Embarking

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 4 Part 1, John Burke, Gateway Community Church, Leading in New Cultural Realities

The right kind of soil matters.

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. –1 Corinthians 3:6-9

Spiritual leadership is all about creating the right soil, the right environment.

• Spiritual leadership/ church is messy.  Jesus’ ministry was messy.
• Does the soil you’re creating allow room for authentic questions and struggling?
• We have to be willing to get our hands dirty, cultivating the soil as necessary.
• Who should we be ministering to and reaching?  Messy people.
• If we are not seeing messy people around us who are becoming part of the church, then we are not leading like Jesus.

The Messy Leadership That Cultivates Environments

1. Cultivate the soil with grace-giving acceptance.  Come as you are.  God will accept you as is and walk with you to become more and more what he intended for you.  Most people don’t experience this kind of grace-giving acceptance from Christians.  [Note:  this reminds me of the book The UnChristian and many of the findings there.  See my posts on UnChristian.]  U2 - “Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.”  Too many churches are making it difficult for messy people to come to God.  (cf. Acts 15:10-11,19)  What are the barriers to grace in our context (our particular church/ perceptions, etc.) ie. hatred of gays, how we think about other religions.  How do we answer the culture’s questions well without creating barriers to grace?  In every culture, there are cultural barriers to grace.  What are they in yours?  And how do you do that without compromising truth?
2. Cultivate the soil with authentic confessing community.  Jesus couldn’t stand the game-playing, saving face of the Pharisees.  Phariseeism is pretending that we’re better than we really are.  When we really live in authenticity with one another, God shows up and something amazing happens.  And that is something the world is looking for.  “…calling out the masterpiece underneath the mud.”
3. Inspiring constant connection to God’s spirit.  [John 13-17]  This is one of the most difficult things for self-centered Christians to do.  Stay connected; fruit happens.  [axiom] Spiritual fruit is scandalously simple.

I’m impressed with John Burke because he’s connecting a couple of things together that I really like.  He’s authetic.  He’s leading an effective church reaching many who are far from God.  He’s connected to an emerging culture and meeting real people who are really in the real world.  He doesn’t back off from solid scriptural truths about spiritual transformation.  He’s seeing real fruit in the younger generations and doing creative ministry that is both meangingful and impactful. 

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 3 Part 2, Wendy Kopp, Teach for America

Wow.  Wendy was certainly inspiring.  Her conversation with Bill Hybels was wonderful to listen to, but difficult to capture in writing because it was an interview.  So, I’m not even going to try.  Here are just a couple of things:

13 million kids in America live below the poverty line.  Half of those never graduate high school.

“It’s easy to lead something you really believe in.”

Bill:   “You are anabashed about asking people to give up 2 years of their lives, and you see results.  Why are church people afraid to ask people to sacrifice?” [paraphrase]

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 3 Part 1, Bill George, Finding Your True North

George quoted the following wonderful poem called Our Greatest Fear by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
—Marianne Williamson
[Often said to have been quoted in a speech by Nelson Mandela. The source is Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992. —Peter McLaughlin]

“Leadership is not money, fame, and power. Leadership is responsibility.” –Peter Drucker

• Give people the opportunity to stand up and lead.
• People are looking for meaning and significance in their work.

4 Characteristics of 20th century leaders

1. Align – people need to be aligned around the vision, not around you.

2. Empower – followership is really about helping others to unleash their power, not follow you

3. Serve – people are not here to serve leaders, but to serve others

4. Collaborators – there are so many large problems in the world today, we need to collaborate with others to bring together the best talent to solve really difficult problems.

Bill really talked alot about being true to who you are, who God has made you, how he has gifted you.  What does it mean to be true to yourself? 

Important things good leaders know:

1. The purpose of your leadership - “follow your compass, not your clock” (another leadership axiom)
2. Gain self-awarness - Why are we afraid to let someone know who we really are?  Get feedback. (from parishioners, from staff)  What are your blindspots?  See yourself as others see you.  Go into a period of self-inspection.
3. Be true to your values.
4. Follow your motivating capabilities - what are your strengths, passions, what fuels you?  What are the intrinsic motivations?  Are you allowing those to come out?
5. Build a support team around you - leadership is very lonely.  Have at least one person with whom you can share all things and be open and honest and get real feedback.
6. Lead an integrated life - Be the same person in every environment.

