Why I’m Getting an MBA: Humble Pie & Kingdom Dividends

Many of you know this already, but I was recently accepted into the Kellogg School of Management, which is the Business School of Northwestern University.

(In case you didn’t know, most Business Schools for some strange reason like to be referred to not to the greater university they represent, but have branded themselves separately.  I’m sure I’ll learn why when I take a Marketing Class.)

Many people have asked me two questions,

1. Why in the world are you pursing an MBA while working in Campus Ministry?

2. Are you going to become one of those arrogant business school students who thinks they are the center of the universe?

The answer to number 2 is easy: I have many folks my life who will tell me when I’m acting like a jerk.  I have had and will continue to have plenty of opportunities to eat humble pie.

Being stood up many times by undergrads who think that meeting with me is not worth their time is one.  If working as a campus minister with students has taught me anything over time, it’s how to handle rejection.

Looking at my love life is another.  Sheesh – let’s not go there.

Trust me – there are plenty of places for me to realize regularly I’m not all that.

As for number 1, I had always considered getting an MBA when I was in the marketplace – but wondered how it fit with my current context in campus ministry. As I’ve spoken with many of you and others, it’s easy to consider the skills learned in an MBA program are fully secular in nature and perhaps not aligned with the Kingdom of God.  But as I prayed, and reflected on what I know about myself, I sensed something different.

In response to these promptings, I contacted Alec Hill, President of InterVarsity, and put the idea before him.  He confirmed to me some of what I’d already been thinking – that the MBA develops a set of skills that could serve the movement well.  Strategic planning, fund raising, marketing, general management skills – these are all very necessary skills in an organization like InterVarsity.  Learning from one of the best like Kellogg could have great dividends for the Kingdom of God wherever I find myself.

The number one reason why most people leave their jobs is consistently the same over time: a poor relationship with their supervisor.  This is no different in ministry.

The number one reason people leave the mission field is not the folks to whom they minister – it’s the dynamic on their staff teams. As I’ve spoken with several of my friends in ministry and other not-for-profit endeavors, it’s clear that these skills are very necessary for the Kingdom of God to advance both locally and globally.

I’m excited to start class again as I have a clarity of purpose and understanding that I’ve not had before in my time in ministry.  At the same time, I’d really appreciate your prayers as I do my best to manage ministry and education and have boundaries for the other life giving activities in my schedule: my family & friends, my personal health, and most importantly, my relationship with God.

What I wish I would have said when traveling through the airport this weekend…

from xkcd.com

How delusional is my solution to the health care crisis?

I was having breakfast today with one of my alumni who is in the MD-Ph.D. program at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and I passed my idea by him. He actually said this made sense, so I figured I’d float it past the crew and see what everyone else thought.

I’m not an expert on this – by any means. I’ll take criticism on my ideas without taking it personally. I would welcome other opinions.

I also choose not to participate in the 24-hour television news craze that sucks in so many. I really think it helps reduce my stress and (ironically) makes me healthier to not sit in front of the boob-tube and go the the repetition news show of repetition.

The Bilhorn Health Care Plan

1. Primary Care (defined as basic preventative maintenance) is provided for all US Citizens and registered foreign residents.

Ask any medical student where the money is at in the health care system, and it’s in secondary care. That’s not rocket science. We can say our system “is the best in the world” because what it does is provides incredible care to those who can afford it and when you have the means, it is great. Really, it is.

But it’s great because it follows the money trail and when you don’t have money you can’t get on the trail.

Then you can die of dysentery – like in Oregon Trail.

(Or you can die by eating 984 pounds of buffalo meat in a single sitting so none of it goes bad.)

So we need to somehow get primary care back as the overall focus of health care in the US. That is the basic premise of my plan.

Why do this? Two reasons – one obvious and one not so obvious.

