Free Chapter of Bill Hybels' New Book

In less than one week, we will launch The Global Leadership Summit 2010!

We want to provide you with free chapter from Bill Hybels' soon-to-be-released book The Power of a Whisper. Take some time to read the chapter as you prepare for your experience at the Summit and journal your impressions (or post them on facebook).

Going Deeper

1. Throughout this chapter, Bill Hybels described specific instances throughout his life where he clearly heard the voice of God leaving direct and specific impressions in his spirit. Take a few minutes to reflect on your own life and make an inventory of your own. Describe some of the "whispers" that you have heard from God over your life and what happened as a result.
   
   
2. Read through the biblical account of God's whispers to the boy Samuel in 1 Samuel. Consider memorizing Miss Van Solen's poem for yourself and praying it every day over the next week, writing down any impressions you might have from God.

Oh! Give me Samuel's ear,
An open ear, O Lord,
Alive and quick to hear
Each whisper of Thy Word;
Like him to answer to Thy call
And to obey Thee first of all.

By: The Summit Team (@wcagls)

Craig Groeschel Preps for Summit Interview

Craig Groeschel will be interviewing Tony Dungy at this year's Summit and recently wrote a blog post on Swerve about what he's looking forward to in the interview. Below are a few of his words on the topic:

I’m very honored and excited to interview Coach Tony Dungy at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit on August 5th. We’ll be discussing Coach Dungy’s newest book, The Mentor Leader, Secrets to Building People and Teams that Win Consistently.

In preparation for the interview, I reread Quiet Strength and enjoyed a couple of pre-interview calls with Coach Dungy. I’ve always admired Dungy’s leadership and spiritual strength from a distance. He’s everything you would hope for and far more up close.

There’s a lot of myths out there about mentorship: How does it actually happen? Who is responsible for setting up a mentoring relationship? Do you have to know someone personally to be mentored by that person?

Who are you being mentored by these days?

By: The Summit Team (@wcagls)

The Power of Exponential Impact

Next week is a huge week for us at WCA International. In the three days before the Summit, there will be 150 people, at the WCA, from around the world who will partner with us in producing the GLS (Global Leadership Summit) in the fall. Each leader will be taking part in meetings to equip them as they work to make the GLS a success in more than 50 countries worldwide. I am excited to serve these brothers and sisters in Christ. But, I am most excited for the opportunity to envision leaders where there is potential for exponential impact.

The leaders, who will be present for the Summit in August, are the leaders that will impact the 70,000 international GLS guests this fall. Those 70,000 guests serve the Church tirelessly through immense challenges some western Christians can’t even imagine.

My heart for the international church is very big.

There are many, many countries around the world where leading a church or even to be Christian is far more challenging than in the US. Some are persecuted. Some have a lack of resources unimaginable to us in the western world; even having a Bible is an incredible treasure. When you consider the challenges these people face, it is such a great honor, privilege, and calling to help them prevail.

My hope for the three days before the Summit is that our GLS partners would truly understand the impact they can have in the incredible leadership movement God is building around the world to further the cause of Christ.

My hope is that they would leave here with new passion to help churches build unity across denominations, to invest in young leaders, and to gain new ideas and skills for how to reach as many people as they can in their country. Pray that we will steward this message well.

If these 150 are equipped well, they will go on to equip another 70,000. The widow’s mite can truly be a fortune in God’s economy.

By: Gary Schwammlein
EVP, WCA International

Students Are Not The Future

Students are the now. According to Bill Hybels young people have “limitless potential.” I agree with that statement wholeheartedly! Many great movements throughout the Bible, start with young people who are passionate and willing to take risks for God. I believe Jesus’ infinite world-changing ministry centered around the 12 disciples- who some scholars believe were teenagers.

After almost 2000 years, not much has changed since the disciples walked the Earth. Like the disciples, most High school students are desperately trying to decide what they will give their life to. I am passionate about leading high school students because I believe they are making choices that set the trajectory of their life. They are deciding what paths and habits, good or bad, they will choose. Students are making these choices while being intensely targeted by society, media, and friends. Advertising to teens is a multi-billion dollar business because companies know that if they can hook a young person, they may have a customer for life.