“Everyone I’ve seen fail as a leader has not failed to lead others, they’ve failed to lead themselves.”

“I learned a lot more working in a soup kitchen than I did working on the board of the United Way.”

When Bill was speaking, a number of times I was thinking about a book that my Children’s Ministries staff read together last year by Henry Cloud called Integrity: the courage to meet the demans of reality.  In that book, Cloud talks about what it’s like “on the other side of me.”  He encouraged his readers to ask friends, colleagues, and others who are in our lives (family, friends, co-workers) what it’s like to be on the other side of us.  How do people experience us?  That is some good feedback, so long as you’re ready to hear it and can accept honest feedback that might hurt. 

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 2, Gary Haugen, International Justice Mission, Just Courage: Charging the Darkness

I can’t remember when I first learned about Gary Haugen and the International Justice Mission.  I heard him at The Urbana Missions Conference back in 2000.  He was inspirational then, and has continued to be in my life.  Haugen wrote a book years ago now called The Good News about Injustice, which has been meaningful and foundation text in my life.  I haven’t seen the most recent version, but when I read it, it was foundational to God’s plan for dealing with justice in the world.  (see Gary’s talk below)  I had the privelege once to meet him in Ann Arbor at small talk he did to law students at the Law Quad at the University of Michigan sponsored by Intervarsity and James Paternoster, I think.

Leadership Matters

Leadership that matters to God deals with issues that matter to God.  So, we need to ask ourselves the question, “Are Jesus and I really interested in the same things?  What is God passionate about?”

Two fundamental, and unfamiliar passions of God

1. God’s passion for the world. (John 3:16)  The whole incarnation was motivated by God’s passion for the world.  What’s the hardest thing for our world to believe?  That God is good in the midst of all the pain.  What is God’s plan for making it believable?  We are the plan, and God doesn’t have another plan.
2. God’s passion for Jusice.  The Scripture is replete with passages about God’s desire for justice.  (cf. Psalm 11; Micah 6)  “What if justice is not my thing?”  Then God says, “You’re not my thing.”

But the work seems hopeless, scary and hard.  How do we lead in times when these are the circumstances?  Here is what IJM has learned in these times:

• What have we learned with the task seems hopeless?  By recentering the basis of our hope.  When we focus our eyes on what we do, it leads to dispair.  Hope is recovered when we remember who God is.  If God is passionate about it, he’s responsible for it, too.  Jesus asks when he feeds the 5000, “What do you have?” and then invites them to give it to him so that he can do the work through what they have.  Sometimes God is asking you to lead in a situation that seems hopeless and give Him what he have, and that the miracles are His job.
• What have we learned with the task seems scary?  Jesus didn’t come to make us safe, he came to make us brave.  If my life isn’t scary, I might check if it’s really Jesus I’m following.  Jesus is asking us to lead out of lives of triviality through his passion for justice in the world.  The church today is too often like spending your day in the visitors center, safe, but missing the vigor and life of the real mountain.  “I sense among many of my Christian friends that we’re on the journey with Jesus but we’re missing the adventure.”  God invites us to follow him beyond what we can control, and we will experience Him and His power, and His wisdom and His love.
• What have we learned with the task seems hard?  God wants to take our strengths on a more demanding climb in which we will actually need Him.  Effective Leadership comes from  four choices:

  +Choosing not to be safe - this will be evidence in our prayer life because our prayerlife will demonstrate that we are out of control and actually need God.  We don’t need God at the visitor’s center.

  +Choosing deep spiritual health - the more demanding climb requires a higher level of spiritual health.  We can’t do hard things without it.  Our devotional lives are boring in the safe, suburban suburb of the safe Christian life.  Our spiritual disciplines, on the demanding climb, have a desperate purpose.  Discipline turns into desperation.  Obedience turns into urgency.  If you want to ignite purpose and passion in the people you lead, lead them to a place that is unsafe in which they need to depend on God.  Real justice in the world is that place.  Nothing will get done unless we take an hour doing nothing but seeking God.

  +Choosing excellence - the church is generally not known for excellence today.  That wasn’t always the case.  In years past, the opposite was true.  As Christianity in the last century has moved into climate controlled cul-de-sacs, something has changed.  Rigourous of thought and excellence in execution matters, and in areas of justice it is often a matter of life or death.  Enough of the Christian adjusted scale of mediocrity.  It is bad for those we serve and for our own souls.