The obvious reason: People need to go to the doctor regularly. This is simple. People have at least an annual visit to their physician and find out where they are healthy and not so healthy, and regularly address those issues.  If we really wanted to put some teeth to this, we’d actually revoke health care privileges for people who, year after year, repeatedly do not go to the doctor and do not address their  health issues and simply then receive a substandard plan. It’s a “use it or lose it” philosophy.

But I’m guessing that won’t be popular. At all.

The not-so-obvious reason: We need to create more market opportunities for primary care physicians. They are swamped and overwhelmed. My medical friends tell me that the primary care physicians that are happy tend to be in rural areas and know their patients over a longer period of time. Most everywhere else – not so.

The money is in secondary care, and to pay for medical school you need to make money to pay back your loans. Government spending in this arena could actually create a market that isn’t currently attractive and medical schools would pump out more primary care physicians.

The trick on this is to define primary care very, very precisely.  I don’t know how to do that. Anyone wanna help?

2. Exercise programs are included as preventative care, and funded under primary care. Why are we so unhealthy as a nation? One big reason is we don’t exercise. This would help stimulate another area of health in our country and we’d spend money on more preventative maintenance that would allow for us to actually cut costs long term. This is cost savings that won’t be realized until 20-30 years down the road, but we do need to get substantially healthier as a nation.  We need to create a culture of health in our country – and expecting people to work out would be a great thing for our country.

3. Somehow the healthcare program would create incentives for nutrition. How can we actually eat healthier as a nation? I’ve been convicted of this and am being more intentional to fit 5 fruits and vegetables in my diet every day. It’s a start, right?

But spend any time in a low income area, and nutritious food isn’t nearly as accessible or available to the greater populous.  One of the activities I’ve done with my students when I’ve lived in low income areas is to make observations at the grocery store. They are shocked to see no skim milk, over ripe produce in small quantities, and everything pre-packaged so it can have a long shelf life.

Conversely, taxing unhealthy food enterprises (pub-grub, fast-food, and even my beloved Chicago-style pizza) should probably happen as well. Kinda like how we have certain gas mileage standards for cars? Maybe we should do the same for restaurants. That will NOT be popular at all.

But neither is broccoli.

Businesses won’t start in places like this because there are no incentives for start-up enterprises. The Libertarians will hate me for this, but sometimes government must step in to create a market that will aid the overall public interest.

Take the example of a lighthouse: how in the world is it profitable to run a lighthouse? People will take advantage of it and use it, but will anyone actually go and pay for it? That’s where licensing and other fees go to actually pay for people to run the lighthouse.

In the case of exercise, nutrition, and primary care, we are failing as a nation as we are becoming more sedentary, obese, and getting unhealthier every day.  I never thought we’d come to a day where we had to incentivize personal health, but we are here.

I know I’m oversimplifying the issue, but I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Punnett Biologist Dating

The Story of My IT Support Career

I get asked a lot of questions on technology. I graduated from an institute of technology, so some people just instantly assume I get it all.

I don’t.

But I can fake it.

A friend posted this, and it is SO true.

From www.xkcd.com

Cougars? Manthers? and D.I.N.K.U.M? Oh sigh.

I was looking at a friend’s tweet about the National Single Cougars Convention in San Francisco.  I then paused and thought about the proliferation of all of these semi-new terms that describe relationships. Cougars. Manthers. My new favorite? D.I.N.K.U.M. Double Income No Kids Unbelievable Mortgage.

Oh my.

Relationships are confusing enough already. Adding other terms to describe them now seems to make an already confusing situation even more difficult.  The thing with most of these terms (check out urbandictionary.com…but make sure your kids aren’t in the room) that strikes me is that so many are animal in nature. It saddens me that in the present relational state of America, we are comparing ourselves and our relationships to the mating practices of animals.

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so let’s do it like they do on the discovery channel.” It’s sad that The Bloodhound Gang put out these lyrics with their unexpected hit Discovery Channel that was intended to be satirical.  Ten years later, we now define ourselves and our relationship practices in terms of…mammals looking to go out and get lucky.

