Lead 1

These past few days as I have been attending a leadership summit hosted by willowcreek in Chicago, but satellite fed to a number of churches including ours, and have both learned a few new things and been reminded of things I already had known. For instance, one thing that I know too well from growing up in church (for the most part) is that no matter how much padding you have on the pews, they are never comfortable, put that together with the fact that airplanes and movie theaters both have more legroom and you will see one of the many reasons that churches are choosing other methods of seating.

Anyway, the conference on a whole has been a good experience if for no other reason than to see what some of the great leaders of our day think is important when it comes to leadership. One of the things that was tough for me to understand on the first day of the conference was that the conference was simply a leadership conference, not a “Christian leadership conference.” I think I was getting a bit of a mixed message about the purpose of the event as it was hosted by a church, in churches, had times of worship, prayers to Jesus, and most of the other indicators that it was a Christian event. But, there was very little mention of Jesus or the Holy Spirit being the most important ingredient in leadership, Christian or otherwise. Believe it or not, there was a day in our country’s history that almost all good leaders, leading Christian institutions or otherwise found Jesus to be the most important influence in their own lives and a model by which to lead others. That day seems to have gone away as most people in the non-Christian world view Jesus, and faith in Him, to be a crutch.

That aside, thursday’s sessions brought a mixed bag for me. The first session was taught by Bill Hybels, pastor of the Willow Creek church that hosted the event, who spent most of his time talking about the importance of having a vision for the future of your church or organization and how you develop and communicate that mission. This was a pretty good session as it taught some basic principals of getting you team or congregation to work in concert with you (or you with them) toward a common goal. There are two points that impressed themselves on me more than the rest.

• People don’t always have to get their way, but they do have to have their way considered.
  This is a great point as it echoes what I know to be true in my own life. I know that when I have an idea, I want the respect of others to consider it, not dismiss it and make me feel like my opinion doesn’t matter. The same goes for all people. People might not have the best ideas in the world, but the fact that they are trying to participate in the formulation of a vision means that they care for the mission and that as leaders we should not just treat them like we value their opinion, but really do value them and their input.
• Nothing matters more than the ownership of the vision.
  You can’t get people to go willingly (or at least enthusiastically) down a road toward a vision that could require compromise and sacrifice that they don’t care about. People must all share a healthy dose of passion for the mission, and that means that as a leader you must be passionate about your vision and not just live it privately, but to the inclusion of everyone around you, so that they might be just as passionate and willing to compromise or sacrifice for a vision that they now feel like they own.

The next session was a an interview with the ex-CEO of HP, Carly Fiorina. This one had some good points, but more than anything it was a good story about her rise and fall as one of the most successful women business. I think this one was, more than anything, a session for the women in attendance.

The third session was the one that confused me the most. It was hosted by the Rev Flake from a large church in Queens. He spoke pretty exclusively about community development, and the part that got me a little confused was that he seemed to measure his success as a pastor on how well he improved the value pf the community around his church. And although I agree that fixing poverty is an important thing to engage in as a church, I would argue that the more important thing that people need is Jesus. If a church decides to do any service in the community (which it should) it should be not only with the intent to raise the value of the community, but to seek opportunities to tell them about Jesus.

I might be a bit right of center on this (unapoageticly), but I believe that the main need of every soul, both rich and poor is the creator of the universe. Sometimes I get a little worried that the church, as a whole, sees fixing poverty and sickness as a fulfillment of the great commission. I feel like we, as a global church, are catching on to compassion, but are leaving it there walking away feeling good about ourselves because we have done something. It is almost as if the church feels like it is easier to quantify the change in a community (house values, literacy, infant mortality rates), than it is to measure the change in a soul, and because of that we feel like that’s where we should spend our time. Visible results. I would argue that if we really did have compassion and love for the poor and sick that we would share with them the only thing that can save their souls from hell. Yes, a bowl of soup, or a regiment of medicine is important to sustain the lives of people in a lowly position, but more important than that is that the God of the universe loves them. Yes, give them soup, but show them Jesus, and not just in an abstract “they will see Jesus in my kindness” kind of way, tell them about Him. Wouldn’t it be the worst tragedy of all to feed and clothe billions of people in the name of Jesus and never speak his name or share what He did only to fill stomaches and leave souls starving?

Anyway, the last session that we had on day one was pretty good as well. He was more of an inspirational speaker than anything else, but he did a good job; I felt inspired. His name was Marcus Buckingham, and he taught that we ought to identify ourselves and others by their strengths, not their weaknesses, and to continue to build on our strengths with more fervor than we try to build on our weaknesses.