Saturday, August 9, 2008

Growing as a Leader - Day Two!

Day number two at the Leadership Summit was yet another homerun! These past two days challenged my socks off and have given me much to think about and process in the weeks to come as both a Christ follower and leader within a local church. Here is how each day 2 speaker impacted me.

Craig Groeschel: How Leaders Can Get IT and Keep IT
Friday morning started off with a bang. Craig spoke on how we can all tell when a ministry just has "IT" going on. From the moment you step onto a church campus, an individual can tell if God's up to something amongst those people because of real life transformation. He stated that from his observations, there are four qualities present when a church has "IT" going on. The four qualities are:
1) The leaders/church is very focused. They know where they are going and what God has called them to.
2) They see opportunities where others see obstacles.
3) They are willing to fail.
4) Churches that have "IT" have leaders who have "IT"

This is one of those talks I will reflect on for a while as I long to spend a lifetime with other Christ followers who have "IT".

Chuck Colson: Defending the Faith
I have always enjoyed Chuck Colson and his writings. He is a deep and passionate Christ follower who always stimulates my thinking through his writings and talks. He raised a powerful question that gave me pause and will continue to give me pause for quite some time. He asked if we in the western church are in captivity to our culture like Israel found herself in captivity to foreign nations in OT times. When PEW researching shows that 57% of those who call themselves "evangelical Christians" believe that there is more than one way to God than just Christ, it sure makes one think we have entered some sort of spiritual captivity that we need to be set free from. As always, Chuck gave me much to think about in our cause to stand firm and defend the faith.

Catherine Rohr: Risk Taking, Barrier Breaking, Bold Leadership
All I can say about this interview is WOW!!! Catherine is the founder of PEP (Prisoner Entrepreneurship Program) that goes into the Texas prison system to equip inmates to productively enter society with a Christian value base. Her passion, tenacity and sold out commitment to yield her life to Christ's call on her was incredible. To hear the real life testimonies of ex-cons was very moving as this young lady is making a tangible difference for Christ in a place where many of us write people off. This session was the surprise of the conference for me. It was good!

Brad Anderson: An Uncompromising Focus on People
Brad is the CEO of Best Buy. His interview was very interesting as he seemed very uncomfortable with the interview and seemed to hold his cards very close to his chest. But, the one thing that did shine through was his commitment to lead the 150,000 people in his organization by genuinely caring for them and empowering them to serve. He appears to be a true servant leader in a very secular business environment.

Bill Hybels: Relentless
The conference finished off with a wonderful challenge by Bill based upon the life of Mother Teresa. The heart of this challenge was to be a people who look to God and say "I give you carte blanche (blank sheet) surrender of my life" and then to relentlessly pursue that which He calls us to. One of my favorite comments from the talk was to take a risk and pray "God help me to love you like you've never been loved before". Wow!!! Wouldn't that change our worship on a Sunday morning.

All in all - Fantastic 2 day conference that has equipped, motivated and challenged me to live life hard for Christ with a relentless pursuit for Him so as to reflect His glory and His kingdom to a lost and dying world. GOOD STUFF!

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