I continue to be inspired...

I'm trying to wade through the reading materials I collected at the Leadership Summit. Just finished Craig Groeschel's It. I still have John Burke's book Soul Revolution to read. Then I'll probably tackle Bill Hybels' classic Courageous Leadership.

I was very impressed with Bill at the Summit. It was my first time ever hearing him speak and I admit I was impressed with his humility...and passion to encourage, embolden and even inflame church leaders to become kingdom leaders. There's a difference.

Church leaders tend to focus on the local entity or organization and its processes and programs. Kingdom leaders maintain a much broader, more eternal perspective, of which the local body is a part. I like this idea, and am thinking through its implications for leading people into ministry.

Leadership Summit was awesome

Last Thursday and Friday I participated in Willow Creek Community Church's annual Leadership Summit...via satellite...in Portsmouth, NH; along with 140 other host sites around the world. The host church was a superb host, and the faculty speakers were great. Especially since they were authors I have recently read: Craig Groeschel, John Burke, Chuck Colson. Efrem Smith, a regular contributor to Rev! magazine and pastor of an inner-city "hip-hop" church in Minneapolis, MN; and Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek, also spoke. Our senior pastor described the summit as a vitamin B12 shot. I liken it more to a blood transfusion! Lots to think about and process, but one of the main themes that wove throughout the two days--and I'm not entirely sure it was planned this way--was: "Get out of the boat. Stop playing it safe. Get out of your 'climate-controlled Christian cul-de-sacs'." That last one came courtesy of Gary Haugen, another speaker, who founded the International Justice Mission. If you can only go to one conference, go to this one: next year's summit is August 6-7, 2009.