  +Choosing to see the joy - Dallas Willard:  “The first thing to disappear when spiritual health declines is laughter.” [paraphrase]  It is humorous that God deploys such flawed and humorous people as us for His plan and his appeal to the world.  That’s hilarious!!  Jesus came to bring us his joy, to make our joy complete, and to fill us up to overflowing with the joy of the Lord.

If you think about what Hybels said about axioms, here is Haugen’s leadership axiom: If you want your leadership to matter, lead in the things that matter to God.

This all reminds me of a CS Lewis quote that talks about our contentment to make mupdies on the yard in exchange for what we could have - a vacation at the sea.  We are near-sighted, and we exchange the glorious, beautiful, amazing things that God has for us.  So, here’s my own personal question:  why do I settle for comfortable, controlled-environment cul-de-sac Christianity instead of seeking the adventurous battle of hopeful, meaningful, and passionate journeying with Jesus as he ushers in his Kingdom of love, justice, and joy?

“Your courage asks me, ‘What am I afraid of?’
Your courage asks me, ‘What am I made of?’”

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 1, Bill Hybels, The High Drama of Decision Making

Bill Hybels kicked off the Summit again with a talk on leadership.  He shared a formula that many leaders make/ should make when they make difficult decisions.  Here are the steps - what Bill said are really nothing new.  These are steps that leaders go through as they think about a decision:

1. What would/ does the Bible say?
2. What would/ do good advisors say?
3. What does your experience tell you?  (the pains of poor decisions, the gains of good decisions)  He encouraged leaders to chronicle your decision-making process as well as the results of those decisions.
4. Is the Holy Spirit prompting me?  (Romans 8:6) Bill recommended a trial decision-making experience in which you “try on” the decision and see if it leads to more peace and life, or does it lead to fear and anxiety.

Lastly, in this “intro” Bill reminded us to take responsibility for our decision-making, particularly when we’ve made the wrong decisions.  Admit it.

Then, Bill moved into what he calls leadership Axioms.  (see his new book by the same name).  Axioms are really this leadership process formula (above), condensed into axioms or proverbs or “micro-waved wisdom.”  These are ways to make and guide decisions through key axioms that have become truism as we make future decisions.  The first example was from Abraham Lincoln:  “The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.”  A second was Bob Galvin, “Create motion for motion’s sake.”  He also mentioned Colin Powell (Bill interviewed him last year on his leadership principles).  Powell has about 2 dozen of these that guide his decision-making like “Check your ego at the door” and “promote a clash of ideas.”

Then Bill began to share a few of his own axioms (of which he has 76).  Before he did, he asked this question, which I think is poignant and helpful:  “Do you reflect enough on your own leadership to develop your own principles/ proverbs/ axioms on which to make decisions based on your values.” [paraphrase]

• Vision leaks.
• All I have to do is get the right people around the table and we’ll be fine.
• Facts are your friends.
• When something feels funky, engage.
• Take a flyer.  [means take a calculated risk, pony up,
• This is church.

Bill also took some time in the middle to talk about the Reveal study, and the major changes happening at Willow.  He shared openly and honestly about how difficult, and yet exciting these changes have been.  You can read more about it at the Out of Ur blog.

From Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008:  Opening Worship

Isaiah 40:28-30
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

I thought I was going to blog about leadership stuff, but honestly, the opening worship was moving for me.  My family has been through a lot lately, and last night my wife and I talked on the phone about how we both feel at a limit.  I know we’re not, because many people handle more, and we could, too, but it doesn’t feel like it right now.  So, the second song of the conference was a song I love, I think by Chris Tomlin.  It’s from the Scripture above, and goes like this. 

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our Strong Deliverer
You are the everlasting God
You do not faint
You won’t grow weary

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our Strong Deliverer
You are the everlasting God
You do not faint
You won’t grow weary

You’re the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need
You life us up on wings like eagles

I found myself unable to sing, with tears in my eyes, realizing that this is for me.  God spoke to comfort my heart this morning (notice that verse 1 of Isaiah 40 is “Comfort, comfort my people says your God”, that he will carry my wife and I and my kids, that he will lift us right now when we feel weak.  He will carry us on his wings.  I wish my wife had been with me when they led this song.

