8. Values

I value honesty.  I really appreciate when my friends are honest with me and are able to talk to me about everything.  Whether it's what's going on in their life or whether it's something they need to approach me about that I'm doing wrong.  It shows someone really cares about me when they are not afraid to gently tell me when I'm wrong and what I need to work on.  Also, when friends are upset with me, I like them to be honest and tell me right away instead of getting more upset or talking to others about it.  I am a pretty open person, and I like to talk things out.

I also value good time management.  I am the kind of person who likes to be early, have a set schedule and stick to it, and be wise with my time.  When people recognize this about me and respect that in being time conscious themselves, it helps relieve a lot of the stress on myself.  When I'm a part of a team, I can get frustrated when time isn't used in the most efficient way, so I value people who take the time we have together seriously.

I also value cleanliness and organization.  I am a very neat and orderly person and I like my personal space to be that way.  When things are consistently out of place or kept dirty for a long period of time, it stresses me out.  I like my desk to be organized, my clothes to be put away, my books to be lined up on my shelf correctly, and dishes to be washed.  I value people who respect their property and others' property by keeping it clean and organized.  It also shows a great amount of responsibility and discipline, which I also value.

7. Absence of Trust

The first of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team according to Patrick Lencioni's book is an absence of trust.

1. Why is it necessary for a team to trust each other in order to succeed instead of just being able to work well together?
2.  How does having the ability to challenge someone else's opinion relate to trust?
3.  What is the benefit from having debates rather than always agreeing on everything?
4.  In order for a meeting to be productive, why is it important that everyone be engaged and involved, even if it doesn't seem like the issue relates to everyone?
5.  How can a team's debates, challenges, and differences help the team go above and beyond?

Answer each of these questions in relation to a large company you are not a part of first, such as a successful business you know about; then think about how these same questions/suggestions can be used in a team you are currently involved in.

Other questions to ponder:
Why is an absence of trust the first and foundation of dysfunctions in a team?
Do you see an absence of trust in your team?  Why or why not?
How can your team strive towards forming trust?

His Waves

I really needed to be reminded of this. Why is it so easy to turn to God in the good times, yet when we struggle we forget Him?  We should always find our peace in our Lord and only Him. So if you find yourself amidst waves today, remember who controls them.  Hold tightly to the one who can calm even the rougheat seas.

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Psalm 42:5-6
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again--my Savior my God! Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you.

They are HIS waves, whether they break over us, hiding His face in smothering spray and foam; or smooth and sparkling, spread a path before us, and to our haven bear us safely home.

They are HIS waves, whether for our sure comfort He walks across them, stilling all our fear; or to our cry there comes no aid nor answer, and in the lonely silence none is near.

They are HIS waves, whether we are hard-striving through tempest-driven waves that never cease, while deep to deep with turmoil loud is calling; or at His word they hush themselves in peace.

They are HIS waves, whether He separates them, making us walk dry ground where seas had flowed; or let tumultuous breakers surge about us, rushing unchecked across our only road.

They are HIS waves, and He directs us through them; so He has promised, so His love will do. Keeping and leading, guiding and upholding, to His sure harbor, He will bring us through.

-Annie Johnson Flint

6. Communication

a. Communication is the glue that holds relationships together and keeps them functioning successfully, whether it's a friendship or a leadership.  There are three basic types of communication: unassertive, assertive, and aggressive.  Unassertive is letting people, in a sense, walk all over you, with the mindset that what you have to say isn't good enough, so you just keep quiet.  Being assertive in your communication is saying only what is needed to get your point across.  Aggressive communication is valuing what you have to say over what everyone else has to say.  I would put myself between unassertive and assertive.  I definitely don't think I push my thoughts and ideas on others and at times I am healthily assertive in what I have to say, but sometimes I leave a conversation wishing I had said more of what I really thought.  I need to find a healthy balance in this area of my life.
On the Listening Self-Evaluation I took, which assessed my listening skills, I scored a 69.  The average score is 61.  I think I am a pretty good listener, which probably stems from some of my top strengths: developer, restorative, and empathy.  I am a very empathetic and compassionate person, which is why I'm in the Social Work field.  I enjoy listening to people's struggles and triumphs in order to help and encourage them.  Some things I do need to work on is finding a healthy balance between giving my own input and advice and just simply taking the time to listen to someone talk.  At times I may need to just listen and not talk, but there are also times when advice or guidance is helpful.

b. I have encountered some minor ethical dilemmas in my life.  When I have heard of some people breaking little rules or school policies I face a dilemma.  Should I say something to them about it, even though it doesn't seem like a big deal?  Or should I just let it slide because it could be much worse, and this way I won't seem overbearing or judgmental.  In these cases sometimes I have to go off of rule-based thinking--following a principle that everyone should follow.  It's based on a duty of following and encouraging others to follow the rules.  Not that I necessarily think that they are harming anyone, although they could be indirectly, but breaking rules is disrespectful and could lead to breaking more and bigger rules.