Sigh.

Is there a better alternative?

A new piece from Christianity Today is making the rounds in my circles of friends advocating for young marriage. While I don’t exactly qualify for this anymore, but it does make me think a lot as I serve students who often do not get married until, at earliest, their late twenties. Advocating for early marriage is even less popular than several of the Evangelical Christian causes – there is lots of data against it – but Mark Regnerus asks good questions that help us understand the real issues.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

In the state of our culture today, what does it look like for Christians to redeem the culture of dysfunctional relationships?

Sigh, it’s Monday.

 

Courtesy of www.toothpastefordinner.com

New Section – Media

I’ve added a new section to the blog – various videos and articles regarding my ministry with InterVarsity at Northwestern can be found on the Media tab.  Enjoy.

Campus Celebrity Connecting with his Culture.

Meet Sammy. We started meeting weekly last year, and shortly after we started meeting I realized that this kid had it. Sammy is a natural mover and shaker, and will meet anyone on campus. We had to move our weekly discipleship appointments to a place where we wouldn’t be distracted and I could bring this campus celebrity out of the spotlight. He first connected with InterVarsity through House on the Rock, our black campus ministry, but when the opportunity came to lead La Fe, he jumped at the desire. Sammy grew up in South Florida and has a Haitian mother and white father.

Hmmm…Wisconsin farm kid and Miami city boy. It has been interesting, to say the least. But as we’ve grown together, it’s been a privilege for me to walk with Sammy through different phases in life. He’s seen great success in ministry. He’s faithfully led our La Fe ministry, and God has grown the ministry and brought faithful and enthusiastic freshmen. At our recent Winterfest conference, Sammy led the entire large group in “body worship” and the La Fe students were very excited to be a part of it.

But Sammy doesn’t always succeed. He deeply desires to become a doctor who serves the marginalized in Haiti. He wants to get his grades up in order to get into medical school so he can be part of advancing God’s Kingdom in one of the most forgotten places in the world. Please pray for him – he continues to bless the campus, and wants to be a blessing to many others for the course of his life.

Trusting God…and speaking to trustees

There are times where I meet students and I naturally gravitate to them.  Ryan was certainly one of them.

Ryan transferred to Northwestern when he was a sophomore and we met early on.  He’s of good Wisconsin stock, so we hit it off right away.  But as we talked, I saw a tremendously gifted young man who was going 10,000 directions all at once.  We sat down one day, and put all of the things he wanted to do on post-it notes on a table at the student union.  We filled the entire table.

Ryan and I walked around by the lake at Northwestern in the spring that sophomore year, and he was desperate.  He wanted to integrate his passion for reaching the lost with his passion for restoring a broken world.  He was going to Uganda to serve among the poor in the summer, and was considering going to our annual summer mission program to China through InterVarsity’s Global Projects.  I asked him, “Why don’t you go to China, Ryan? God can do more than you can ask or imagine, and maybe there is something that God wants to do with you through both projects?”  Sure enough, God transformed Ryan that summer and integrated his care for the marginalized and the reaching the lost.

Next year, around the same time, Ryan and I were walking around the lake again when he was considering the prestigious position of Global Engagement Summit Director as well as serving on InterVarsity’s executive leadership team.  He was weighing the options, and I let him know my bias on how I would love to work with him and see him flourish under my direction.  But I gave that up, and said I wanted to do what was best for him, even if that was not serving on our leadership team.  Ryan decided to do both, and the dividends have paid off tremendously.

Ryan recently spoke in front of the Board of Trustees detailing how Northwestern University could become the leading university in global engagement programs.  He brought the president’s wife to tears sharing the vision for what Northwestern could do for the world.  Ryan has grown so much from the scattered sophomore into a mature leader he is today, and every time I walk around the lake with a student I’m reminded of the holy ground it can be.