Is there a Leader in the House?
1 September, 2010 -
“When you’re in a leadership environment and the vision’s clear and the teams are formed and people are stepping up and there’s inspiration and motivation and there’s a culture of encouragement, everybody saying ‘we’re in this together’, there is no end to what God can do through that team, through that church, and through that vision.”
Just prior to the Leadership Summit in Chicago, Bill gave a weekend message entitled “Leadership Matters” (hear this message for yourself at www.willowcreek.org.nz). He shared a little of the frustration he has experienced over the years as he has observed churches whose impact is minimised, or even extinguished, by a leadership vacuum, leaving him with a desire to rise to his feet and cry out, “Is there a leader in the house?”
He recounts how, as a youngster growing up in his ‘home church’, he observed two trends. He observed the business successes enjoyed by so many within the congregation, yet there were numerous recurring problems and the continued failure of the church to address these. “Why do church attenders apply their leadership acumen to their Monday-to-Friday challenges and then come to a church on Sundays that is filled with problems and opportunities but they never really engage in addressing or resolving the problems of the church?”
This experience and reflection was to play a critical role in the shaping of Willow Creek Community Church. “When we started Willow, due to the pain of watching the absence of leadership in the church of my youth I thought...we’re gonna find leaders. We’re gonna empower leaders. We’re gonna ask leaders not just to lead in the marketplace we’re gonna ask leaders to step up and use their leadership gifts in the church. We’re gonna ask them to lead small groups and lead in Promiseland. Lead everywhere that there is a need in the church. We’re gonna teach and challenge and expect people with the gift of leadership to step up and use their gift.”
Regardless of the size, location or other factors of church demographics, we have one thing in common. We need to develop leaders. More than that, you will need to develop a ‘leadership culture’; a place where leadership is taught, valued, encouraged, exhorted, practiced and celebrated.
While all of us are leaders in some sense, there is a spiritual gift of leadership that is entrusted to certain members of the body of Christ, in accordance with the will of the Spirit. In Romans 12:8 those who have this gift are challenged, maybe even commanded, to ‘lead with all diligence.’
Early in my working life I was a life insurance agent. I remember that those agents who were successful in their own right were the very agents that were most willing to invest their time in me, a gift that has never been forgotten. I also remember the cost of some of the training courses that were available. How could I justify that kind of investment? I have never forgotten being taken aside by one agent and told… don’t look at the cost, look at the investment. If you come away from the day with just one idea that enables you to make just one more sale each month you will recover that investment in no time. Since then, whether in pastoral ministry or as the CEO of a not-for-profit I have rarely given a second thought to investing time and money in developing myself and the others I lead.
While the 2010 Leadership Summit is now historical fact for the USA, we here in New Zealand still have a few weeks left to register for the Global Leadership Summit; selected sessions from the Chicago event that will see the reach of the 15th annual Leadership Summit extended to over 120,000 leaders in 400 cities across 72 countries in 37 languages. That in itself speaks of the power of a vision to transform…
I have been to four Leadership Summits in Chicago as well as attending here in NZ every year for the last 5 years.
I have never regretted it… and always come away with at least one great idea, from EVERY SESSION! I personally can’t imagine what my leadership, and life, would look like without this investment.
The Leadership Summit is not just informational… it is transformational - for leaders, for leadership teams, for churches and for communities
Don’t overlook this as just another thing to do, it really will make a difference.
- Brian Spicer
“When people lead well in a church lost people get found and found people get grown up and lonely people get enfolded and the poor get helped and served and a whole community in the shadow of that church is transformed and the kingdom of God comes to earth in and around that place if a church is well led.”
- Bill Hybels
