Sandy and I were given tickets to attend this year’s Leadership Summit, put on by the good folks at Willow Creek Community Church and the Willow Creek Association, and hosted in various locations around the world by either satellite or dvd.  I have been to several Summit experiences in the past, but my wife has never been able to go with me.  For the second year in a row, The Rock Church in our town of Sparks, NV, hosted the Summit.  Their senior pastor, Art Lenon, was kind enough to provide free tickets for us this year.  We were not planning on going, until he offered, for a couple of reasons:  

1. We couldn’t afford the ticket price (discounted to about $135.00 per person though our own church, which was offering the discount because we helped sponsor the event).  

2. It was mid-week (Thursday and Friday) which meant that Sandy, our steady breadwinner, would have to take off at least one day of work.  

3. I wasn’t really all that interested in the lineup, frankly.  I had been to Summits in the past where the “faculty” (as Willow likes to call them) were international experts, political powerhouses, celebrity/rockstar/hugelypopularreligiousicons who were intriguing, beguiling, or perplexing choices before I even heard what they had to say.  This year’s lineup was stunningly bland on the uptake.  I had not even heard of most of the featured speakers, except for Chuck Colson and Gary Haugen (most people hadn’t heard of Haugen, apparently).  And I thought I’d pretty much heard or read most of what those two might say.  

So…it was with some degree of skepticism and dread that I committed to spending two days cooped up in a church building, listening to the talking heads and pretending not to be impressed with “the show” (I always am, however…Willow knows how to put on the show like nobody else).  But because my wife had never been, and because we could actually go home for lunch, and because I love and respect Art Lenon and his staff at The Rock Church and didn’t want to reject their very generous and kind offer…I went.  

It was a really good decision.

Day One.  Got to the venue on time (barely), picked up our name tags and shiny four-color booklets and slipped into the (always too) dark theater seats in the auditorium.  We didn’t see anyone we knew (partly due to the darkness, and partly because we got there right when it was starting), so we sat alone.  There were about 250 people present, I’m told, and the venue holds about 850, so there were plenty of good seats.

The event began with a really great band and some incredible video/poetry/sound bytes (classic Willow…but even better than usual, I thought).  Very edgy, very multi-cultural, very LOUD.  I liked it even though I was prepared not to.  I don’t like the big show anymore, in general, but since this was all on a big screen (like sixty feet wide, I think), it was really quite entertaining and stimulating.

Bill Hybels opened up the gig with a pretty succinct message on decision making.  I didn’t take notes much, so I’ll spare you the details, but I remember thinking, “This is pretty good stuff”, like I was expecting something lame from Bill (my head was not in the right place…nor my heart).  He pitched his new book, of course (Axiom), but not too obnoxiously…and I think I might actually like to read it.  One axiom I will hold onto for a while:  ”Vision leaks.”  You have to re-vision your team regularly.  It’s not their fault.  It’s not your fault.  Vision just leaks.  I don’t always agree with Bill’s view of leadership but I really respect him and the fact that he has changed and grown over the past 32 years (a length of ministry experience that would become a running jab at “grandpa Hybels” throughout the Summit).  Plus, he’s a fellow evangelist, so I share his heart and passion for connecting people to God.  I think he’s entering his most significant stage of ministry right now, personally.  

Bill was followed by Gary Haugen, the president/CEO and founder of International Justice Mission.  Now I have never met Gary, but I feel like I know him a little because one of my leadership mentors, Bob Lonac (pres/CEO of Crista Ministries) was Gary’s VP for several years.  And I read his first book (Good News About Justice).  So although he is a relative unknown in the Christian stratosphere, I knew he was capable of delivering the goods.  And boy did he.  Through video, pictures, and precision delivery of his message, Gary Haugen hit it out of the park.  I actually took notes.  He defined biblical injustice as “abuse of power”, when the good guys who are supposed to protect become the bad guys who abuse those they are supposed to protect.  This is why God is so HUGE on justice.  His main address revolved around the axiom, “Lead in the things that matter to God”, and he described three things that might keep us from doing so:  It’s hopeles.  It’s scary.  It’s hard.  His segment on “it’s scary” included his assertion that “Jesus did not come to make us safe.  He came to make us brave.”  I’ll write more on that later, but it jarred loose some really important thoughts in me regarding Doable Evangelism (where we have a club called, “Cowards For Jesus”).  His concluding thought was a question:  ”Why have WE been given so much?  What’s it all for?”  The answer:  ”To demonstrate the goodness of God the the nations.”  

Bill George, author of “True North” and “Authentic Leadership” (and a professor at the Harvard Business School and former CEO of MEDTRONIC) was up next.  He seemed brilliant and very much like a professor.  Talked too fast and too much, but most people who spoke after him quoted him a lot, so I guess he must have had an impact that I didn’t quite connect with.  

Wendy Kopp, CEO and founder of TEACH FOR AMERICA got interviewed next by Hybels.  Fantastic program and story that I had never heard (although we know a friend of our daughter who is in their two-year program right now).  Their mission:  To eliminate educational inequity in America by enlisting the most promising future leaders in the effort.  Not just future teachers, mind you…future LEADERS.  To teach in the most devastated urban classrooms in the country.  For TWO YEARS. And they really do make a difference in the lives of kids in two years.  Raising grades and test scores, motivating kids to achieve more and to go to college.  The statistics she shared were nearly unbelievable in this regard.  But the coolest thing to me was the bigger vision:  Get future leaders to connect with a solvable problem for two years and then when they become the legislators, lawyers, moves and shakers of this country down the road they will have personal confidence that something CAN be done to resolve this educational disaster.  That’s amazing vision and a brilliant plan, in my book.  Be sure to check out Wendy’s story online (where you can find ALL the information about this particular Summit and ALL the speakers) at:

www.willowcreek.com/SummitNextSteps

John Burke, lead pastor (that’s such a trendy and dumb title) for Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas, was up next.  He’s a former Willow Creek pastor who launched this huge church in Austin that has, as one of it’s taglines, “No perfect people allowed.”  I like that, and apparently a lot of people in Austin do, too.  I don’t remember anything he talked about, and he seemed more nervous than a guy of his stature should have been, but I really liked his jeans and I remember he was kind of funny.  

