Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1) Abstract
As of Spring 2016 (Official Date TBA), I will be placed as a Young Life Leader at a school
within the South East Cincinnati section. This placement serves multiple purposes, as my
designation involves my direct involvement within a specified high school. Being a Young
Life Leader entails sharing my faith and beliefs with high school kids, cultivating their
growth and maturity through the distribution of wisdom acquired by experience and age,
building legitimate relationships with students, staff, and parents, and integrating myself as a
recognizable part of an already established community. This is accomplished through
Clubs (A weekly organized event that provides a fun and attractive experience to get to
know high school kids through), Campaigners (Another weekly organized event in which a
leader gives a teaching he/she has prepared based on scripture and student need), as well as
simply hanging out with students throughout the week at school club/sporting events and
otherwise.
This experience is personally meaningful to me due to my prior involvement as a student in
Young Life at Glen Este High School. My Young Life leader helped me to grow drastically in
terms of maturity, identity, and direction by providing advice based on his own experiences,
sharing the gospel with me, and being my friend. I wouldnt be the person I am now without
his involvement and the incredible program that Young Life is, and there is nothing I would
love to do more than help other kids in the way that he helped me.
I have many goals for my experience as a Young Life Leader, but if I were to break them
down logically in an achievable manner
1. To create three close relationships with students I do not already know and document the
Shawn Kuhn
(513)-284-1120
secyounglife@gmail.com
I have chosen Shawn Kuhn as my experience advisor because he is the leader of the entire
South East Cincinnati section of Young Life, and his many years of experience leading both
his own specific high school and the entirety of the South East Cincinnati section qualify
him as a wealthy resource of wisdom and knowledge. I believe he will be able to both guide
and direct me in terms of leading throughout the experience and reflection over my
experience as a whole.
I plan to meet with Shawn Kuhn every Sunday after my training for Young Life leadership
where I will discuss with him the necessary qualifications and basic requirements of leading
in preparation for the experience. Once placed I will meet with Shawn every Friday at Area
Leadership meetings in which I will discuss with him the aspects of leading at the particular
high school in which I am placed and direct means of community involvement.
articulate the purpose of service on a social issue or public policy and how service
mutually enhances individual growth and the common good. I alluded to this learning
outcome in the prior Abstract section, in which I specified one of my goals To create
three close relationships with students I do not already know and document the
growth of each friendship through my experience leading them. By creating those
friendships and documenting their growth, I am illustrating the effect of social work
(the sharing of my faith, wisdom, and friendship) on both the individuals I am
becoming close to as well as myself. This will accomplish the learning outcome by
showing how improving the common good or welfare of a people can positively
impact ones individual growth leading to larger impacts of the individual on the
common good. A positive feedback loop, if you will, created through service.
B) The second learning outcome that I will work toward achieving through my
experience is to explain how education, advocacy, mobilization, or public policy can
influence social issues and transform communities. I intend to document and reflect
on my experience becoming a part of the high school community, and how my
leadership (along with my co-leaders) impacts the development of the school. It is my
personal belief that by helping to shape the identity and values of several individuals
within a community, one can ultimately transform that community into a greater (or I
suppose, possibly worse, but working towards greater) environment.
C) The third learning outcome that I plan to work towards through my experience
leading is to motivate and collaborate effectively with others towards the completion
of shared projects or goals. A Young Life leader is not alone in leading at a high
school, each one has several Co Leaders in which they share the responsibility of
impacting and affecting student lives. I intend to learn skills that relate to leading next
to others in order to most effectively reach as much of the community as possible.
This is essential, because without the necessary development of those skills it is easy
for the structure of the experience to fall apart due to internal strife and disagreement
amongst the leaders. In order for the experience to progress, the team must get a long
and realize where each members talents are best applied.
The first academic resource that I will use in order to achieve my learning outcomes is a
book written by a very well-known individual in Christian apologetics. My outcomes
deal heavily with the influence of my service in terms of the approached and emphasized
social issue regarding an individuals faith and beliefs. The book Mere Christianity
explores many aspects regarding the defense of Christian belief in a logical manner. I
believe the ability to defend my belief in regard to the social work is essential; it will be
difficult to have any impact at all if a high school kid is unable to be convinced of the
truth in my beliefs due to my inability to defend them.
B) James M. Kouzes/Barry Z. Posner, The Truth About Leadership
The second academic resource I will refer to is The Truth About Leadership, a book
that details research indicating core principles regarding effective leadership such as trust,
credibility, and ethics. Understanding what plays a significant role in effective leadership
is essential to achieving my learning outcomes, which cannot be achieved without growth
and analysis of ability to lead. The book will provide a basis on which I can scale strong
or weak attributes I possess in terms of leadership and how I can improve on that.
5) On-going Reflection
Throughout my experience as a Young Life Leader I plan on keeping a journal, and providing
detailed descriptions of meaningful day to day progress in terms of relationships, community,
and leading. This will help me to reflect because I will be able to look through previous
attempts at leading and identify error or room for improvement.
7) Budget
Big Fun Event: Organizing a big, fun event such as a meeting at Scallywag Laser Tag to
connect and build relationships with high school kids entails a cost of $140 to play ($20
dollars per person, six students and myself) as well as $30 for pizza in order to build an
opportunity to talk to and get to know those I am playing laser tag with.
Total Cost: ~$170.