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.