The Global Leadership Summit - Friday

Today I would like to continue sharing some of my thoughts on what I heard and learned at Willow Creek's Global Leadership Summit. Tomorrow I will share some overall thoughts on the Willow Creek Association (which can be somewhat differentiated from the Willow Creek Community Church) and on the Global Leadership Summit.

I was especially looking forward to Friday as it included one of my favorite preachers, John Ortberg. I have always appreciated his teaching ability and style. Although I have noted that my preaching professor would have found fault with his presentation–he reads too much leading to poor eye contact and he finishes his statements weakly by looking down–but other than that he is fine.

The day started with Patrick Lencioni who may have been tied with Craig Groeschel for the title of highest energy speaker. Interestingly Lencioni is an unabashed Christian in the business consulting world. While his work is primarily focused on the business world–most if not all of his positive examples were about Southwest Airlines–he easily adapts his work to the church because he is a Christian first and a business man second. The main focus of Lencioni's talk was about the importance of organizational health. In Lencioni's view there are two main factors for an organization or business. There is Organizational Smarts and Organizational Health.

Organizational Smarts includes things like strategy, marketing, finance and other "business school" stuff. In Lencioni's view it is only half of the business equation and yet receives 98% of the focus because it is easier and more quantifiable. Organizational Health is hard work yet can make the difference between a highly successful organization and one that crashes and burns. A healthy organization is one that has minimal internal politics and confusion; had high moral and productivity; and has a low turnover of key leadership personnel. Ironically while Organizational Smarts receives so much focus it takes good Organizational Health to fully tap into all of an organizations smarts.

The next two speakers–William Ury and Pranitha Timothy–were very interesting but I didn't take too much away in terms of applicable leadership skills. They had great stories to tell but were a bit weak on practical application. I did find Pranitha Timothy's stories of having the courage to lead in very difficult situations to be moving. It is one thing to claim to lead an organization through a difficult time. But it is a whole different thing to lead an organization that rescues slaves from forced labor in India. Every time she goes out on a rescue mission she may not come back. She has faced irate and armed business owners that will stop at almost nothing to keep their slaves. The next time I have to face a difficult situation in leadership I need to remember that I could be facing much worse.

Pastor Mario Vega then spoke about the need for integrity in leadership and the difficulty that we can face when we are trying to navigate through the tough consequences of leaders that lack integrity. There were three points that he made that stuck with me. The first is that when we allow a little moral failure into our lives we are opening the door for further moral failure. Once we start justifying small things it becomes easier to justify big things. The second is that, as leaders, we are not just responsible for our own actions but we are also responsible for the actions of those leaders below us. And the third is that there are defining moments in leadership that reveal our inner character. There is an absolute need for us to model and demand integrity.

The next session started with John Ortberg. What was interesting about Ortberg's talk was that it was not meant to be a talk giving leadership principles. Rather it was one of the greatest apologetics for Christ and the goodness that has resulted in the world due to his teaching and his followers. I cannot wait to read his new book: Who Is This Man.

The session concluded with an interview with Geoffrey Canada. He was so interesting that I ended up fixated on the discussion and didn't take any notes. One of his key leadership principles that he shared was the importance of replacing poor workers as soon as possible. He noted that they can be very hard working and very likable but just may not be a good fit for the position. These are tough but necessary decisions to make.

Bill Hybels closed out the Summit talking about integrity which he has done in almost every Summit that I have been to. Integrity on all fronts may be the most important attribute of a leader especially leaders in the church.

It was a good learning experience and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. We were blessed by the music of Gungor and Kevin Olusola throughout the Summit which just added to the overall experience.

 

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The Global Leadership Summit - Thursday

I have the good fortune of being able to take advantage of an extra pass to this year's Global Leadership Summit that is put on by the Willow Creek Association. I will share some thoughts on the nature of the conference and the Willow Creek Association next week when I have more time to write but today I wanted to share some thoughts about what I heard and learned yesterday. My goal was to post this yesterday but I decided to spend time with my wife rather than blog before we went to bed. I apologize in advance for the quick and shallow nature of what I am writing today. I have a very short time-frame to write this morning.

Bill Hybels is the senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church and the Willow Creek Association Chairman of the Board. He has been the opening speaker of every Global Leadership Summit that I have been to and this year was no different. His talk was really four different talks all rolled into one where he hit on different topics that were loosely related and centered around leadership. He started out with the Parable of the Sower as found in Luke 8:4-8. He didn't go into a great exegetical explanation of the passage but that wasn't the intent. What he did was pick out that the parable has a 75% failure rate. The sower threw seeds and some landed on the path, some on the rocky soil, some on the weedy soil and some on the good soil. Only the seed that landed on the good soil (1 out of 4 types of soil) actually grew into flourishing crop. The point is that if we want to see more good crop grow in our churches or organizations then we need to sow more seed. He went on to share how we as the leaders need to set the tone for sowing more seed in our organizations. 

