Transformation Begins With Me
When God calls us do a transformative work in the lives of young women, the first question we have to ask is where do we begin? And the honest answer for each of our Good Soil Academy Team members is that transformation begins with us— everyone of us!
While teachers across Malawi are home on break, our GSA Team has committed themselves to collectively reaffirming God’s call on their lives. Today we kicked off three days of intensive team-building training for our GSA Team. The purpose of this training is to develop our leadership effectiveness as co-builders of Good Soil Academy. Addressing our teachers, professional staff and leaders, Steve Chartier, a GSA co-founder and board member, opened with the thought-provoking question, “are you a worker or a co-builder?” Over the course of the day Steven made a compelling case that when God calls us somewhere to serve, we are not called as workers, but co-builders. Redefining our roles from workers to “co-builders” is transformative! No one person can build Good Soil Academy, instead it takes everyone of us.
The goal of this three day “Co-Building Workshop” is to create a unified and invested team of co-builders united around the Mission, Vision and Values of Good Soil Academy. During our first day Steven reviewed the principle that our response to events (which we do not control) will drive the outcome. He encouraged us to remember that at Good Soil Academy, “We are not victims of events. We are leaders of outcomes.” Our commitment to this key shift in attitude will leave us better equipped to encourage our students that they too can become leaders of outcomes and not victims of events.
At GSA we are committed to a servant leadership model; one which inverts the organizational chart to make it clear that our first priority is to serve the needs of our students and parents. We discussed the various roles our team members play as co-builders, which include running, improving and growing Good Soil Academy in its service of our students.
A good part of our day focused on the question, “Why excellence?” In answering that question Steve turned to a number of biblical citations which make the case for excellence in the pursuit of our calling. We covered 8 necessary rules for excellence, all in the context of affirming that we are called to excellence in the pursuit of our Vision and fulfilling our Mission, all while doing such in a manner consistent with our values.
God has blessed Good Soil Partners and Good Soil Academy with Steven’s leadership experience. While Steven will be the first to protest that he’s not a certified teacher in traditional subjects, he is a gifted teacher in the field of executing a vision and co-building teams committed to excellence in all they do. We thank God for co-builders and board members like Steve Chartier.
At the end of the day we went around the table sharing the “takeaways” from what we learned over the course of the day. I was so encouraged to hear each member affirm their calling to serve at Good Soil Academy. If you ever visit GSA, feel free to ask them to tell you the Vision, Mission and Values of Good Soil Academy. They know them by heart because they are part of who they are. Our vision is to become Malawi’s #1 choice for secondary education. Our mission is to transform girls into Christian entrepreneurship leaders - one at a time. Our Values mean that we will seek to do this while honoring God, living a generous life, adding value to others and always doing the right thing!
For His kingdom,
Dean