MAKING AN IMPACT: Excellence & Compassion

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the third week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

We want to close out the rest of this year with our MAKING AN IMPACT series by looking at our stated values at Impact Campus Ministries. Our values are the things that drive our decisions and determine the way in which we pursue our mission and vision. In a sense, our mission and vision are built upon and performed on the foundation of our organizational values.

Today, I want to write about two of our six values. I do this for a couple reasons: First, there are only twelve months in a year and thirteen items that I need to talk about — so I need to combine two (seems like a pretty good mathematical reason to me); but second, I combine these two values because they are two that always seem to exist in tension.

These values are EXCELLENCE and COMPASSION.

ICM has the value of excellence. We want to pursue excellence in all things; we always want to fight against the mentality of, “Meh, it’s good enough.” We want to resist the urge to cut corners or stop short, even when it appears that it won’t make a difference. We value this because we believe it always makes a difference. While going the extra mile might not have a practical application in the immediate situation, we believe it has an impact on who we are as people. In addition to this, we want to be reminded that our work is powered by God’s provision through the generosity of others. Their investment in God’s Kingdom deserves our best stewardship; their dollars (or God’s dollars given through them) need to be planted and watered with nothing less than our best.

But ICM also has the value of compassion. The truth of the matter is that we all blow it — routinely. We want to practice grace with each other and demonstrate a hospitable and generous spirit with others when we are less than excellent. This is a stated value with ICM not only because we want it to be true internally, but externally as well. We want to demonstrate compassion for those we work with in churches and with our supporters. We want to demonstrate compassion to those who might seek to make our lives difficult. Most importantly, we want to treat our students with compassion and model a life of compassion so they can experience and see the fruit that comes from a life modeled after Jesus.

We find that pursing these values simultaneously is very difficult. But we also find that this tension is very, very good. We want to be able to challenge ourselves to run hard and push for the best. We want to celebrate when God takes our efforts at excellence and does something awesome with them. But we also want to guard each other from the shame and guilt of never feeling like we’re enough.

In the words of Jeff VanderLaan, ICM’s Vice President, “We want to always be raising the bar and lowering the fence.” What a great line! We need to raise the bar — raise our sights and our expectations — while simultaneously lowering the fence of who can participate in pursuing those goals.

It is important to learn that these two values are not at all mutually exclusive. Just because we value excellence does not mean we have to be jerks, unrelenting as we demand excellence from ourselves and our teammates. But just because we value compassion does not mean we can be halfhearted in our efforts. We can still challenge each other to be the best possible stewards of our talents and resources.

This tension is difficult, and yet I feel like parenting has taught me more about this tension than anything else. I have the highest hopes for my children. I want them to be the absolute best version of themselves that they can be. However, I also love them tremendously and would do anything to make sure they are never treated with anything less than unconditional love and acceptance. I want to teach them the value of excellence and model the compassion of a loving father to them the entire way. This is one of the only soils in which healthy parenting can exist.

May we as leaders seek to foster this same culture in the ministries that we lead.