One of my highlights from December and probably all of 2008 was a meeting that I helped facilitate a few weeks back between many on my Epic HR team and from Epic at large with Dr. John Townsend.

The broader campus ministry of which I’m a part established a partnership with Dr. Townsend and his partner Dr. Henry Cloud. They’ve written many a book – you might have come across them. I’ve been leading a working group for the past few months to explore and reframe some of their material so that it stays true to a Biblical paradigm of growth and maturity, but also resonates better culturally – eliminating any unnecessary cultural stumbling blocks that may hinder students and staff from thinking more holistically about who they are and what God is doing in their lives.

This has been a very challenging journey, but one of the most motivating challenges in Epic thus far for me and those who have their sleeves rolled up with me on this.

Our meeting was really awesome and I appreciated Townsend’s leadership and humility. It’s so nice when you get in a more intimate setting with a big time leader, but he doesn’t act big time. He asked questions when he needed to, but was very comfortable with his cross-cultural limitations regarding the question of how people of other ethnic groups experience his material and content. I think I was most encouraged by how energized he was in recognizing the depth of the need for what we’re trying to do in the Asian American community and how by the end he was using “we” language as we tried to determine our next steps.

We’ll see where this relationship and partnership goes, but what a great highlight for Epic in 2008 as a whole as well as for me personally.

The picture I snapped on my phone real quick above is Townsend sporting an Epic Movement t-shirt that was part of our gift of appreciation to him.