We talk a lot about wonder on this website. The name of the website is even Discerning Wonder. It’s hard to talk about wonder without thinking about children. Children, especially young children, seem to naturally live in world filled with wonder. Maybe that’s partially why Jesus said “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

Children clearly have a special place in the kingdom, and in many ways we can learn a lot from them. Children’s ministry plays an important role in churches and ministry in general. I know that not everyone agrees with that, and there are a lot of different perspectives on how children and children’s ministry should be done in churches. This month’s book review comes from an older book, but one that I believe has valuable information for the church, ministry leaders, and parents still today.

The book, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions, was originally written by George Barna in 2003. It was based on research from the Barna Group. Through various studies and research, Barna shares that generally by the age of 13 our spiritual identity is already in place. While children are growing and developing by leaps and bounds through about age 9. After 13, most of their foundations and worldview are in place, and it becomes very difficult to change it later in life. He states that “If you want to shape a person’s life—whether you are most concerned about his or her moral, spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional or economic development—it is during these crucial eight years that lifelong habits, values, beliefs and attitudes are formed.”

Barna doesn’t just rely on research, but also dives into Scripture to examine biblical examples of how much children matter to God. Reminding readers through Scripture that children are a gift from God, that they need to be taught how to think and act in God’s ways, that they are valuable to God and He desires a relationship with them, and more, he lays a foundation for the importance of teaching children. He sums up these reminders saying, “Jesus’ teaching in the opening verses of Matthew 18 suggests that if we, as parents and counselors to the young, lose our interest in and sensitivity to children, we have shirked one of the most important duties given by God to humankind.”

He laments the lack of priority that so many parents, church leaders, and church members place on training children. Barna says that, “I have been discouraged to discover that most American adults—including most parents—see spiritual development of children as a value-added proposition rather than the single most-important aspect of children’s development.” He does not leave things in this discouraging place though. He gives examples of ways to begin teaching children a biblical worldview and train them to be spiritual champions. He encourages readers reminding them that “If you want to have a lasting influence upon the world, you must invest in people’s lives; and if you want to maximize that investment, then you must invest in those people while they are young.”

Teaching children about Jesus, introducing them to Him and how He wants them to live is important not just for parents, not just for children’s ministry leaders, but for the church as a whole. God’s direction to teach his commands to the next generations in Deuteronomy weren’t given just to the parents, though they play a primary role in the task, but they were given to the whole community of Israel. Likewise, as believers we all bear responsibility for teaching the next generations. This can come in many forms, but we all need to appreciate and embrace the importance of training our children to be spiritual champions, and this book is a helpful tool to do just that.

Last week, I shared a little about what I learned about my Working Geniuses and some of the insights that I got from learning about this model and taking the assessment. This week, I want to talk a little more about how the Working Genius model can be helpful personally.

Understanding the Working Genius model and in particular understanding your own Working Geniuses helps you understand yourself better. While we never want to become self-focused, being self-aware is very important. When we are aware of what makes us tick and tendencies that we have, it equips us to interact better with others, be better friends, family members, co-workers, leaders and Christ followers.

While there are many ways that understanding the 6 Types of Working Genius can help you, there are two in particular that I want to mention today. First, it can help you better understand what fuels or energizes you when it comes to work and what aspects of work make you feel burnt out. Often we think burn out comes from working too much and the response to avoid it is to just cut back on work. Sometimes that helps, but sometimes it doesn’t if you’ve ever found yourself wondering why that is, the Working Genius model can help. It isn’t so much about how much work you are doing, but what kind of work you are doing. The more work you are able to do in your areas of genius the more energized you will feel and less likely to burn out. If you are having to spend a lot of time in your areas of frustration, then you are much more likely to begin experiencing burn out. Even if you are having to spend a great deal of time in your areas of competency, you can begin to experience burn out and frustration. Understanding your Working Geniuses and exploring ways to minimize your frustrations and maximize your geniuses can be immensely helpful in the energy you have not just for work, but life.

With that said, let me give a bit of a disclaimer: all of us have to do things in our areas of competency and frustration at times. Whether it is at work, in our families, or just day to day life, there will be things that we need to accomplish that don’t fall into our geniuses, but understanding this model helps us understand why certain things are more draining and difficult for us than others. Just understanding this can give us some relief and compassion for ourselves and others. It is so easy for us to feel guilty or be harsh with ourselves because what seems so easy for others around us just isn’t easy for us. Maybe you see others coming up with great ideas and you just don’t understand why you can’t. Maybe you feel like you should be better at follow through and finishing tasks and have felt at times that something must be wrong with you because you just can’t seem to pull it together. This is the second helpful aspect of understanding the Working Genius model that I wanted to mention today. Understanding ourselves in this way helps to eliminate some unnecessary guilt over things we just aren’t great about and understand that we have geniuses in other areas. It can even help us to be less judgmental and more compassionate with others as well.