5. Culture

My residence hall has a culture all its own.  Phillipps Hall, along with NCU, follows Christian values and beliefs.  For the most part, we live as a loving Christian community.  We value things like modesty, prayer, and morals.  Community is something that is stressed a lot.  Hall events, floor events, bro/sis events, etc.  Some behavioral norms could include: hanging out in the stairwells with the opposite sex when it's not open dorms, boys blasting their music, such as Friday, by Rebecca Black or Sexy Sax Man, loud enough for all of Phillipps to hear.  Random dance parties, forgetting your keys and pounding on the door, floor transfer days eating in the hallway, Lifecore on Tuesdays, PG on Wednesdays.  Each floor has its own traditions and perks such as the 4E rap and the 1W time capsule.  There is also a distinct dialect of language that has accumulated over the years.  Shortening of words such as: probs-probably, totes-totally, best evs-best ever; and the acronyms such as RD, ARD, DA, RA, and DL.  Oh and don't forget all the different names for meetings: in-service, in-hall, floor council, and wing council.  

Gender, race, and ethnicity all can influence a person's values and their leadership.  These differences are oftentimes put into categories and people tend to associate with people who are similar to them in these areas.  Because of this, they share common beliefs and values and are spread to others of the same.  Since girls all live together on their floors, they will all probably have somewhat similar mindsets about certain things simply by being associated and influenced by the same people all the time.  This also affects leadership because a person needs to lead in a way that will most closely impact the set of people they are leading.  In this way, a leader needs to know the needs and values of the group as it is and determine in what terms they need to be led.  Through an understanding of the cultural factors of a group grows a greater ability to lead.

4. What I Value & Why

Growing up in a Christian home and being very involved in my church had a huge influence in my set of values.  These values I have had most of my life and still do.  I value first of all my relationship with God.  My church believes in having a person relationship with God, and because I've been in an environment that values that, I do, too.  My relationship with God is the thing I value most in my life, and that will never change.  Another value I have is modesty.  My parents value modesty and have taught me about why I should be modest.  Also, the environments I've been in and the friends I've been associated with have also valued modesty for the most part, so it has been easy to keep that as a value in my own life.  All of my experiences in my household and my family as well as my church and my friends there have most influenced the values I continue to obtain in my life.  I am so thankful that I have grown up seeing certain values in order that I might have them impressed upon my life.

Bennis's belief about self knowledge has to do with knowing one's strengths and weaknesses and using that knowledge to work within your strengths.  By identifying your strengths and weaknesses, you can build up your strengths to the point where your weaknesses are irrelevant.  Or, you can build up your weaknesses and turn them into strengths.  Either way, being away of both of these helps a person to acquire a self-knowledge that will prepare them for success in various situations.  In my own life, I have definitely had to come to terms with the fact that I am not going to be good at everything I do, which is very hard for me.  I'm an achiever, according to the strength's finder test, and to most people who know me, so it is very humbling to realize I really cannot be good at everything.  I need to accept my weaknesses and either be okay with it or try to work with them how they are and hopefully grow in that area.  This has also helped me to grow in the areas I am naturally good at and build up those strengths so that I can actually use them for what God intended.

I've been my own best teacher by just learning from the experiences of my life, whether they were successes or mistakes.  I have learned to accept responsibility when I am wrong or when I am lacking in something. For instance, as a leader this year, I have had to realize the areas in which I am lacking in, and fix those things.  Because by not being up to pace, it not only hurts me, but the people around me.  With learning, I have learned a lot through reflection lately.  Sometimes I will be telling someone about something that happened and suddenly it will click.  God has been tying together all these different experiences in my life and showing me how he is using them to teach me and to stretch me.  It takes me a while to get it sometimes, but when I do, it's so obvious the lessons that God is working on me with.  Lately, God has even been using past experiences and past journal entries to teach me things now.  God is not limited to our time, and for that I am so thankful! :)

3. Inclusion

There have been many times where I have felt excluded from a group.  Without pointing out a specific experience, there have been many times in my life where I have felt like an outsider, even though I was among friends.  I think the case where most people end up feeling this way is when the people they are with seem to have a lot in common or some similar experience in which you do not relate.  As humans, we are really relational and we long for relationship in which we can share and relate to similar experiences and feelings.  When people connect on a level like that, the connection is strong, but when someone feels like they haven't had the same type of experience, it can be hard to feel included.  It helps when the people you are with help bring you into the situation and maybe explain an inside joke so that you can laugh about it to or just help you to understand where they are coming from.  For me, there have been times when I have started to feel excluded with friends who shared a fun experience that I wasn't a part of, but they would begin telling it TO me so that I could feel included, even if I hadn't been there.

