and I only want to help."
From Paladin:
I was looking at Ichabod today and KW Steffen jumped off the page to me from a few weeks ago. Kerwin Steffen is a member (long standing) of the Chapel in Madison and is a key player in its identity change. He was one of the groomed ones who has become a key groomer in the Pietistic movement that has swept the Chapel. He was council president for years, and maybe still is.
It took a while to see it, but it came to fruition.
KW facilitated the changes - the typical ABC - things that must change, things that can't change, things that don't matter etc.
The cottage meetings were simply the best. Various point women and men got a list of Chapel names and would visit them and do a Bible Study verse or two at your house. This was done to be a way of opening up conversation and concerns about the new chapel building plan and eventual ministry changes. The new bigger, better chapel is only a shadow of itself, which at one point was a pretty good institution.
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Christ-like Leadership: Shepherd or Sheep Dog?
Longtime organizational consultant Kerwin Steffen has facilitated more than a dozen weekend Servant Leadership Retreats for UW-Madison students. In this fast-paced, interactive workshop designed especially for the rally, he will help you explore leadership from a fresh biblical perspective. You will take home new tools that can transform the way you lead—right now and for the rest of your life.
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Fascinated for most of his life with how people get results when they get together, Kerwin Steffen specializes in helping organizations and groups of all kinds to achieve breakthrough performance.
He has been writing, speaking, consulting, and presenting workshops on organizational effectiveness, leadership development, and personal mastery for more than twenty-five years.
Kerwin has served as a teacher, a broadcaster, a professional musician, a member of the top-management team of a regional hospital and clinic and, for more than a decade, as a professional consultant.
In 1994, he established his own firm, K W Steffen Associates. The Spirit Edge™Team Technology, the team building system he developed, has helped groups in the U.S. and abroad to effectively manage and enhance their Shared Spirit Systems and lay an enduring foundation for breakthrough results.
Kerwin has provided performance consulting and facilitated learning for a broad cross-section of businesses, nonprofits, and community-based groups—from organizations involved in global manufacturing, financial services, health care, tourism, and downtown development to others dedicated to secondary and post-secondary education, animal welfare, wildlife management, civic journalism, volunteer service, race relations, and ministry to college students.
He has also designed and facilitated wide-ranging public participation processes for civic groups in large and small cities throughout the Midwest, as well as in post-Katrina New Orleans.
Leadership materials that he developed have been used by hundreds of organizations, including ITT Sheraton, Holiday Inn Worldwide, Aid Association for Lutherans (now Thrivent), AT&T School of Business, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Boise Cascade, Citicorp, CIBA Corporation, the U.S. Defense Contract Management Commission, Delco Electronics, Quill Corporation, Discover Card Services, Federal Express, and the Weather Channel.
Kerwin serves on the board of directors of the Bank of New Glarus and has served on the boards of not-for-profit organizations as well.
A sought-after public speaker, Kerwin calls on his years of management experience, his passion for high-performing groups, his insight into human dynamics, and his spirited musicianship to energize his audiences.
He and his wife, Marilee, have lived in New Glarus, Wisconsin, for more than forty-five years. They have two married children and two grandchildren.
K W Steffen Associates • PO Box 672 • New Glarus, WI 53574
Phone: 608-527-5896 • E-Mail: kws@kwsteffen.com
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GJ - I wrote to Paladin that Steffen's website is gone, vanished. I linked it only a short time ago. Photos from Google? Cannot find any.
Ichabod effect? Or is the growtivational speaker so short of cash that he cannot pay his GoDaddy.com renewal fee?
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rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Kerwin Steffen":
"Leadership materials that he developed have been used by hundreds of organizations, including.......
Delco Electronics......."
I worked almost 29 years for Delco Electronics. Now called Delphi, they filed for bankruptcy five years ago and are still in it. You got to love it when those business models are ported into the ministry.
What did the churches ever do before the non-stop parade of stewardship, evangelism and leadership workshops?
The correct answer is that they trusted that the Holy Spirit would work through the efficacious Word.
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GJ - There is an incestuous relationship between the Media Mavens like Jeske and the business motivational speakers. They speak the same psycho-babble New Age lingo and cannot get enough of it. They hold seminars where they tell each other and the audience that they will all be soaring into the stratosphere with the newest insights.
One of the most famous is a former Methodist minister who leaks puddles of snake oil wherever he goes. His voice oozes condescension. Fortunately I got to hear him for free, so the pain was less onerous.
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bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Kerwin Steffen":
I toured the Madison Chapel-Student Center. It cost the synod $4 million to build it in 2006. I assume the synod pays to run it. Here's a virtual tour:
http://www.wlchapel.org/about-us/virtual-tour/
With its underground parking garage under the chapel (see where the bollards are to keep your car from hitting the tower) and computerized video security system, it reminds me of the Bat Cave. Rev. Trapp would be Bat Man.
They promote church growth but they have an extravagant business model that most congregations can't afford. It's supposed to be missional and keep WELS students in the WELS, but it's real purpose may be to groom the next generation of WELS leaders into church growthism. After worshiping there, they'll want a big screen and projector in church.
By the way, the chapel is a surprisingly small part of the complex. It should be called the Wisconsin Lutheran Student Center with chapel annex. I'm sure it's easier to raise money by calling it Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel & Student Center, though.
When industry or the state do big projects, they always have to do an environmental impact study. I think the synod ought to do impact studies for its projects. For example, it should ask, "If the finite number of donors with their finite number of dollars is tapped to build and fund a student center in Madison, how much will the tuition rise at synodical schools compared to if we just buy a defunct church building and forget the student center?" Or, how much will the synod debt rise if we keep Mequon separate from MLC? Or not train our teachers at WLC, and our pastors back at Watertown?
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GJ - Doesn't Willow Creek run right past the front door? I heard the staff was swept away in the Willow Creek flood.