I often wonder if the church targets youth as well as the secular world. Sometimes I sense an attitude toward students that “someday they will be the church.” I believe that young people have the potential to be leaders today and vital parts of the church body now.

What can you do to help young people reach their “limitless potential?”

• Make Disciples: Build into a few young people relationally through mentoring, small-group leading, teaching, or modeling.


• Give students Ownership: Let them own something and help them along the way. Give feedback and encouragement. If students are not given leadership or ownership at church, there are a multitude of places they can find leadership- at school, in activities, and even online.


• Influence Others: Lead up to church staff or pastor and influence the spiritual growth plan for students in your church.

The irony of stepping out to change the lives of students and help them see their “limitless potential” is this: Your life is the one greatly changed and blessed. Your potential is stretched and increased. You receive the most when you give.

How will you impact the next generation so that they can reach their “limitless potential”?

By: Tara Rumler (@tararumler)
Student Ministries Group Life Director
Willow Creek McHenry

If you missed it, check out this month’s Defining Moments, Spiritual Formation of the Next Generation with Shane Farmer and Bill Hybels

The Antidote for an Average Church

Real spiritual transformation is unlikely to happen in a congregation if the church leaders themselves are not experiencing transformation. This 4 min. video, featuring Cally Parkinson, gives insight on the impact of the leaders' souls on the effectiveness of the church.

Are you as spiritually on fire as you want your congregation to be?



By: WCA Team (@wcagls)

Beware of the Squeaky Wheel

REVEAL sees lots of different spiritual profiles of church congregations, which means we see lots of different combinations of these four spiritual segments:



While the percentages for each segment can vary considerably for individual churches, the second group—Growing in Christ—is typically the largest, representing 40 percent or more of a church’s spiritual profile.

That’s why they can be a “squeaky wheel”—the loudest voice—because they dominate the church crowd. What’s the problem with that? We see two.

First, because churches tend to do one-size-fits-all initiatives, they may lean toward responding to the needs of these less mature believers (the “loudest voice”) at the expense of the more mature believers.

The second problem relates to leadership. If churches mistake level of activity for level of spiritual maturity, they may populate the volunteer ranks of small group and ministry leaders with people who are not ideal for a leadership position.

Could this explain why small groups aren’t more effective as spiritual growth catalysts—because so many small group leaders are in the earlier stages of spiritual growth?

By: Cally Parkinson
REVEAL Director and Co- Author of Reveal, Follow Me, and Focus

What’s the Most Significant Insight About Spiritual Growth?

Pete Scazzero, author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and senior pastor at New Life Community Church, asked our team, “Based on all of REVEAL’s research with thousands of churchgoers, what’s your most significant insight about spiritual growth?”

Is it that church activities don’t drive long-term spiritual growth?

Is it that the church’s best evangelists, volunteers, and donors come from the Christ-Centered segment?

Is it that 25% of churchgoers are either stalled spiritually, dissatisfied with the church, or both?

While all of these are important and useful insights, REVEAL’s most significant discovery may be about the role of human choice

We would all agree that only God truly inspires spiritual growth to occur. But, in the words of one of my favorite worship songs, if we don’t make the decisions to “open the eyes of our hearts” to see Him, we are unlikely to grow in a relationship with Him.

Church leaders have focused for centuries on getting people to make one decision, which is to accept the promise of salvation by grace offered by Jesus Christ. While that decision is essential to a person’s spiritual journey, REVEAL has identified two-dozen additional decisions that are catalysts of spiritual growth.

For example, people need to decide to believe in the authority of the Bible and the concept of a personal God. They need to decide to set aside time for prayer and reflection on Scripture in their everyday lives. They need to decide to act on their faith through service to others.

This is the role of the church: to help us make the decisions (all 25 of them!) that will “open the eyes of our hearts” to see and know God.

By: Cally Parkinson
REVEAL Director and Co- Author of Reveal, Follow Me, and Focus

Measuring Participation or Transformation?