In high school I was a part of a dance competition group in which I believe was very successful.  As a team, we had to share the same goal and purpose for being a part.  In order for us to succeed individually, though, we had to feel included in the group.  Keeping a positive attitude and being encouraging to one another definitely helped, because we were able to take critiques from each other and learn from them instead of getting upset.  Because we had built those relationships with each other and are able to build each other up, we were able to work hard individually and strive to succeed.  To feel accepted and included as a group allowed for each of us to work hard individually to improve our skills.  The two go hand in hand.

This is so true for every situation.  In order to work well and be successful as a group, we need to have that individual strength to be able to include others and ourselves.  Once we feel that inclusion, growing as a team or an organization will come a whole lot easier.

2. In the Carver's Hands

Leadership does not make a person any better.  It means that they are putting themselves into a position that allows God to use them to mold others.  It reminds me of a wood carver.  God is the wood carver, who has the vision, the goal, and the purpose for each one-of-a-kind creation.  The stump represents each of us, just a huge block, absolutely nothing until our creator starts working on us.  God uses chisels, like people in leadership, whom he has appointed to slowly work on and influence the stumps.  Although the chisels themselves are not doing anything, they are being used at the creator's will.  The chisels alone cannot do anything, but when put into the creator's hands, they are a very useful tool.  If the chisel were to try to do its own thing in the hands of the creator, the vision of the carver and the chisel would clash and it would be a mess.  I think this is a beautiful, yet humbling metaphor for leadership.

I agree more with the more contemporary ideas of shared leadership.  I believe that every one has some form of leadership qualities, whether they're obvious or subtle.  Some people can simply lead by quiet example.  Everyone has unique qualities that are useful in different situations.  No one is good in every situation.  When a team of people get together and just be themselves, each person has something to offer and together they form a successful leadership group.  Some people can even lead as followers--by being hardworking and being able to follow through to get tasks done.

In high school I was a part of a dance competition team.  We worked together and had a system to our practices.  We had specific practice days and times, and there was order to the routines we worked on.  In order to be a successful team we had to have order.  However, flexibility took a huge role in our team, because things never went as planned.  We had to be able to adapt to new situations and places when we went somewhere to compete.  Also, we had to be able to re-block dances if a girl was sick or injured.  Injuries caused the entire dance dynamic to change, and we all had to be able to be calm and positive when things occurred that were beyond our control.

1. Leadership

 You can't give away something you haven't got, so you'd better get busy. - from the book, A Piece of Cake, by Cupcake Brown

Leadership is more than having authority over someone or teaching someone. Leadership is the perfect balance of servanthood and positive influence.  For me, being a leader has been something God has been specifically impressing on me.  Last year, around this time, being a leader was the furthest thing from my mind.  I saw myself as the one who needed to be led, not the one who ever could lead.  Slowly, God began to challenge me to lead.  At first it meant leading in my every day life as it was--in my classes, in my family, in my suite, on my floor, and with my friends.  He didn't even ask much of me, only to step up, start the motion, speak out, etc.  God was showing me how important it was to lead, even if I didn't consider myself the "leader type."  I realized that simply by being a Christian, I was called to be a leader in this lost world.  Christians should have higher standards on themselves and should live in a way that shows the world we're different.  After all, we must model ourselves after Jesus, who was a great leader.  However, God soon gave me a greater task and laid it on my heart to be a Discipleship Leader.  It was something I had thought about, but quickly dismissed because I wasn't a "leader."  However, God had a different plan, and I'm very glad I was obedient and followed through.  God had built me up to teach me what it means to be a true leader.  It wasn't about the position or the name or the authority, it was about the purpose.  I am privileged to have been called to this position, and I'm so thankful for the work God has done in me and through me.


The summer leading into this school year was a time of preparation and growth.  The quote I put at the beginning of this blog was something I focused much of my time on .  To me it means that as much as you might like to help someone, you won't do any good if you don't equip yourself beforehand.  In order to pour out over someone, you first must be filled and continually be being filled.  Another aspect of leadership that I would like to grow in this year is to lead by love.  A great quote that applies is, "Love people more than you need people."  If we as leaders love the people we lead, and I mean truly love, we won't expect to get anything from it.  If we go into any relationship with only the expectations of what we'd like to get out of it, we will always be disappointed.  Love needs to be the bond.  By allowing ourselves to love first, we can lead in a way that benefits everyone and has an incredible ability to transform.


I have already grown so much in this experience, and it is only just the beginning.  I would like to see myself strengthened in the areas I have been working on, as well as being challenged in new ways.  I want to be open to God's call over my life and to follow wherever He leads me.  In order to lead, I must first follow.  In order to teach, I must first learn.  In order to change, I must be transformed.

