The most important thing we can do is to prepare the soil… the environment. God is the one who will cause growth. That God causing growth isn’t our responsibility.

The soil is dirty and messy. Am I willing to get my hands dirty? In order to see this generation/culture come to Christ and grow in his love, I MUST get my hands dirty.

Jesus hung out with the messy people of his day (tax collectors, prostitutes, outcasts) and the religious leaders had a problem with this. (Matthew 9:1-13)

Jesus didn’t come form the righteous. He came for the messy and the broken.

How do we create this environment?

1. Cultivate the soil with grace giving acceptance.

Are we leading others to see others with the eyes of grace?

In Acts 15, the church decided to remove the barriers for the gentiles and make it easy for them to come to faith. We find ourselves in a similar situation. Are we making it easier for those in our culture to come to faith?

In every culture, there are cultural barriers to faith. What are yours?

2. Create authentic confessing communities.

James 5:16. When we confess we can begin to heal.

Grace wasn’t given to get people into heaven, but to connect people to God once again.

Soul Revolution and the 60-60 experiment

I know that as a staff member, I’m getting ready to spend the next 4 months in the soul revolution experiment. I’m very excited about it. Too many times we make growing spiritually too complicated… a list of things to do or not do. Jesus actually clarified this. He made it really simple. He told his disciples to abide in him. Stay connected to the vine. When we stay connected, we’ll produce MUCH fruit. The 60-60 experiment is about staying connected to God throughout the day and seeing how God begins to work in your life.

If you’re interested in how this looks, visit the official blog/community site here.

Wendy describes how even in America, where you are born does determine your educational prospects.

• 13 million kids are living under the poverty level
• Of these, the average 4th grader is at the 1st grade level
• 1/2 will not graduate from High School
• Those that do graduate will be a an 8th grade level

Teach for America alumni actually say that the situation is worse than the stats above.

Wendy told stories of teachers who came in and saw children at many years below where they should be. They came in with a sense of urgency and turned their classrooms around and got kids to their expected level within two year.

What is my sense of urgency?

Most of the public feels that the problem lies with:

• lack of student motivation
• lack of parent involvement
• home life situations

However, the truth is that the problems are (suggestions given by Teach for America alumni):

• Teacher quality
• Principle quality
• Student expectancy

Bill begins by saying that we’ve been in a leadership crisis for the past 10 years.

Gallup polls reveal the following:

• Only 1 in 5 trust leaders in business
• Only 12% trust leaders in Congress
• 48% trust leaders in church

As Christian leaders we were born to manifest the glory of God. It’s not for just some of us, but for all of us.

We’ve been choosing the wrong leaders. Charisma, zeal, style… these are not the basis for effective leadership. Why do we wonder when they fall due to poor character?

Peter Drucker said, “Leadership is not money, fame or power, it’s responsibility.”

With 21st century leadership, we need to align, empower, serve and collaborate!

• Align: Align people around a mission or a vision.
• Empower: Don’t get people to follow you, but empower them to lead.
• Serve: We exist to serve those we lead.
• Collaborate: When it comes to the big problems, no single organization can fix it. We have to work together.

Six things about leadership:

• Understand the purpose of your leadership.
• Become self aware. Get feedback on how you are leading.
• Values – What happens when everything you’ve been building hangs in the balance?
• Follow your motivations and capabilities. Intrinsic motivations need to match external motivations.
• Build a support team around you. Have people around you that you can be open and honest with.
• Lead and integrated life. You’ll never live a balanced life, but you can be the same person in every area of your life.

Follow you compass, not your clock.

Now is the time to build your support team.

Leadership is not about having power over people, but empowering other people.

Leaders who failed did not fail to lead others, but failed to lead themselves. They weren’t grounded or being themselves.

Churches I’ve worked with in the past have not been Willow Creek Association churches, I I haven’t really known that much about Willow. I’ve certainly read a lot about Willow Creek and of the amazing things they’ve done, but really more as a bystander. However, once I came on staff at Gateway I’ve been much more exposed to Willow Creek. Not only is our church a WCA church, but many from our staff were once on staff on Willow. John Burke, our pastor was on staff at Willow when he felt called to plant a church in Austin. So, we use a lot of Willow resources and they’ve been absolutely fantastic. I’m very impressed.

So this was my first Leadership Summit. I only attended the first day because day two was on Friday (my day off) and I really needed a day off. Need I remind you of what’s been going on in my house? I was amazed at the scale of this event. It was never said (at least I didn’t hear) how many were attending this conference, but I heard that there were upwards of 60,000 joining either live or at satellite venues. How amazing is that? In addition to this, they’re boxing this thing up and making it available to gatherings of Christian leaders all over the world. In the same way that One Prayer impacted hundreds of thousands through synchronized worship experiences, Leadership Summit may impact many more through incredible leadership training.

So, here is my very brief overview of my one day Leadership Summit experience at a satellite venue.

The video quality was superb. I’m assuming they were using HD satellite feeds. The picture was amazingly clear and very well produced… as good if not better than anything you’d see on TV live. The transitions from the main experience to the local experience was flawless. Everything was precisely on time with video countdowns. It did not feel any different from being in the live experience. Well, maybe a little. Certainly it would have been amazing to be in the Willow auditorium and be feel the buzz of all that was going on. However, I do not feel like I had a second class experience. It was well worth the cost.

Things I really thought were interesting. I’ve never experienced video worship. We all stood where we were and worshiped (I assume along with 60,000 others participating all around the nation). I know that most multi-site services have live bands, that way it feels more like “normal” church. The video is usually so well produced that by the time you experience worship, great video teaching and the closing by a live campus pastor, it’s a great experience. But after seeing this, I truly feel some multi-site churches could totally pull off video worship. With a good sound system, it would really feel like you are there. I also loved how even in a video venue, people participate just like it is all really happening right there in front of them. Clapping for the speakers and all… it’s just so fun to watch.

The quality of the speakers… superb. I’ll blog about the sessions I attended. Each speaker inspired me to make changes. In different ways, each captured my heart and led me in a way or direction I hadn’t thought much about. Well done Willow! I look forward to next year. I heard that we may actually be hosing the venue at Gateway next year, so that will be extra fun!