Hybels is the founding and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL, and the chairman of the board for the Willow Creek Association. He convened The Leadership Summit in 1995, following a God-given prompting to help raise and develop the spiritual gift of leadership for the local church. Both visionary and passionate about seeing every local church reach its full God-given potential, he speaks around the world on strategic issues to Christian leaders and is a best-selling author of more than 20 books, including Courageous Leadership and Axiom: The Language of Leadership.
Notes from this session follow…
- Rogue waves can spell doom for even the biggest, strongest ship
- Since the last summit all of us have been effected by a financial rogue wave.
- People like e who grew up in the post war period are not practiced at the volatilities , turbulence that will likely characterize the second half of my life. – Jim Collins
- I’m not sure if we’re going to experience the old normal ever.
- We are all leading in a new reality.
- Leaders feel curiously energized by being in uncharted waters. Non-leaders suspect crack cocaine.
- Rough patches force new levels of courage.
- Leaders – you were born for this.
4 Lessons learned through these difficult times
1) The church is still the hope of the world, especial in a crisis
- Interrupted their current series to do a service that would speak into the situation of the economic crisis. We were going to be the church no matter what – Acts 2. A philosophical decision.
- Do we still believe the church is the hope is the world even in crisis? YES!
- Series “What we can learn in a downturn”
- If you’re in difficult circumstances, humble yourself and let others in the church help you
- If you’ve not been affected, step up your giving
- Willow has seen record baptisms, record levels of serving
- Because people are facing extreme circumstances and anxiety, Willow modified weekend services
- Start before the beginning – put stuff on the side screens to help prepare people’s hearts
- Blur the end of the service – Told people if don’t have to be somewhere stay. Asked people to “sing over people” sometimes for 30 minutes after the service. Prayer available for people after services, sometimes for an hour
- Serious church in the middle – Every song sung and word preached must be inspired. “All killer, no filler”
- They are seeing spiritual growth in people in all 4 segments of the spiritual continuum
2) Financial lessons
- In a financial crisis, giving tends to go down while needs go up
- Healthy cash reserves in a crisis, give leaders time
- Pastors preach to individuals about having a cash reserve, but don’t do it for their own churches. Willow’s goal is to keep 25% of annual budget in cash reserves.
- A, B, C buckets (priorities)
- Staff reductions
- Give lots of notice for staff reductions,
- Be clear about reason
- Be generous about severance packages
- A new way to look at the church’s “resource pie”
- What if staff costs were not allowed to go above 50%, emphasize volunteerism?
- What if we give 10% to help those outside the church?
- 10% “Winds of the Spirit”
- 15% ministry budget
- People are very open to God’s way of managing their money
- People are very open to calls to give/help others – people at Willow “popped” for 22 $25k water filtration system
3)Relational lessons
- Habakkuk 3:2
- Looking for God to do great things in our day.
- How did God get great things done in history? Through people, people totally devoted to Him. 2 Chronicles 16:9
- Are we attracting, developing fully devoted people? Giving people the opportunity to soar?
- How the Mighty Have Fallen by Jim Collins
- Willow staff asked 4 questions:
- How many key seats are there in your org?
- What % of those are filled with fully devoted people?
- What’s the plan for filling the others?
- Are we developing back-up people for those key positions?
4) Personal Lesson
- My life is unsustainable
- “The pace at which I’m doing the work of God is destroying God’s work in me.”
- I didn’t have a replenishment strategy 20 years ago.
- The replentishment bucket
- Romans 8:6 – …leads to life and peace
- When you’re filled up, you lead at your best. The lower the level in your bucket the worse you lead.
- Bill is reformulating replenishment strategy, including “planned negligence”
- Be intentional about who he spends time with
- Doubled miles run, been more intentional about diet
- Most significant change is to how he started his day. For years he’s been the first in the office, 6 AM. Started w/ time w/God & message prep, but lately started short-changing those things to start on leadership/rogue wave issues.
- Instead of coming into the office at 6 AM, he starts is day at home with God. Listens more slowly.
- The best thing you can bring to the table each day is a filled bucket and and a fully self that’s fully surrendered to God.
What do your followers see these days? Someone with a full-bucket? Or someone who is depleted and tired?
God wants to do great things in our day, and through your leadership.
btw, is Twitter.com down? I can’t get to it.
Thanks for the live blog. Great to know I can go back and check the things out that I might have missed. Too bad twitter is down during this time though. Ugh. @christiangowan
Thanks for the comment. Good to know the Twitter problem isn’t just me. Hope it’s back up soon.