Looking Back

So, today the most amazing thought struck me.  I hadn't given it much thought, but when I did, I was amazed at how wonderful God is.  I thought back a year ago.  A year ago at this time I was just ending high school and preparing for the big journey ahead: college and life on my own.  Going into my first year of college I was extremely nervous about a lot of things--living in a big city, a bigger school, meeting new people, sharing a room, living with so many girls, being on my own.  I worried about all of that stuff, even just a little, even though I was very excited.  Also, at that time I was really unsure of who I was.  I was, dramatically speaking, having an identity crisis.  You see, I had always grown up in what you would call a Christian family.  I had been going to the same church since I was 3 and was basically adopted into that family.  So, basically growing up in church, I was a good girl, and everyone knew me and had known me for pretty much my whole life.  Sure, I always loved God, and I never exactly strayed away, but something just wasn't right.  I had been stuck in this identity that had been given to me.  Maybe it was my identity to begin with, but after a while, it was what everyone expected of me.  I was identified through my family and through my church, but who was I without those things?  As I began to realize that I would have to leave both of those things behind: my family and my church, I realized that my faith had never really been mine.  It had been what I was told.  I believed what I thought I was supposed to believe to fit the frame of my perfect little Ashley cutout that everyone knew.  But if I had the choice, what would I believe?  Who would I be?  All these thoughts swarmed my mind for days, weeks, months.  I decided that I needed to find my true identity.  An identity that was based off of my very own faith.  I wanted an identity that was new, better, different.  I wanted an identity in CHRIST.  That's all I wanted.  I wanted to find out who God wanted me to be...what God wanted me to believe.  So, that became my goal for my first year of college.

Probably the biggest thing that God hit me with was leadership.  I had never really seen myself as the leader type.  I'm not always super outgoing.  I'm a bit of an introvert, and I don't hold a lot of authority--I don't really ask for it or want it.  But one of the first things God told me was that I was, in fact, a leader.  Maybe not with my own strength, but because I am a Christian, I am called to lead others.  Lead others to Him.  Lead others to grow and mature.  It was something God wanted of me simply because I had something that I should share.  I began to find ways to lead in even the smallest ways, such as answering questions in class that nobody wanted to, volunteering to pray or speak in class without waiting for someone else to, initiating actions, etc.  These small things began adding up, and I grew more and more into a leader.  I began to find other ways to lead in my classes and on my floor.  They were just simple things that most people probably wouldn't have noticed, but they changed my life for the better.

Then, God called me to do something bigger.  He wanted me to apply to be a Discipleship Leader (DL) for next year.  It was something that I had thought at the very beginning of the year that I might sometime want to do, but probably not.  You know, one of those kinds of things.  So, when God laid that on my heart, I of course came up with every reason why I absolutely could not do that.  I really wasn't that much of a leader.  Sure, I had been working on my leadership skills, but nothing that big.  I still had a lot of things in my life that weren't good enough.  How could I help people if I couldn't always help myself?  Oh, I thought of everything. But God put this challenge out on the line:  "Ashley, do you really want to go through your entire experience at North Central without making a difference?  Do you really just want to go in and go out without affecting anyone?  Do you want to be the same person you were coming in as you were coming out?"  I had never thought of it that way before.  Was there something I needed to do not only for myself, but for others while I'm here?  I really did want to make a difference.  I didn't want to leave North Central the same as when I came; I wanted to leave it better.  How could I do that?

I decided to apply for the DL position.  My confidence level was pretty low about it at first, but then I thought, if it really is what God wants, which I strongly feel it is, then it will work out exactly how it should.  With this mindset, I couldn't even worry about it.  I had such a peace about it, knowing that whether I got the position or not, I had obeyed God in at least applying, because maybe that's all He wanted for now--my willingness.

Fast forward to this year.  Right now.  It is the summer after my first year of college.  I am spending consistent time in God's word every day.  My prayer life has exploded, and I am spending a lot of time praying about, thinking about, and anxiously awaiting my time as a DL this fall.  I am preparing to be a leader, which includes a lot of focus on others, yet a lot of focus on myself.  Now, I am working on things that I need to mature in in my spiritual life, not only for my sake, but for the sake of leading others in the same ways.  I am so very excited for what God is going to do in me and through me this summer and in the school year to come.  God has asked me to lead, and even if I may not be a natural leader, God has not called me to do something that I am not able to do, with His help of course!  I see a lot of my friends who are graduating this year who are maybe anxious or nervous for their plans after high school.  I see a lot of people going through exactly the same things I did a year ago.  It makes me so happy to see where I have come from in only a short year, and I am so excited for how else God will allow me to grow in the next three years of my time in college.