Last December, Fast Company did a story on Willow Creek’s Global Leadership Summit. It’s a good article and worth your time. And I commend Fast Company for doing an article that features some of the excellent leadership development that is going on in the church right now.
I’ve been to the Summit twice, and it is fantastically helpful. In fact, the Summit often includes many of the leadership thinkers I tend to quote on this blog, such as Jim Collins, Chip and Dan Heath, Marcus Buckingham, and others. It has been a great experience to see some of them in person.
Here’s a great comment from Hybels on the importance of good leadership in the church:
The summit sprang from Hybels’s conviction that church leaders lacked leadership training. “I’d been trying to help churches train pastors, and I kept asking myself, Why do some churches flourish and others languish? Is it location? Denomination? Urban versus rural? Rich versus poor?” Hybels says. “I could think of an exception to every theory, until I realized that every thriving church was not just well fed but also well led. It was a potent combination of great teaching and great leadership.”
I agree with Hybels: churches need to be well taught and well led. For too long we’ve tended to create a dichotomy between the two. But good theology and good leadership belong together, and mutually serve one another.
Sometimes the Summit is criticized for bringing in secular thinkers (a criticism which would also apply to this blog!). I don’t think that criticism holds water; maybe I’ll talk about that issue sometime. I am grateful and excited for what the Lord is doing through the Summit to help teach his people more and more about effective leadership. It would be worth attending if you are able.