The second session started off with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. I had heard her in sound bites from the news but I had not heard her speak in length. Now I understand why people keep calling for her to be Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential candidate. She would have my vote no matter what office she ran for. One of her main points was that as a leader you cannot just lead others but rather you need to help others realize their own leadership qualities. We can't just create a nation of followers but we need to build up other leaders.

Jim Collins finished off the second session and it is easy to see why he was one of the most popular teachers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He covered his research into what made leaders ultra successful. The three qualities that they found to be common among all of those leaders is Fanatical Discipline, Empirical Creativity and Productive Paranoia. For me the idea of Fanatical Discipline was the key to the whole talk. Fanatical Discipline is the discipline to have the discipline to keep to a consistency of action regardless of the circumstances. You push through on the tough days and you don't over do it on the easy days. That way you always are moving forward and you have enough reserve for when you hit great difficulty.

The third session had Marc Kielburger and Sheryl WuDunn. They were interesting but spoke more about their social justice work than leadership.

Finally the fourth session featured lifechurch.tv pastor Craig Groeschel. He spoke very well about the need to reconcile the older generation of leadership with the younger generation. He didn't put the blame for the disconnect on one of the generations but on both. He gave three keys to bridging the gap. The first is that we need to create intentional feedback loops that include a wide range of people. The second is to create specific mentoring moments. And the third is to create opportunities for significant leadership development.

So far the event has been very good and this is all I have time to share right now. I will share more and in depth in upcoming blog posts.

Silver isn't good enough

Despite NBC's best efforts to ruin the experience, my wife and I have been enjoying the London Olympics over the past week. I know that some people have been upset with the tape delay of major events. But that has not bothered me much simply because those stubborn Brits refuse to play the games in the middle of the night to accommodate our prime time. What has bothered me is that NBC covers only certain events on the main network. So for those of us that don't have cable we get to watch a lot of beach volleyball but no team handball, soccer or field hockey. The other thing that really got me going was NBC showing an add for the Today show that gave away the Missy Franklin's win in the 100m backstroke that they were just about to show. Nothing takes away the excitement of watching a sporting event when you already know the outcome.

But I digress.

Sunday we were watching the Women's Vault finals. We had not followed much of the women's gymnastics (which is quite a misnomer when you consider the age of the gymnasts) but knew that the U.S. had a good team. We missed the team winning the team all-around gold medal and Gabby Douglas winning the individual all-around gold medal. We were however looking forward to McKayla Maroney's vault final after seeing the replays of her near perfect vault in the team final. For those that are following the Olympics you know that Maroney almost nailed her first and signature vault in the Finals. There was a little hop in the landing but not enough to drastically hurt her score. As she lined up for her second vault one of the NBC commentators said, "She just needs to put it to her feet." Maroney promptly landed on her bum. The commentators said that she was the closest thing to a sure gold medal both before and after her stumble to which my wife turned to me and said, "There is no such thing as a sure thing."

And in human terms she's right.

My friend Brad did a good job covering how God is a sure thing just last week. But when it comes to us as human beings we are fatally flawed. We are imperfect. That is why the sure thing of McKayla Maroney's gold medal win was not a sure thing.

The Apostle Paul draws on the Olympic Games as an illustration to how we should live our lives in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."

There is a serious amount of training that an Olympic athlete must undergo in order to compete at the highest level. Paul knew that and it is interesting that he compared that amount of training to living a life dedicated to following Christ. I've played enough sports over the years to know that it can be easy to confuse (or even fool yourself) the difference between putting in a high level effort and giving it your all when it comes to practice and training. The question is whether or not we are actually putting that type of effort into our walk with God. Am I really dedicating my life to God the way that I should or am I coasting and thinking the effort is good enough? Paul gives us a great list of the attributes of living a Godly life in Galatians 5:22-23:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."

Everything on that list is something that can be worked on. Some people might naturally be more adept at some of those things than others. But even those things that come fairly easy to us can be improved. Does anyone love perfectly, have perfect joy or perfect patience? These are things that we should be actively working on developing and we should be doing so with the same dedication and effort that we see in our Olympic athletes. There will be times when we try to exercise gentleness and we fall flat on our bum. But that doesn't mean that we should give up. McKayla Maroney was obviously not pleased with her result. For her winning the silver was not good enough. Hopefully it spurs her on to do even better the next time around. Whenever we fall short we should not simply say, "Well I tried and did my best. That is good enough." We should be resolute to work harder and to do better next time around.


Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Reacting to trouble

"How are you?" may be one of the most common and most disingenuous questions that we ask. Sometimes we ask without really wanting an answer; it has become a replacement phrase for "hello." I have often participated in conversations that go something like this:

"Hey, how are you?"
"Good. You?"
"Oh, you know. Same old, same old."

Or like this:

"Hey, how are you?"
"Hey."

"Hey?" That's really an answer? At least the first conversation pretends to engage the question. Full disclosure: I have not just heard the answer "hey" but have used it myself. I don't recall having someone answer "hey" and being offended by it. In my experience we get (and give) the level of answer that is expected. But of course there are also plenty of times that the question is meant to elicit a deeper response. But how often do we really want to share how we are doing? I guilty of having a canned response no matter how things are going. If things are going good the response is usually, "good." If things are going rough the response might be, "not bad." If things are crashing down around me the response might be, "not too bad."

I think that my response is due to a couple of reasons. The first is our individualistic culture and private nature. There are certain things that we all hold as private. The topics and amount of information may change from person to person but we all have things that we will not share. The second reason is our pride. We generally want people to think well of us and usually don't want people's pity. (On a side note, there can be times when we share our troubles for the sake of pride as well. We can get a sense of pride when we share just how difficult we have it.) Both reasons come down to our desire to control how others see us. In the day of social media we have even more control over how we are perceived by others. (I've written on this before here and here.)

I think that another reason that I respond this way is because of the perception that I am supposed to react this way. It is very easy to read Matthew 8:23-27 and scoff at the disciples reaction:

"And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, 'Save us, Lord; we are perishing.' And he said to them, 'Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?' Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, 'What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?'"

Some of the guys on this boat were fishermen. They made their living by being on the sea and I am sure that this is not the first time that they faced a storm. I am sure that they would know when a storm was just a storm and when to be afraid of sinking. Yet Jesus rebuked them for having little faith and being afraid of the waves. So one of the lessons that we take away from this story is that we should never be afraid of a storm–no matter how bad it seems–when we have Jesus on our side. Buck up. Put on your happy face because no matter how terrible things are going we are "not too bad."

Yet most of us face things in life that look like real crises. They may in face be real crises and near impossible to put on a happy face. There are times when it takes all of our strength just to say that things are "not too bad." So why do we try?

Notice that the storm that the disciples faced was very real. Their fear was also very real. It was so real that they cried out to Jesus to save them. There are times in life that crying out to God is the only thing that we can do. But this doesn't guarantee that the storm will be calmed. Jesus tells us as much in John 16:33:

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."

There are times when we are going to face trouble; real trouble. And when we fear the worst we can take heart in the fact that no matter what we face in this world that we have a Savior that has faced just as much as we will ever face. He might not get rid of all of our trouble but in the end–in the life after this one–he will more than get rid of our troubles. We do not need to be afraid of calling out to him for help. It is the first thing that we should do. What we shouldn't do is put on a false front and simply answer "not too bad" when we are asked how things are going.

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

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The End of a Chapter in Life

A number of weeks ago my wife and I had to make a very difficult decision. As you may know I graduated from seminary last year and I am in the process of looking for a pastoral position in a church. When I started this process I was a member of the Reformed Church in America. I attended a Reformed Church, was a youth pastor in a Reformed Church and was attending a Reformed Church Seminary. As I went through this process it became clearer and clearer that I did not fit into the Reformed Church theological system. We knew that we would not be looking to serve in the RCA and that I would not be seeking ordination in the RCA. The problem was that we had been in our church for quite some time and we have very good friends in the church. We knew that we would eventually need to change our church affiliation but hoped that it would come after I found a church to serve in. However it became clear earlier this summer that it was probably best for us and the search process to make that change sooner rather than later.

For the past 7 weeks we have been attending and are now starting to volunteer at Village Church of Oak Park. It is a new church plant and part of the Evangelical Free Church of America. We don't know if we will end up in the EFCA but the theological beliefs of the EFCA align with our beliefs. While we are excited about being a part of a church plant and the new learning experience that it provides, it means that we have to say some very difficult good-byes. Our friends at Faith Community Reformed Church will always be our friends and we hope to stay in contact with them for the rest of our lives. But the reality of the situation is that we will no longer see them multiple times a week and the nature of our relationships will necessarily change. Even considering our belief differences with the RCA we would still recommend Faith Community Reformed Church to anyone living in the Stickney/Lyons/Berwyn area that is looking for a good church home and has a Reformed theological bent.

