A Legacy of Significance

I miss my friend Kennan Burch. He was taken way too soon by cancer on September 1, 2024.

In 1997 I went through Lifework Leadership Orlando (Back then it was the Greater Orlando Leadership Foundation) and it changed my life. The most impactful part of it has been the people I've met both in my class and those I've connected with over the years that followed. Perhaps the most consequential of those relationships was Kennan Burch .

Kennan and I didn't go through the class together, but we were introduced to each other through Steven French (another great friend I met on this journey). Steve was the executive director of Lifework Leadership at the time and wanted to enhance the member experience at graduation, bringing more attention to the work Lifework Alumni were doing to transform the community. He tasked Kennan and I to develop some ideas for the graduation event.

We were a great team and brought complimentary skill sets to the table. Kennan was in charge of branding at Red Lobster and I was a partner with Consensus Communications, a public relations firm. Our work resulted in a new format for the dinner and a couple of awards that are still part of the program nearly 20 years later.

Kennan and I would reconnect in 2007 when he hosted men from throughout Central Florida to introduce a concept he had developed with a small group of men called Dream Builders...a movement inspired by his deeply held belief that "The glory of God is man fully alive." He believed that we become fully alive when we accept the “Waterfall of God’s Grace" and pursue the dreams he has planned for our lives, using our unique gifts to love and serve others.

Through Dream Builders, people worldwide have been blessed by the dreams launched and supported by a community of faith, collaboration, divine intervention, and unwavering encouragement.

Kennan's relationship with God was at the core of everything he did. He often expressed this relationship through his writing, including a deeply personal poem in which he reimagined his role in life.

"I used to believe that I was the performer and God was my audience, and I longed for him to say, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant.' But I realized that I am not the performer; God is. I am His audience, invited to His concert of life, where His all-consuming music touches every part of me and the world around me. My purpose is not to create the music but to listen, to be moved by it, and to encourage others to hear the music of the Master Artist. When I lay down my own instrument and listen, I find music so consistent, beautiful, vast, intricate, and freely given that it reflects the boundless love and intelligence of the Artist. 

The greatest joy is found when I become an instrument in His hands, allowing Him to play His music through me."

Kennan's life was a living embodiment of this belief. He was not merely a man who lived well but one who inspired others to live fully alive, to find meaning and purpose in the music of life, and to become instruments of God's love in a world that so desperately needs it.

A couple of days before he died, Kim and I went to see Kennan and his family. He was in good spirits and I took him a copy of my new book (A dream that was part of my Dream Builder journey since 2007). We shared a few stories and prayed together.

He was someone who truly changed the world...with every engagement he had with others and the inspiration he provided to so many, Kennan lived with an intentionality to inspire people to find the dream for which they were created to fulfill.

Kennan had a question he would often ask, which always causes me to pause and consider in my daily work and in deciding what to focus on.

“What promise did God make to the world when he created you?”

Everyone begins as a promise. I love that thought. It may take time to find it, but if you're not looking, you may miss it. I encourage you to lean into this question, wrestle with the idea and perhaps you'll find that higher calling for which you are intended to pursue.