In 2007, Willow Creek Community Church decided to ask the entire congregation a number of compelling questions related to its effectiveness in fulfilling the Matthew 28 mandate of “making disciples of all nations”—which has always been the goal from the very beginning in 1975 when Willow Creek set out to “turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ.” What emerged in the process was a validated objective way to evaluate church strategies, programs, and methods through a primary lens—disciple-making effectiveness. In his enthusiasm over the discovery (now known as REVEAL), Bill Hybels shared the “wake-up call of his ministry life!” at The Leadership Summit 2007.

Some leaders thought the wakeup call had to do with invalidating 30 years of seeker sensitive ministry… ridiculous! The truth couldn’t be farther from that.

The wake-up call came from the learning that occurred when church programs and initiatives were rigorously evaluated through a truly objective “disciple-making” lens. Historically, most if not all churches, including Willow, have measured many things like service attendance, strategy/program participation and completion, giving, baptisms, small group involvement, and Sunday school attendance. These great inputs should be tracked, but none of them actually measure the one output that matters most to a church—disciples formed in the image of Christ!

Leading a church without measuring its disciple-making effectiveness is like a corporate CEO getting updates on inputs like headcount, tenure, and turnover, but never profitability—unimaginable! It’s virtually impossible for any leader to lead well over the long haul without having a way to measure effectiveness on the outputs that matter most, but churches do it all the time.

After more than 30 years of ministry, Willow and a growing number of churches, now have a more objective way to annually evaluate the impact its decisions have on disciple-making effectiveness. Now, more than 280,000 people from 1,200 churches have also engaged in measuring what matters most.

So…what’s your lens? How do you measure effectiveness? As a church leader, how do you know your decisions are helping fulfill the Matthew 28 mandate to make disciples of all nations? How does your church allocate resources and set strategy with confidence that it will have the right outcome? How do you really know beyond individual opinions? Do you track inputs or outputs? Participation or transformation?

Moving beyond measuring participation to assessing transformed hearts isn’t easy or perfect, but not trying and flying blind as a leader of a church is much worse. Coming alongside leaders on this issue of “transformation” is increasingly defining the heart and work of the WCA.

By: Jim Mellado (@JimMellado)
President, WCA

Leaders Helping Leaders

It's a powerful and potentially world-changing concept. Amidst poverty, corruption, persecution, and conflict, a leader is inspired and equipped. For under-resourced Christian leaders, this can be a game changer. We are seeing the growing evidence of how a leader's trajectory can change when he or she is given the right training, tools, and inspiration.

In this 2 minute video, Gary Schwammlein (EVP, WCA International) tells the story of how the GLS is impacting leaders who live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The only barrier to unleashing an even bigger flood of world-changing impact is access. The WCA is committed to making its ministry accessible to all of the most strategic leaders in the cause of Christ through the church, regardless of that leader's ability to cover the market value or even the costs of the ministry provided.

On the evening before The Global Leadership Summit, at Willow Creek’s South Barrington Campus, leaders from around the world will share their personal story of how God is at work transforming their communities.

If you will be in the Chicago area, please join us for Celebration of Transformation – reception at 6pm, program from 7-8pm on August 4. Please RSVP at www.willowcreek.com/reception. For those unable to attend the event in South Barrington, we will be streaming Celebration of Transformation LIVE online.

By: Sue Elworth
Director of Development

Preparing for the Summit

As our team preps with Summit speakers like Terri Kelly (President and CEO of W.L. Gore and Associates), we're getting excited for what God will do in the weeks ahead!

Watch a short video and hear why Jim Mellado can't wait for Terri Kelly's Summit session.

By: WCA Team (@wcagls)

Although the South Barrington campus is sold out, it's not too late to sign up to attend the Summit (Thursday - Friday, August 5 - 6) at a satellite site in your region.

Journey with a Kingdom Cause

Justice – is calling out and righting the wrongs that result from the sins of discrimination, exclusivity, and oppression, neglect of the poor and economic corruption that leads to poverty. (Crazy Enough to Care, 2009)

It’s a hot early morning in June as I stand in the parking lot on the campus of Willow Creek Community Church. My heart feels like a percussionist beating drums on my chest as I watch members for the 2010 Justice Journey Experience arrive onto our campus. For the first time since the Justice Journey began, the bus is loaded with unique local churches representing 9 denominations. Only God!

