SOUTH BARRINGTON, Ill. – This year’s Leadership Summit at Willow Creek Community Church has drawn over 6,000 to the Chicago-area megachurch and over 50,000 others around the world who have been watching the live broadcast of one of the world’s most premier leadership training events.
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(Photo: Christian Post)Thousands have gathered at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill. on Thursday, Aug. 7 for The Leadership Summit.
Some 60,000 people have registered for The Leadership Summit in hopes of spending two days to greatly improve as leaders. The summit, which kicked off Thursday, has been a self-investment opportunity for many leaders who are usually too tied up with serving others to make the time to regain vision and fine-tune their leading skills.
According to the Rev. Bill Hybels, Willow Creek’s founder and the senior pastor, leaders should take time invest in themselves in order to help their church.
“Everybody wins when you improve as a leader,” said Hybels on Thursday during the summit’s opening session, titled “The High Drama of Decision Making.”
“And sometimes the best way you can bless your church is to make investment in yourself,” he added.
The Willow Creek Association (WCA), host of the Leadership Summit, is a growing multi-denominational worldwide network of more than 12,000 churches from 90 denominations and 45 countries. Since 1992, the WCA has been working to link like-minded, action-oriented churches with each other and with strategic vision, training, and resource.
Its annual Leadership Summit, which has been held for the past 13 years, is being broadcast live to at least 117 locations across America and features a world-class line-up of guests and speakers, including Chuck Colson, chairman and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv; and Brad Anderson, vice-chairman and CEO of Best Buy.
This year’s summit was designed to hold total of nine sessions over the course of two days with topics ranging from "Leading in New Cultural Realities" and "How Leaders Can Get IT and Keep IT" to "Defending the Faith" and "Risk Taking, Barrier Breaking Bold Leadership."
In his opening session, Hybels, who recently released his new book, “Axiom,” emphasized the importance and effectiveness of axioms or proverbs and encouraged leaders to utilize them.
“Some leaders, not only have a framework, but they also learned how to condense … questions and wisdom of all their past decisions and compress them into sub-composed leadership proverbs, or sayings, or axioms that give them focused counsel, or ‘microwave wisdom,’ for their upcoming decision,” the megachurch pastor said.
Hybels challenged the attending leaders to compose their own axioms, which “[w]ould add so much to the efficiency and effectiveness and clarity of [their] decision making.”
On Friday, summit attendants are expected to hear again from Hybels as well as LifeChurch.tv pastor Craig Groeschel, evangelical leader Chuck Colson, and BestBuy CEO Brad Anderson. A one-on-one live interview with Catherine Rhor, CEO and founder of the nonprofit Prison Entrepreneurship Program, will also be featured as well as a Q&A session that will be hosted at the summit for the first time ever.
The event ends Friday at 5:30 p.m. CT.
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believer,
Heh! thanks. I appreciate the solid doctrinal positions you uphold on this board with such aplomb and patience.
And thanks for the prayer.
May God bless you and yours as you seek to honor and serve Him.
wb, we have to stop agreeing like this or no telling what people will begin to think, but you totally hit the nail on the head with your last post and I will pray for you and your family about this decision, be blessed as you continue to serve Him, believer
believer, I have to agree with you yet again. :)
The church, instead of making it easier for the pastor by stepping forward, and actually volunteering for stuff often have to be poked and prodded to participate in the least little bit. They often make demands and condemnations without praying first. Most have not picked up a Bible, let alone read it even once. And heaven forbid if they actually hear a sermon on tithing. The thing is, most people in church are not living their religion. Most people do not look to see what God would have them do, but make decisions that appear best for them. And granted, not everyone is called to ministry, but many more people are called to serve than actually step forward to help serve the church in any capacity. It makes me question their maturity, if not their salvation.
Of course, I think its because we have a poor understanding of growing disciples. Jesus took three years to start a church. He spent time preaching, yes. But mostly He lived with His disciples, sharing the Truth of God though life. I think we fail to grow a team of people who know how to grow a team of people. We need to invest time in relationships with God and those God brings to us. Then we can help them grow to become who God wants them to be. Then we can have them grow their own groups. But instead of growing leadership, we look outside the church. Instead of growing people who love God, we want to get a group together to pay for a pastor to build a building to say we have church.
