Our staff is attending the Willow Creek Leadership Summit again this year, this time at the satellite location in Norcross, GA. I have been more excited about this year’s Summit than the last two. This is probably the 4th or 5th one that I’ve attended.
As usual, Bill Hybels set the tempo with fantanstic talk on the process of making decisions as leaders, called “The High Drama of Decision Making.” Hybels rarely misses in this venue and my guess is that most of the narrow minded people who’ve consistently criticized him over the years have failed to actually listen to the man share his passion. There is no way that a person with a focused mind and open ears can hear Bill Hybels speak and not be moved by his passion for the lost, for the glory of God and for the local church.
Hybels outline began with the “4 Usual Questions” which are: 1. What does the Bible say? 2. What have others leaders said? 3. Go to your own PG&E Vault (the Pain of past decisions, the Gain of past decisions, the Experiences of past decisions) 4. Is there a prompting of the Holy Spirit in the decision?
The rest of the talk was a portion of Hybels’ new book, <i>Axioms</i>, a collection of his own leadership wisdom. One that was most important, especially for pastoral teams is “Promote a clash of ideas.” Do <b>not</b> try to reach a consensus as quick as you can. The best ideas happen when lots of ideas have been discussed.
Hybels also spoke of the study done at Willow Creek that resulted in some massive changes in structure and programming. This <i>Reveal</i> study cause much accusation and celebration from Willow Creek’s detractors last year when released as it showed that not as much spiritual growth had taken place at Willow as the leadership team had wanted. <i>Reveal</i> helped them to reformulate and redefine what needed to happen to actually get spiritual growth to another level. We are going to use a form of it at New Bethany sometime in the next 6 months. I’m persuaded that the reason more churches don’t do a similar evaluation is the fragile ego of the Lead Pastor could not take it.
The second speaker yesterday was Gary Haugen of the International Justice Mission, an organization that exists to bring the goodness of God to those who are in some form of enslavement in our world today, an estimated 27 million people. I was absolutely shaken to the core by the video footage of forced child prostitution in Asia yet moved to the core with the footage of them being released, some 24 from one dungeon. To hear of one 16 year old Indian girl who was led to another city on false pretenses only to be drugged and forced into prostitution where she was raped 20-30 times a day, 7 days a week for her entire imprisonment was almost more than I could stand. I was ready to pack a suitcase, some brass knuckles and firearms and volunteer for a mission trip.
Haugen’s definition of <i>injustice</i> is revealing: the abuse of power to take from people the good things that God has given to them. When viewed in that light, it is no wonder that God was so consistently stirred up about injustice in Israel. If we don’t take victims of that abuse the living example of the goodness of God, are they really going to see it through the Red Cross or the Red Crescent. Haugen’s first point, Leadership that matters to God is leadership in areas that matter to God, should be enough to get the people of God involved in justice issues. I can’t wait to encourage out budget team to transfer some budget funds to support IJM.
More updates later.
