NPH Miscellany

Last week NPH participated in a three-day retreat in which he was asked to take the Clifon Strengths Finder inventory. If you don't know (and we didn't before last week) the inventory is based in the theory of positive psychology, and it was taken up by the Gallup Organization and packaged as a book for churchgoers and leaders. Content-wise it's pretty thin, and the research methodology is somewhat suspect, since Gallup is so tight-lipped about how the inventories actually get scored. But we love things that tell us about ourselves, no? It's important to remember to take them with a grain of salt.

In any case, NPH was told that his "strengths" run in a number of themes: input (collecting stuff and information), harmony (getting people to agree), restoring (fixing problems), positivity (praising and encouraging), and including ("stretch-the-circle-wider"). The nub of positive psychology is that a person will function best when they're working in their strengths, rather than when they are trying to "fix" their deficiencies. It's a good insight. NPH is witholding judgment about its effective application.
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Tomorrow night NPH begins a Financial Peace University class at the church. We've put this off for nearly two years, and only now have decided to take the plunge and ask people to pay the $95 it takes to participate. Personally, we've believed in the worth of Dave Ramsey's financial counsel, but we've just been squeemish about pushing that on others. We just got to a point where we decided we couldn't justify doing nothing in the face of the financial wreckage in our community. Early returns are good, since nearly 20 people have signed up, nearly half of whom are from the community and not the church.