season of my life.<\/p>\n

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Catching the Hedgehog\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

That night while catching the hedgehog I realized that he was perfectly designed to protect himself, and that I was perfectly designed not to catch him.\u00a0 I pray over time I will come to the same conclusions as to what I am made for as well as not made for in the kingdom.<\/p>\n

What have you been created for?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the spring of 1997 I married my college sweetheart Naomi.\u00a0 Like many newlyweds, our first few months were spent learning new an interesting details about your spouse.\u00a0 Not long into our second month, Naomi shared that she had a hedgehog by the name of Loofa, which she was keeping\u00a0 at her classroom at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"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":[267,2],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-collins","tag-dminlgp","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2018,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions\/2018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}