The heartbeat of the Justice Journey is individual experiences. As each member embarks on an educational and spiritual pilgrimage into southern cities, they are connected with one of the most important movements in our nation’s history- The Civil Rights Movement.

The energy level is absolutely amazing. I can hear members on the bus sharing insights with one another on their expectations related to the journey and even a few voices saying things like ‘What in the world am I doing on this bus?’ Each day throughout the Journey a Kingdom value will be lifted up:

• Monday – Relationships
• Tuesday – Awareness
• Wednesday – Repentance
• Thursday – Reconciliation
• Friday – Unity & Hope
• Saturday – Transformation

As you might expect, these values are all connected to experiences, site visits, and messages delivered by core faculty members throughout the course of the day.

Members will encounter history through the stories of living Civil Rights legends like JoAnne Bland who actually participated in the ‘Bloody Sunday’ tragedy on March 7, 1965 on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. She witnessed first-hand as a young person when armed officers attacked peaceful African American demonstrators in their pursuit for the right to vote in this country. From there Justice Journey members will travel through Atlanta, GA, Birmingham, AL, and conclude the experience in Memphis, TN, at the National Civil Rights Museum (formerly known as the Lorraine Motel where the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated).

By the end of the week – each member on the bus will have a deeper appreciation for “Justice and Liberty for All.”

Take for example this anonymous quote from one of the Justice Journey 2010 members: “This was a marvelous way to learn about race issues and civil rights history in particular. I realize now that I’ve been ignorant- sometimes willingly so- about issues of black America. There are too many stereotypes I’ve bought into, and this journey was instrumental in tearing down those false images.”

In ways could your church reach across racial divides? What programs or ministries do you engage in within your own community to reach across racial divides?

By: Rev. Alvin C. Bibbs, Sr (@ justiceacb)
Exc. Director of Multi-Cultural Church Relations Lead

> Time Magazine, Can Megachurches Bridge the Racial Divide?

2 Timothy 1:7

“If we were to boil Christianity to its core, we’d be left with simply this: Relationship with God.” - Bill Hybels

The most important thing you can do today as a leader is take time for the core essential: Your relationship with God. Over the next several months, we’ll be posting a series of wallpaper downloads with scripture. Our hope is that they will serve as a daily reminder to connect and be in a relationship with our amazing God—a Father who meets us where we are.

July’s highlighted verse is 2 Timothy 1:7. Download Wallpaper

Is It Worth It?

When discussing major society changes, people frequently mention the U.S. transition to a so-called “post-Christian era.” Best –selling books ridicule faith in God. Laws are being written to control what Christians can say in public. Church attendance is declining.

In spite of these trends, positive changes are also occurring. Where Christian leaders take a stand and preach the Bible fearlessly, people take note and follow. As they hold forth an inspired, God-given vision, then lean into Him for help to pursue it, they are witness to tremendous, positive changes others thought impossible.

Inspiring God’s leaders with the message that all things are possible through Him is what the Summit is all about. You may even find yourself asking, “Is it worth it?” Let me say, without reservation, I know that it is. God is using the GLS to reach leaders from churches, the marketplace, arts, education, military, and government; men and women who can positively impact our entire world for Jesus Christ.

Blessings,

Gary Schwammlein
EVP, WCA International

Leadership Matters

Regardless of a country’s history, culture, or wealth, we know this: leadership matters and the development of Christian leaders is critical in God’s plan to restore our world through the power of the local church.

Bill Hybels shares his vision for leadership development in Indonesia and other areas of the world. (3:43 min.)

Go. Act. Do.

As we prepped for the Jack Welch interview with Bill Hybels for the Summit, a lot of people asked what Jack Welch would consider his biggest failure. Enjoy this preview of the interview as Jack answers the question.

Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, are there times that you wish you had moved faster?

By: the Summit Team (@wcagls)