We have just sent a letter to the people of Faith to officially let them know of our decision. (The pastor and elders had previously been informed.) I want to take a moment and recognize the important role that the people of Faith have played in our lives. They made us a part of their families and invited us into their homes. They have also supported us throughout our seminary experience. We feel that the church is heading in a good direction and is really making a positive impact in the surrounding neighborhood. I especially want to highlight the impact of Pastor Chris and those that served as elders and deacons during our time at Faith. We are deeply indebted to their generosity and the opportunities that you provided for us. They didn't provide the minimums that I needed. Rather they were always willing to give more.

The chapter of our life that is entitled "Faith Community Reformed Church" is being closed. But it will never be forgotten and we will always look back on it with great fondness. We cannot thank the people of Faith enough and we will always have a special place in our hearts for you.

 

Updated 8/1/2012: Changed "Reformed Church of America" to "Reformed Church in America."

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Just what are we teaching our young girls?

It is amazing how quickly one week away turned into three. Let me start with just a brief catch-up note. Initially I was only going to have one week away from blogging during the Fourth of July week. My wife and I usually join my family for a long weekend at the lake. So I figured that I wouldn't get much writing in. But then the week we came back I officiated over my very first wedding. It was pretty exciting because it was for one of my former youth group kids. Then I spent most of last week answering doctrinal questions on an application for a Senior Pastor position. Some of you might cringe at answering questions on Baptism, The Lord's Supper, church governance/discipline and Spiritual Gifts but once I start I sometimes have a hard time quitting. But now I am back to my regularly scheduled blog post.

Last week I came across an interesting but disturbing article entitled: Why 6-Year-Old Girls Want to Be Sexy. The article starts off with a fairly ominous statement:

"Most girls as young as 6 are already beginning to think of themselves as sex objects, according to a new study of elementary school-age kids in the Midwest."

Researchers from Knox College in Galesburg, IL showed a couple of paper dolls to girls that were between 6 and 9 years old. Both dolls were dressed in clothes that would be considered fashionable. One was dressed in a modest way and the other was dressed like a sexy Bratz doll. The results are quite disturbing:

"Across-the-board, girls chose the "sexy" doll most often. The results were significant in two categories: 68 percent of the girls said the doll looked how she wanted to look, and 72 percent said she was more popular than the non-sexy doll."

I don't know that it really is all that stunning that almost three quarters of 6 to 9-year-olds identify dressing sexy with being popular. For those that do find it surprising might I suggest a quick perusal of pop culture that includes a look at MTV. But what is interesting (and again not all that stunning when you really think about the issue) is that media consumption and desire to dress sexy is not the primary correlation that we might suppose.

"Media consumption alone didn't influence girls to prefer the sexy doll. But girls who watched a lot of TV and movies and who had mothers who reported self-objectifying tendencies, such as worrying about their clothes and appearance many times a day, in the study were more likely to say the sexy doll was popular.

"The authors suggest that the media or moms who sexualize women may predispose girls toward objectifying themselves; then, the other factor (mom or media) reinforces the messages, amplifying the effect. On the other hand, mothers who reported often using TV and movies as teaching moments about bad behaviors and unrealistic scenarios were much less likely to have daughters who said they looked like the sexy doll. The power of maternal instruction during media viewing may explain why every additional hour of TV- or movie-watching actually decreased the odds by 7 percent that a girl would choose the sexy doll as popular, Starr said. "As maternal TV instruction served as a protective factor for sexualization, it’s possible that higher media usage simply allowed for more instruction.""

The influence of a mother–for good or bad–may be one of the most important aspects of the development of young girls. The article also found that a mother's religious beliefs also positively influenced the girls but that it wasn't due to a "media blackout."

"However, girls who didn’t consume a lot of media but who had religious mothers were much more likely to say they wanted to look like the sexy doll. "This pattern of results may reflect a case of 'forbidden fruit' or reactance, whereby young girls who are overprotected from the perceived ills of media by highly religious parents … begin to idealize the forbidden due to their underexposure," the authors wrote. Another possibility is that mothers of girls who displayed sexualized attitudes and behaviors had responded by restricting the amount of TV and movies their daughters could watch. Regardless, the authors underlined, "low media consumption is not a silver bullet" against early self-sexualization in girls."

What seems to be the most important aspect is when a mother takes the time to teach their daughters about what they encounter in both media and popular culture. It is important for parents to understand and explain the problems that come with the sexual objectification of women with their daughters even at a young age. This isn't a new idea and is how God designed the parent/child relationship to work. Proverbs 22:6 says:

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."

For good or bad what parents teach their children will be even more powerful than anything that pop culture, the media or anyone else tries to teach your children. The only time that those other voices will have a bigger impact is when parents–through both their actions and inaction–"teach" their children need to learn from someone else.

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

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