Some of this comes from the fact that the Working Genius model gives you a language to be able to communicate these ideas and feelings that you may never have been able to clearly put words around. While knowing that something is a working frustration doesn’t give you an excuse to just stop doing those types of things, it does give you the understanding and words to begin to talk with family members, co-workers, and leaders to help them understand why you struggle in those areas and what areas in which you are likely to be more successful. Having conversations about these things opens the door to begin to explore ways to spend more time in your areas of genius and less in frustrations and competencies which can be beneficial for you and those around you.

​Please understand that I am just barely scratching the surface of the Working Genius model in these articles and there is so much more to it and so many more benefits that you can experience as you understand it better. As always, if you want to learn more about it you can check out the book, The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni or the Working Genius podcast. I would also love to help walk you through the process of taking the assessment and understanding more about the model and what it means for you specifically. If you would like to know more about the Working Genius model or have me work with you as a Working Genius Facilitator, please reach out to me on the Contact page of this website.

Last week, I reviewed the book, The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team, by Patrick Lencioni. During the next three Mondays, I want to talk a little more about the significance of this great model for understanding ourselves, the teams we work on, and how we accomplish work.

In the book review, I mentioned that when I took the assessment I discovered that my Working Geniuses were Discernment and Wonder and I briefly mentioned that this was part of the reason for the name of this website. On the home page of the website, you can see an article that explains the main reason for the name and I encourage you to check it out if you haven’t already, but I also want to explain a little about how The 6 Types of Working Genius Model shaped this as well.

When I learned about the Working Genius model, I had a pretty good idea of what my geniuses would be and taking the assessment confirmed it. Just in case you didn’t read the Book Review and aren’t familiar with the Working Genius model, the six types of Work include: wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing, enablement, and tenacity. The Discernment aspect was not really a big surprise for me. I love brainstorming and working with others or even at times by myself to think about various ideas and make them better. Sometimes I do this even when it’s not really helpful or asked for. I’ve been known to be in grocery lines or hospitals with family and friends and start going off on how I think they could be doing things better. At times I’ve been told by whoever I happen to be talking to that I should “Go ahead and go tell someone who works there and not them.” The emphasis definitely being on “not them.” I’m rarely bold enough to take that suggestion and offer the unsolicited advise to someone other than the person I happen to be with. That’s probably due to a number things. One might be because Discernment is a responsive genius and not a disruptive genius. A bigger reason is probably because Galvanizing is one of my Working Frustrations and going up to someone in a business or organization out of nowhere with a suggestion does not give me joy. If I’m asked for my input, however, it does generally energize me.

My other Working Genius was Wonder. Like many people with this genius, I knew this sounded a lot like me, but I’d certainly never really thought of it as a strength, let alone a genius. In fact, my wonder seemed more like something that just annoyed people and even got me in trouble at times. The  Genius of Wonder involves asking a lot of questions. Why are we doing this? Why don’t we do that? Would it be better if we tried this? Why couldn’t we…? What do you think is causing this? You get the idea. I’d never really considered that Wonder is the first part of the process of work. There wouldn’t be ideas or processes or products to discern and implement if someone doesn’t first wonder about why something is the way it is and what might be done about it. Like every Working Genius there are appropriate and not-so-appropriate times for this genius and sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of that.

So when I started brainstorming different names for this website, and was thinking about the importance of us recapturing wonder it reminded me of the Working Genius model. The wonder that we talk about recapturing throughout this website isn’t exactly the same as the Working Genius of wonder. We’re talking more about being open to seeing the amazing things that God is doing and has placed around you. You don’t have to have the Working Genius of wonder to be able to remember how to recapture the wonder that children so naturally have. For me, understanding my Working Geniuses helped me take some steps to recapturing that wonder because I understood myself better and had more grace for myself and others.

So while Discerning Wonder has some deeper meanings, it’s also a bit of a play on words from my Working Geniuses. Understanding this model has helped me. If you would like to learn more or would like to see if it can help you or your team identify your sweet spots in the process of work and possibly have more understanding and grace for yourselves and each other, please use the contact page to reach out to me. I’d love to talk with you more about this great model.