Leadership Summit - part 2

Here we are at Leadership Summit at the satelite site in Peoria, IL at Northwoods Community Church. What a cool church with a wonderful plan for ministry. They have been awesome hosts and it has been wonderful being here.

This morning we had the privilege of hearing three interviews conducted by Bill Hybels. Here is my brief summation before we head to supper.

Ashish Nanda - associate professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Bottom line? Take care of your people. Serve the people who serve you and the company. Also, hiring "stars" is risky business. It almost never works for a failing (or non-growing) company to hire a "star" performer. They simply cannot "work their magic" in the new setting simply because their support network is gone.

Moral of the story? If you hire a "star" then you better hire his entire staff. I feel bad for churches that attract and hire "stars" and expect them to produce growth. It's a mistake of huge magnitude. Often churches hire a new senior pastor who is a star and when he shows up he gets rid of the current staff. This simply doesn't work and the research bears this up.

Jim Collins - author of Built to Last and Good to Great. I read Good to Great and it strengthened my resolve to serve those around me and to pour my life into the lives of those with whom I serve. It also affirmed my desire to collaborate with teams and to work together. Jim was enthusiastic and engaging. Interestingly enough, Jim is not a believer and a couple of times Bill Hybels actually kinda challenged him about his faith journey. It was cool seeing Bill reaching out to Jim in front of of 80k people!!!

Bono - lead singer of rock band U2. Ok, Bono is prob not my fav theologian. But the guy apparently loves God but has had some issues with God's church. I have to confess that I too have had issues with the church. Us musicians and artists in general were rejected by the church years ago so a lot of us went out and did our own thing. (a little rant there - I'm ok now)

Bono is in the halftime of his life and has been wildly successful but wants to leverage his influence to make a difference in the name of the Lord. So, meeting the needs of the poor and especially helping make a difference in the AIDS crisis. You see Bono can't understand why the church is following Jesus' command to feed the poor and meet the needs of the needy. I can't either, but I guess I've gotten comfortable in my 4 bedroom house and nice cars we drive. I have a nice office will lots of cool tools. (or is that toys). I am glad to see that he is desiring to make an eternal impact.

For more info on his endeavor go to www.one.org

After lunch we were treated to a private tour of the building.

Arts and Worship (or Arts are worship) - an artist performed sand art on a lighted glass as an act of worship and it was awesome! (why has the church - and me for years - said no to artists other than piano and organists and classically trained vocalists?) After lunch we were envigorated by the ministry of Nicole C. Mullin. She was better than ever and by the end many of us were in tears, including Nancy Beach one of teaching pastors at Willow Creek!

The last session featured Patrick Lencioni author of Death by Meeting, Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide, and Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars. Buy his books and read them. Here are some sound bytes: (it's late and I'm tired)

• If everything is important, then nothing is important.
  
• We have to choose between what is better and best - not good or bad.
  
• Don't make perfect the enemy of the good. (This is my problem)
  
• Our ability to work together is a testimony of our relationship with God .

I'll be talking about this stuff for a while. Stay tuned. I'm out.

P.S. Thank God I am finally in a church that values leadership development and puts its money where its mouth is. Thanks New Covenant for investing in me. I love this place!