If you look back on my blog history, I really resurrected my blog and starting writing (somewhat) more consistently at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit last year, August 2007.  Not too long after that, I imported in a few old blog posts from previous blogs I had with random writings.  Anyway, since the blog was resurrected a year ago at this conference - and I’m back again - and going to try to blog the conference a little bit.  We’ll see what’s on the Summit Blog, and I might interact with that as well.  So, stay tuned for a few posts to come.

I’ve found the conversation around mega-churches and emergent churches lately quit fascinating. (cf. Fitch’s first post, and his redux post] I’ve heard many people for awhile saying, “the fruit just isn’t there with the Emergent Churches.”  By fruit, this usually means converts.  So, when David Fitch went after Mark Driscoll and talked about this issue, I found it quit interesting.  Being someone emergent at heart and history (and in some ways theologically, but not others) but also being currently a pastor at a mega-church (where I sometimes fit in, and other times feel like an odd-ball) these conversations are quite intriguing.  I’m particularly interested in numbers 4 and 5 of the 5 points Fitch makes, which I’ve listed below - this from the Out of UR Blog:

4. Having said all this, I think that the missional communities that do persist probably have a higher conversion rate than the Driscollesque mega churches. Missional churches are much smaller, so 6 conversions from a group of 25 over ten years would match (or exceed) the percentage growth of a typical mega church. I think it would be interesting to measure how many dollars per conversion are spent in missional churches versus mega churches. It makes me smile knowing missional churches are probably more cost effective when it comes to conversions because we resist spending money on buildings, programs, and “the show.”

5. We must recognize that “missionary conversions” take longer than megachurch conversions. The conversion of a post-Christendom “pagan,” who has had little to no exposure to the language and story of Christ in Scripture, may require five years of relational immersion before a decision would even make sense. If you do not have this immersion/context, any decision that is made is prone to be little more than a consumerist decision—it is made based on the perceived immediate benefit. It lasts as long as this perceived benefit remains important. It does not lead to discipleship.

So a true missionary conversion, which I believe missional churches are after, takes a much longer period of time than the kind of conversions most often generated through a megachurch. The megachurch is largely appealing to people who grew up in old forms of church and know the Story but quit going to church many years ago. These “unchurched people” require the old messages to be made more relevant. They need to be “revived” or called back into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we should recognize there are fewer and fewer of these kinds of people left.

These are some arguments that I myself have made in the past.  Knowing, realistically two things: 1) how inefficient mega-churches really are in reaching the lost per dollar spent and 2) how really unconcerned most members of these churches are to reach anyone.  Emerging churches are still too young to measure long term fruit and effectiveness, but it will be interesting to see the longer term effects of churches that spend less money, focus more on community, tend to care more about “holistic transformation”, and are committed to individual people over programs.  The percentages of transformed lives to Jesus Lordship and Kingdom per capita and per dollar (though even talking about it that way seems, somehow, wrong) would be very intriguing to see.  So… someone do the study already.

James KA Smith writes that he’s just finished the initial draft of his forthcoming book Desiring the Kingdom: worship, worldview, and Cultural Formation.  As one who originally considered teaching at the university, but ended up in ministry on the campus for several years (no more), and as one who cares much about the concepts surrounding cultural formation and transformation, I really like what Smith has to say in this paragraph from his blog:

I’m pressing the limits, even distortions, that attend “worldview”-talk which tends to now dominate Christian higher education. Such worldviewism, I suggest, continues to reduce Christianity to an intellectual system that can be grapsed apart from the church and is then “taught” as information to be merely transferred from one head to another. In contrast, I argue that Christian discipleship is a matter of formation, not mereinformation–and that “Christian” education should be fundamentally a matter of shaping our love, our desire, to be oriented to the shape of the kingdom of God. And such formation happens not primarily via the heady, cognitive “lectures” (whether in our Protestant sermon factories or our Christian college classrooms) but through embodied practices that seep into our imagination and get hold of our gut, our heart, our kardia.

Thanks for hanging with us in this Blog Tour and through the questions.  Jim, thanks for your thoughtful answers, your wonderful book, and for the privilege of participating.  I want to encourage - especially parents, but others as well to get this book.  It’s a fun and insightful read.