The day closed with a huge and delightful surprise:  Efrem Smith, senior pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, MN.  I first heard of this church from Dan Kimball, who actually went to see it when we were in Minneapolis for the Conversational Evangelism Conference.  He said he was going to go check out a “hip-hop church” he’d heard of there in Minneapolis, and I remember thinking, “Yeah..well, that should be really interesting.  Good luck with that.  Have fun.”  I wish I had gone with him, now.  Efrem told his own story of how he met Jesus, and how he saw a “sneak preview of heaven” one day while riding his bike (he was about ten, I think).  He heard music coming from a huge tent so he stopped to listen and watch.  He saw black preachers, white preachers, latino preachers and people of all color, gender and lifestyle worshipping God together in that tent.  He said that shaped his whole view of Christianity and what could be.  I won’t go through his whole message, but he was TOTALLY hilarious, completely disarming, passionately compelling and powerfully persuasive.  He made the long day worth the pain in my by then really sore butt, and actually sold me on returning for the next days endurance feat.  

Day Two.  More fantastic music, video, dance, poetry, and various other expressions of worship.  I was captured by the Spirit in several segments.  My heart was melting and being refreshed. I kept trying to think that this was manipulation, emotional and spiritual…but it was in fact the presence and power of God.  The speakers were a mix of really good and not so good, really young and really not so young.  Chuck Colson, the only “headliner” on the menu, really, seemed really, really old.  At one point he slipped into some tired rhetoric in the name of Jesus about gay marriage and other moral issues that were destroying our world (something like that, anyway), specifically mentioning California’s movement toward allowing gay marriage (and I swear I heard a small contingent of cheering people at the Willow site when he first mentioned this…cheering for gay marriage, not his comment about it).  I could have done without him, honestly, and I thought he may have actually embarrassed himself a little in his presentation.  I respect the man and his work, but I think it may be time he quit speaking publicly (he’s 74, apparently…he deserves to retire).  It was a little sad, frankly.

Highlights of day two included Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of Lifechurch.tv (twelve satellite locations and a web church).  His new book was the theme of his message, and I had seen it on the book table prior to hearing him so I was already thinking this was going to be lame.  The book title:  ”It.  How church leaders can get it and keep it.”  It just reminded me of the really old “I Found It” Campaign, so I had written him off before I got to hear him.  He rocked the house.  I wish I’d taken notes, but I decided to just buy the book.  This guy has “it.”   

Catherine Rohr, founder and CEO of Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) in Texas was another bright spot for me.  It’s hard not to really like this 31 year old woman who left a $200,000 a year career to change the future of prison inmates by teaching them character and business principles to redirect their lives.  She and her husband literally gave everything they had to make this happen (including all there real estate holdings, their savings, their jobs and eventually their retirement investments).  It was easy to see, during her interview with Jim Mellado (WCA pres), why she was paid so much in her previous life.  She was winsome, compelling and inspiring.  Mellado looked like he wasn’t well (very gaunt), which may be related to a near-death drowning accident last year.  Don’t know, but I really felt like he needed to eat something the whole time.

Brad Anderson, the vice-chairman and CEO of Best Buy, Inc. was interviewed by Bill Hybels as the last featured piece.  This part was inspiring in an unexpected way.  Brad is a really normal guy.  Goes to work at 9am (something that Hybels just could not get over during the interview).  Wasn’t a great student.  Admitted he couldn’t do what the floor clerks do every day in his stores.  He wasn’t polished. He didn’t look very trim or athletic (ok…he was pudgy).  But when he described what he does, well…he’s basically a pastor to his people.  He was kind of nervous the whole time.  He was totally self-deprecating.  And he’s the leader of a $19 billion company with over 150,000 employees.  It was a refreshing look at what faith looks like in the marketplace.  I particularly liked his response to Hybels’ question about if he ever steps up to share his faith with his employees (who he counsels about their life circumstances regularly).  After hemming and hawing a bit, he basically said, “No.  Not without their permission, anyway.  If they ask me directly, then I tell them my own story and beliefs.  But I have to be careful to not abuse my position of power with them.”  Wow.  That brought it right back to Haugen’s definition of injustice for me (the abuse of power), and right back to my own mission to get Christians to share their faith with “gentleness and respect”.  

Bill closed the Summit with a final message about Mother Theresa (didn’t see THAT coming).  A very passionate segment that ended with a prayer of submission that left me sobbing mass of snot and tears.  It was what I needed.  The Summit was what I needed.  And even though I didn’t agree with everything said or done there, I can say with a degree of confidence that I will be back next year.  I am very thankful for the relentless Bill Hybels and his teams, and for Art Lenon and his teams who hosted this event in my town. God showed up in it all, and I was refreshed and convicted by His presence.  

Did you go?  What were your impressions?  Was it worth the money and time away for you to be there?  Tell me your stories…