Michelle Rhee is an educational reformer, whose story is partly told in the documentary on the state of modern education, Waiting for Superman. Here’s a brief bio:

Leaders know that change isn’t easy—and it doesn’t come overnight. That’s why, for the past 18 years, Michelle Rhee has stayed the course with a single objective: to give children the needed skills to compete in a changing world. Rhee, who served with Teach for America, founded The New Teacher Project, equipping school districts to transform how they recruit and train qualified teachers. During her three years as Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. Public Schools, students’ scores and graduation rates rose dramatically. Today, Rhee is CEO of StudentsFirst, a movement to transform public education. She holds firm to her conviction that teachers are the most powerful driving force behind student achievement.

Hybels is giving lots of examples of tough callings.

The president of World Vision: Was asked once: “What’s the hardest thing about leading World Vision? ‘It’s just having your heart exposed to misery again, and again, and again.'”

A woman who went to Somalia to work with the poorest of the poor.

Jim Mellado: “Was on the fast track of corporate stardom. I met with him one day and said ‘There are lots of churches that will never reach their potential, because they aren’t sure how to lead. What if we started a training organization, and you led it, and we helped train leaders all over the world, especially where no one will go, in the most under resourced areas of the world. And now for 17 years he has showed up every single day, gave up an unbelievable career to accept a tough calling from God, to simply help make churches better.”

“Some of you have been nudged by God to go in a direction of a tough calling. Do you have the courage to do that?”

“Those who came into the sessions today, at every venue all over the world, received a piece of a shattered clay jar (ties in to the illustration from Jeremiah Hybels just gave — not recorded here). Write the date on it. Let this be a reminder that this world is not going to get fixed unless leaders, leaders like us, are available for tough assignments — like Jeremiah was. Some of you have been prompted, but have never had the courage to say yes. We’re going to give you some time to reflect.”

A Few Thoughts

I really appreciated this session. It is easy for people to get the notion that good leaders will always see things going great — if you just learn enough about leadership, things will always go “up and to the right” for you. And people can get the wrong idea that the point of leadership conferences is to reinforce this idea.

So this session was a good reminder that effective leadership doesn’t equate with things always going smooth. Leaders will have tough times. Good leaders will not always see things go well, and leadership is not about finding success as traditionally defined. Some of the best leaders may hardly be known this side of eternity. That’s because true greatness is about character and faithfulness. Recognition and success are secondary, and may not match up perfectly (or even very well) with true greatness in this world. The Christian leader seeks to please the Lord, looking forward to what is to come, and ultimately the “well done” that comes from Christ on the final day.

A good final word from Hybels: “I’ve never known a single leader who regretted accepting a tough calling.”

Hybels is talking now about Jeremiah, as the third tough calling we are looking at in this session.

Things start out, and nothing seems to be going right for Jeremiah. “They just keep telling him to shut up. He gets beat up and put at the gate for all to see. He has a problem with this, and was frustrated. He cries out to God ‘you deceived me.’ Meaning: ‘This isn’t what I had in mind when I said yes to you.'” Perhaps Jeremiah was thinking things would go well, that things are supposed to go well when God calls you. He is in such despair he even curses the day he was born. “But then he gathers his wits about him, and says to God ‘you did call me, and I did say yes.'”

“He is torn between his calling, and his ache for success. I want to do what God wants me to do, and I want it all to go up and to the right. He is right at the intersection of wanting to be faithful, and wanting to be successful.”

“He says ‘I’ll keep speaking your Words.’ Has a little lower expectations in round 2, which is a good thing because people get angry and recalcitrate. This time they throw him in the bottom of a mud-filled cistern. Thrown to the bottom, gets covered up, and is left there to die. Jeremiah is bewildered by this. ‘Things should go better with God,’ right? Some time later some people had pity on him, and brought him out and cleaned him up. And he said to himself ‘I cannot deny that God called me to be his spokesman. I have to give up the aim to be successful, and just let the chips fall where they may.'”

“So he goes out again, and speaks the word of God day after day, month after month, and they never change. After all this derision of him, one day the enemy comes over the hill and carries everybody, including Jeremiah, into captivity. And some time after that, Jeremiah sits down and writes a book, a book of lament — Lamentations.”

“At the end of the lament, he says ‘throughout all of this, God’s mercies were new to me every morning.’ What he did was hard, and never successful in the eyes of the world, but he felt the sweetness of God underneath it all.”

“I’m not worthy to have my name said in the same sentence as Jeremiah. Part of what’s been a ball about leading Willow is that for most of the 35 years it’s been going up and to the right. I had an easy calling, really. I got to lead a church in a suburban area in one of the most affluent areas in the nation. People who come here are sharp and trained. When I travel internationally, when I’m with leaders of businesses or NGOs or churches who are in oppressive situations and in under resourced areas, and have to run for their life every day, I just say ‘I’m not worthy.'”

“Our world is in tough shape. The fixes are not easy assignments. The fixes are going to take decades or lifetimes. And all throughout history, and in today’s environment, God is looking for some strong-shouldered leaders who say ‘If there’s a tough assignment anywhere in this world to be attacked, I’m available. I don’t have to …”

Lost the train of thought here — just heard that Mama Maggie, who just spoke before, is trending on Twitter.

OK, back to the message here in the next post.

“She has been called ‘The Mother Theresa of Cairo.’ Has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize at least three times. Founder and CEO, Stephens Children Ministry.”

I have not heard of her before, but I’m quite impressed right off the bat. She seems to have an amazing humility.

“Christians in Egypt pay the highest price for their faith. Egypt is the country that has sent to heaven the largest number of martyrs in all history. I am a product of this land.”

“25 years ago I heard my tough call, and I never imagined what I’m going to say. The Lord took me step by step.”

Here’s a short bio from the Summit site:

“Mama Maggie Gobran led a comfortable life in Cairo. A Coptic Christian from a prominent Egyptian family, she taught computer science and lectured at Cairo University. But following a conviction from God, she started a ministry to serve the poor in her city. A Nobel Peace Prize nominee this year, Mama Maggie has spent 20 years serving the poorest of the poor.”

“When one has nothing, God becomes everything.”

Hybels introduces this next session (a bit of a paraphrase, because I was trying to finish up that last post at the same time):

“We often get the impression that if we get better as leaders, everything we lead will just always keep going up and to the right. But what if that’s not always true? What if God calls some people to lead in really hard realms where there may be little signs of visible success in this world.”

“We are going to talk about how addicted some of us may be to the narcotic of growth. Many of us are ready to step into leadership opportunities that promise success and perhaps an easier road, and some of us may like being leaders because we get to lead stuff like that. And I think it’s possible that we can get hooked on the narcotic of growth. So we are going to look at 3 leaders who have led through tough callings.”

Wes Stafford of Compassion International is up now.