Personal Narrative: My Summer Missionaries

For the past four summers I have been the lead Summer Missionary at the Calhoun Baptist Association. The Summer Missionaries are high school and college students that spend most of thier summer helping local churches with Bible School. We plan and lead the entire Bible school for small churches that have never had one before and we just come along side and help those who just need a few more workers. Most weeks we would lead two schools one in the morning and one at night. Thorugh this role, I can see how I have grown in emotional intelligence. I also see now looking back, how I could have shown or practiced it better and been a better leader.
Since the first summer of being the leader to this past summer my self- awareness has changed drastically. …show more content…
Even though, I would still consider this the area that I need to continue to work on it. This past summer looking back this is what I struggled with most. My team was smaller than usual and unlike the summer before half of the team was new to summer missions. I found that I was good at adapting my communication style depending on the person. I knew that Michael did not need me to tell him how every step needed to be performed because he was a returning missionary, but Ashley and Jessie need lots more guidance. As the summer went on to, my communication changed as they became more comfortable and familiar with the Bible School curriculum I could simply tell the three of them what they would be teaching and they would divide it out and plan lessons without me being there every step of the way. Unfortunately, I failed at reading their emotions correctly and relating to them at times. Two of the team members did not get along; they were just conflicting personalities. I tried to solve it using a hands off approach where I would listen to what each of them had to say try to help them better understand both sides, but I never put my self in their shoes and try to understand what they were truling …show more content…
I would go to churches focused on the task at hand of leading some aspect of their Bible School. I did not seek to make relationships with others and because of that I was not able to influence those people. I was great at inspiring, because I could smile and follow directions. I think each summer I picked up another skill off the what social management looks like. I began to be more confident in myself and my team. I began to find out more information about each church to know how to make the situation better. I learned that forming a relationship first and then trying to change was much better approach to being a catalyst for change. This past summer, one church’s Bible school was very disorganized and the Bible school director was not utilizing all of her people. I talked with him on the first day offering to help show him how he could better organize and use everyone more effectively and he immediately shut me down. The second day I came in and talked with everyone in the church getting to know them and thier stories. Through that I learned that the church for the first time in years was having children attend on a regular basis. I learned that the Director had little support from the church and what little help he had was unwilling to change, because they had no guarantee that it would work. We continued to serve and get to know the church members and by the end of