This is why I like the idea of house churches. There is little choice but to be involved. The elders are often not paid, they are simply part of the family called church. They help each other out. People have to look for what needs to be done and do it, or nothing will get done.
I am praying about this for my own family. This, as well as a better understanding of the Holy Spirit and faith. Please pray for me.
wb, once again I agree, but unfortunately too many churches have a hard time supporting one Pastor, let alone two. I believe that all that is needed is for the congregation to be sensitive to the needs of their Pastor and his wife and family. But sometimes a Pastor can be his own worst enemy and that's where a caring congregation needs to firmly and lovingly make the Pastor take time alone to be with God as well as insist he take as I said earlier a real vacation at least once a year with his wife and family. I believe the Church has lost many a godly man as a result of him not taking proper care of both himself and his wife and family to include his and their spiritual, physical, and emotional well being.
believer,
That's why I find the idea of team ministrers to be so appealing. I think it follows the models of Jesus and Paul very well. Plus it allows us to have people around us to pray for us, to encourage us, to hold us accountable, and to give us relief so we avoid burnout.
So often the congregation wants to push and take advantage of pastors and their families, but do not want to provide time for them to be alone with God. Or pastors have a messiah complex and want to save everyone, believing no one else can do what needs to be done the right way. They forget it is GOD's church and they can rely upon HIM to fill the needs (if they are real needs and not just things we think we need but dont).
For me, it boils down to praying, trusting, and following the models and principles set forth in the word.
wb, I agree totally, but I think there are many who believe those in ministry must be on duty 24/7, where even burnout becomes a badge of courage. That is unfortunately a theme I see repeated over and over in the life of many in ministry to the point they are so worn out their no longer able to carry out the ministry God has called them to and become vulnerable to falling into sin because they are physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained.
believer,
I agree with you about pastors, and really everyone, needing time alone with God. I think it imperative. But it sounds like Hybels is preaching self-talk and personal motivation, tied up with a nice bowstring of secular leadership philosophy.
While we should educate ourselves, the BIble is the most important book we must lean. God, in the person of Jesus Christ, has invested in us. We should trust God, submit to Him, pray, and work out our salvation and give God cause to say 'well done, good and faithful servant', not self-talk ourselves into making decisions God would not have us make because the right people are around a table.
I think we need to be careful we don't throw out the baby with the bath water here. As a Pastor I knew it was imperative for me to get alone with God on a regular basis and that is why I committed every Thursday morning to a time alone with God in mainly prayer with some study. As a Director of Missions I try to encourage my Pastors to do the same thing. To be perfectly honest if Christ saw it as an important thing to get alone with His Father should we as Pastors not follow His example. Plus I believe a Pastor needs to take a true vacation with his family at least once a year. And I mean a total vacation, not necessarily expensive, but no sermon preparation, no phone calls, no heavy reading, but just fun and relaxation. Not only will these two things benefit the Pastor and his family personally they will also make him far more effective as a Pastor. The bottomline is this, it is a win-win situation for both the Pastor and his congregation and the community they serve.
I wonder if that many people would show up if the conference header was,"Give all your money and possessions away to the poor and Come follow me?"
Pastors do get worn out, when they try to do everything in their own strength. They need to deny themselves and take up their cross and preach the truth about Christ. Let the chips fall where they will.
Hybels is more and more preaching the world and not the word of God.
While the Gospel is about emptying and self-sacrifice, to give out God's love, you must first open your heart to receive the Love that God's already given. I've seen too many ministers "run dry" because they're so focused on their works and on serving that they forget to take hold of the very things that God is giving to them. While I don't agree with "prosperity" preaching's reversed emphasis, it is true that God gives and that He wants us to receive.
More than what I've done for God, the Lord wants us to think about what He's done for us.
One step forward and three steps back
"It takes honest leadership to admit you were wrong, as in the case of willow Creek, a church that has been a seeker friendly model of ministry to many. But are we seeing steps of change in the right direction?
After an admission they were wrong and made a mistake Hawkins states â
Janten is correct.
Bill Hybels is teaching a great truth. Too often spiritual leaders don't take time for their personal growth and relaxation. They need personal time with the Lord too.
Pastors have this tendency to get so wrapped up in helping others that they forget to invest time in their own personal growth (in fact most people do). God wants us to spend some time alone with him. To invest in ourselves means to put effort into making us more effective/efficient, so we can better sever Godâ