Global Leadership Summit – Session 1 (Bill Hybels) – Team Culture

Over these next few blog posts I want to reflect on each of the sessions from this year’s Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. So to start with, Session 1 – Bill Hybels.

I have beard Bill Hybels speak on numerous occasions and read many of his books. I always look forward to hearing him, and there’s always something new and a lesson to learn. His session was a collection of his thoughts about different aspects of leadership. He spoke about having fantastic people on a team, and how he always looks for the 4 C’s of

• Character
• Competency
• Chemistry
• Culture

I’ve heard him speak about the first three on numerous occasions, but the new one was culture. This is to do with the kind of person that would flourish on your team. It’s to do with your style and what matters to you. Every team has a unique culture and as well as looking at someone’s character and competency, and considering whether the chemistry works, you also need to consider the culture of your team. For example, high challenge, sacrificial, fast changing etc.

So, what’s the culture of your team? Whether your team is an Eldership team, a kids work or worship team, every team has a culture. This needs to be remembered when recruiting people to your team. Helping new people understand your culture will help them to find their place and to begin making their contribution to the team.

Reflections on the WCA Global Leadership Summit

I’ve just got back from two days in Stafford at the Willow Creek Association Global Leadership Summit. The Summit happens each summer at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, USA. It is hosted by Willow’s Senior Pastor, Bill Hybels and is beamed live around the USA and then later, in the autumn, taken all over the world by means of local conferences showing the DVD recordings of the talks. My nearest location was Stafford, so a few of us from Derby headed off to Rising Brook Baptist Church to learn together and be encouraged in our roles.

Although I’ve been to many Willow Creek conferences over the years and read many of Bill Hybels’ books, I had never been to the Leadership Summit before. One reason for this is that I doubted whether a conference that had all the teaching on video screen would be as good as a “live” one. I have to say my doubts were completely unnecessary. This was one of the best leadership conferences I’ve ever been to.  I will try to blog some more details as I reflect upon the sessions over the next few weeks and months, but here is a taster to start with…

The conference featured a mix of Christian pastors & business leaders and non-Christian business leaders. This was a fascinating mix and gave a real variety to the teaching and lessons learnt.

Bill Hybels opened the conference by talking about how to help people move from A to B in their Christian life, or in the life of a church. He went on to expand what he looks for in the staff he hires – the 3C’s of character, competency and chemistry. I’ve read much of what he’s said on this before, but he added another C, culture. More on this to come!

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and How the mighty fall was the next speaker. This highly respected business leader whose books I have read and enjoyed was a captivating speaker and he encouraged us to never, ever give up, and also to have a “stop doing” list as well as a “to-do” list.

One of the most helpful talks was by Jeff Manion, Senior Pastor of Ada Bible Church. He talked about “the land between”, i.e. the time and space between what we hope for/God speaks to us about and seeing it fulfilled. What a helpful and practical message. Certainly more on this to follow.

Hearing Blake Mycoskie, founder of Toms Shoes was fascinating and inspiring. Here was a Christian who had set up a company with the aim of giving away a pair of shoes for every pair sold. To date, they have given away over 1,000,000 pairs of shoes to children in need. It all started with an idea, and the desire to make it easy for people to participate.

What idea is God speaking to you about today? It may not be to set up a company, it maybe something quite different, but what is it, and how are you going to respond?

Learning from other streams

When I heard that the Salt & Light Preachers’ Training Course was coming to Derby this year, I snapped up the chance to attend. Newfrontiers have always been good at having in speakers from outside our network at conferences, but this opportunity to attend some training from outside our movement right on my doorstep seemed too good to miss. I have to say, I have been made to feel so welcome by those hosting the training and I guess having some good friends there from Community Church Derby has really helped that.

After we all gave short introductions to ourselves, the course started with Steve Thomas who leads the Salt & Light European Team teaching on “Is there still a place for preaching in the 21st Century?” The answer he gave was a resounding “yes”, but he went on to recognise that church life needs more than just preaching. He spoke from Acts 17, about when Paul was in Athens. Athens then was very similar to post-modern Britain today. We would do well to learn from how Paul communicated to his audience – seeking to connect with his listeners, quoting from their poets, recognising that the Athenians were searching for something – and he could lead them to see that was Jesus.

The second session was led by course tutor, Mike Beaumont from Oxfordshire. We looked at exegesis and hermeneutics – how understanding what scripture said to its original readers (exegesis) before we start applying it to now (hermeneutics) is so important. I hope to blog some more on this next week.

The final session today looked at different learning styles; how we all learn differently, and consequently for those of us who preach, are most likely to preach differently. I discovered I am an “almost off the scale” analytical learner. As with any learning style, this has its own strengths and weaknesses but most importantly, I need to be aware of how other people learn and ensure that I seek to teach in ways that help them too.

I am looking forward to being refreshed, stimulated and stretched this week. I am praying it will improve my preaching and help us in Jubilee to grow in all that God as for us. More thoughts to follow as the course progresses.

Confidence or arrogance?

Last week I was in Peterborough at the Newfrontiers Prayer & Fasting conference. This gathers around 800 Newfrontiers leaders from across the UK for 2 days of worship, prayer, fasting and seeking God. The conference happens 3 times a year and there are often significant prophetic words which come out of it.

This time, I was particularly taken by a prophetic word brought by Neville Jones from Brighton. He felt God speak about not being so afraid of arrogance that we lose our confidence.  Here is some of what he said…

Neville felt God was saying: “I want to speak to you about confidence in God. Some of you are so frightened of arrogance that you’ve thrown out your confidence. I want to say to you, you can’t be too confident in me. You can’t be too confident in a God who saved you. I didn’t come to you when you were slumbering; I came to you when you were dead. Dead people can’t wake themselves up. I have come to you and woken you up. …. Surely you can have confidence in me….. I’m not calling you to triumphalism but truth…. I’m coming to you again today. It’s not arrogance but confidence.”

The line between confidence and arrogance is a very fine one. I know there have been times I have crossed from confidence into arrogance and similarly, there have also been times when I have held back and not been as confident as God intended.

I think the difference is to do with what you put your hope and trust in. If your hope and trust is in your own ability or skills, that can lead you into arrogance. However, if your hope and trust is in God, and in His ability, then you can come away with confidence; not in yourself, but in Him. This is very different to arrogance.

Becoming arrogant is not good and not honouring to God. But losing your confidence is not good and not honouring to God either. God calls us to have a resolute and unshakeable confidence in Him, and then to live in the good of it, that we might accomplish all that He intends – for His glory. Let’s be confident in a great and mighty God who loves us and wants us to be confident in Him!