Public Safety Ministries Inc. » Law Enforcement Links

Sharing a Spiritual Fitness Message

Dan Carlson — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:38:49 +0000

Yesterday I had the opportunity to share a message about spiritual fitness with Minnesota law enforcement leaders. I’ve given this message for the past four years at the MN BCA “Enhanced Leadership in Law Enforcement” training program. I always come away from the event with mixed emotions. I am always pleased with the opportunity to share the message and express my feelings on the importance of spiritual fitness in law enforcement. But I always struggle with feelings of not presenting the message adequately. As my mentor, Captain Doug Menikheim, USN Ret., always says “You have 40 pounds of material and information you are trying to cram into a 10 pound bucket.” I have consistantly reduced the quantity of the message, but I still struggle to find the best “10 pounds” that applies to everyone in the class.

The training is hosted by the MN BCA, and conducted by the Center for Applied Leadership. The class has participants who are leaders in their organizations who have supervisory responsibilities or are aspiring to become supervisors. My goal is to create an awareness and provide some insights into the subject of spiritual fitness, and I get an hour and a half to do so. This year I came to the conclusion that I won’t be able to find that perfect “10 pounds”, but that I will always be throwing out a variety of ideas that everyone will receive differently. Again this year I was extremely pleased with the conversations shared after the class as well as some of the thoughts shared by participants during the class. Several people heard different parts of the message and applied the ideas to their personal situations. As always I learned a lot from hearing the experiences of cops on the job.

So once again this ministry brings me insight, success, learning experiences, frustrations, happiness, sadness…well, you get the picture. This ministry is like life, complicated but wonderful. Thanks participants, I always enjoy and appreciate the experience.

Take Care!

Planting Seeds

Dan Carlson — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 13:13:57 +0000

Last night I had the opportunity to share some thoughts and ideas with a group of law enforcement leaders. Normally when I refer to leaders people assume I am talking about supervisors and command level personnel. Being a retired chief and being the chaplain to a couple of chiefs associations, that is usually the case. However, last night I spoke to a group of line level leaders. People who are leaders in the profession, but lead from their positions of responsibility that put them on the streets of our communities. These are the patrol officers, detectives, investigators and sergeants that show up when you call for help. They are the heart and soul of the profession.

There is a trend in the profession to tap into and develop leadership at every level of the organization. When I was at Eden Prairie we put on a similar leadership development program. Last night I stood before 24 police officers from the Minnetonka Police Department, the Plymouth Police Department and the Maple Grove Police Department. If these people are the current and future leaders of our profession, we are in good hands.

Although I only had an hour with them, I feel I did get some seeds planted. I’ve given this talk half a dozen times now, and with the feedback I’ve received it is starting to shape up. It is tough to condense the concept of “Spiritual Fitness” into an hour when the topic has never really been discussed or presented before. I spend the majority of the time trying to define the concept of “Spiritual Fitness”. The second point I try and stress and explain is how the people drawn to careers in public safety have an extremely “Unique Spirit”. It is a spirit that is a critical characteristic of a high quality and effective police officer. My objective is to then explain the importance of the relationship between “Spiritual Fitness” and that “Unique Spirit”.

The comment I’ve heard most consistently after these presentations is “Okay, I get the idea, now how do I do it?” I’m happy people want more, but impatient with myself by not providing it. But hopefully through this website, people sharing the message and more time to focus now that I’m retired, progress will come quicker.

Thanks for last night folks, it was a great experience!

Wow! What a Week!

Dan Carlson — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 00:18:26 +0000

I thought that my final few weeks at the EPPD would be sitting back and winding down and relaxing. Not last week, it was anything but. You see we had an officer involved shooting. I can’t share any details since we are going though all of the necessary checks and balances, administrative reviews and incident investigations. But what I can say is that there were no significant injuries to our officers and that once again I couldn’t be prouder of the Eden Prairie Police Department and all of its members in how they handled this very serious situation. Enough said for now, it’s too soon to talk about the impacts of an event like this. But needless to say the fitness level of an organization and its members (physical, intellectual and emotional/spiritual ) has a huge impact on the outcome of these critical incidents.

Well, enough of why I didn’t post more this week. Here is where we are going next week. There were four articles in the Strib this week end that caught my eye, good platforms for spiritual fitness exercises. I’ll post some thoughts and ask a few questions throughout the week.

Saturday Faith and Values “Choosing My Religion“

Sunday Source “How old is your body?“

Sunday Twin Cities and Region “Coming home can be another struggle“

Sunday Business/Wall Street Journal “Advice I’ll Pass Along to My Daughter” (I couldn’t link to this one for some reason)