Embarking

There is really no way to capture the passion we just heard from Christine Caine in notes on a blog.  This is a woman who, as she said, is still “old-school enough” to truly believe that that Jesus is the hope of the world.  She challenged us to live into this moment – our moment in which there are great needs in the world and to step up and be the church that God longs for.

I was moved when Christine was telling a story in which she was challenged by a woman who was just being rescued from sex trafficking slavery who said, “If what you’re saying about your God is true, why didn’t you come earlier?”  She said this amazing statement, and one we should all reflect deeply on:

It is not that God did not hear your cry; but I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to hear it.  I honestly cannot think of anything in my life that was so important that I shouldn’t have come earlier.

There is a great challenge – not only in terms of human sex trafficking – but in all the ways that God’s heart breaks for his world.  Isn’t it true that we are so often so busy with so many things that are merely much ado about nothing and are neglecting the very deep things that moved the Father to send Jesus into the world in the first place?

Towards the end of her talk, Christine talked about hope.  She talked about how courageous her little 4 year old becomes in the middle of darkness with a simple flashlight in her hand – with that little light, she’ll go in darker.  While they were in Walmart buying a flashlight, her daughter said, “Mommy, can we please go find some darkness?”  It doesn’t take much light to dispel the darkness, it simply takes the courage to step in for “Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.”

These are some of my notes from the seventh session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

• Focus, study and replicate the 2 that are stellar
• Look for the bright spots and find out what’s different; throw resources behind those and multiply

When going after big issues, focus on sequences of small solutions and small starts.

“Shrink the change” – Take a large change, and run a micro version; get some small victory.  Then, resource and multiply and go big.

We owe it to people to prepare them for adversity.

Ideo's View of Hope to Confidence

There are people who have the “growth mindset.”  They are always thinking that with work, they can become better.  But built into that whole process is a tolerance for failure.

“Failure is not an option” is ridiculous.  It is often through failure that success comes.  It may be an early warning sign for success.

Sometimes we think we have a problem with someone who won’t change, or won’t accept our ideas.  In this sense, we think we have a “people” problem when we might actually have a “situation” problem.  This is called a fundamental attribution problem.

These are some of my notes from the sixh session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

“Speeches take place within a context never a vaccum.  Listeners bring to the occassion not only their dreams and aspirations, but a range of questions about the speaker.  Who is he down deep?  What does he really stand for?  Does he speak with authority?  Does he care about people like me? Can I place my faith and trust in him?”

–Gergen

These are some of my notes from the third part of the fifth session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

“The very people who should have been protecting us were our attackers.”

These are some of my notes from the second part of the fifth session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

These are some of my notes from the first part of the fifth session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.  Thanks to Louis who helped me with this session while I answered a pager call.

Third culture is about adaptation.  Third culture is pain and discomfort because we interact with those who are different.  The Great Commandments are about third culture.

Third culture leaders go after the misfits more than the masses.

• FAILURE IS SUCCESS to God
• Your failure, your pain, is your platform to humanity, it is what the World connects to you on it is what gives quality to your voice for the generation to connect to you
• Most of the world doesn’t understand America’s success, but they will understand suffering, maybe suffering is success
• Do we set aside time to listen to people’s story?
• Gifts are important and skills, but our narrative is key
• Walk slowly, see the people
• Do I see them?  Do I have the eyes of a follower?
• Weakness will guide us more than our strengths
• We often worry about how to quantify a vision… DON’T we already have a vision?  LOVE GOD LOVE NEIGHBOR
• RELATIONSHIPS TRUMP VISION!
• You can’t have great vision without a great relationship with God
• Jesus only did what he saw his father doing (JOHN 5)
• We need more relationaries not visionaries
• People to walk for a while people to talk for a while, where you feel the vibe
• Best discipleship happens with life on life not a process or program

Third culture leaders have a different set of metrics.

• CHANGE PRIORITIES
• Hang out with people different than us
• Read people different than us

Third culture leaders know that obedience is more important than passion.

4 Acts of Obedience of a Third Culture Leader

1. Deeper Collaboration
2. Communal LIving
3. Prayer
4. Radical sacrifice for the outsider

I’m not going to write much on this interview, even though Jessica Jackley was great.  She was very articulate and is clearly passionate.  Some of the best things at the Summit are these interviews, particularly with younger women who have done some extraordinary things (cf. one of my favorites, Catherine Rohr last year).  I think it’s awesome that Willow highlights young woman and gets behind their leadership at least in this way.  I’d like to see some more women keynote speakers, and not necessarily your standard Nancy Ortberg and Lynn Hybels (even though I like them.) I just think we have a lot to learn from some of the emerging young female leaders in the church today.

Also, just want to say that KIVA highlighted in Jessica’s talk is great, and micro-financing and micro-loans in particular is something that has taken far too long for the church to take notice  (I remember hearing first about these back at an Urbana Conference sometime possibly in ’99 or ’01) This is one of the best ways to get at financial and justice issues in terms of poverty and development globally that really doesn’t fit in either the category of trade or aid (the big debate in development).

These are some of my notes from the third session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

“The Gospel is not religion or irreligion but something else.”

These are some of my notes from the second part of the second session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 2, Gary Haugen, International Justice Mission, Just Courage: Charging the Darkness

I can’t remember when I first learned about Gary Haugen and the International Justice Mission.  I heard him at The Urbana Missions Conference back in 2000.  He was inspirational then, and has continued to be in my life.  Haugen wrote a book years ago now called The Good News about Injustice, which has been meaningful and foundation text in my life.  I haven’t seen the most recent version, but when I read it, it was foundational to God’s plan for dealing with justice in the world.  (see Gary’s talk below)  I had the privelege once to meet him in Ann Arbor at small talk he did to law students at the Law Quad at the University of Michigan sponsored by Intervarsity and James Paternoster, I think.

Leadership Matters

Leadership that matters to God deals with issues that matter to God.  So, we need to ask ourselves the question, “Are Jesus and I really interested in the same things?  What is God passionate about?”

Two fundamental, and unfamiliar passions of God

1. God’s passion for the world. (John 3:16)  The whole incarnation was motivated by God’s passion for the world.  What’s the hardest thing for our world to believe?  That God is good in the midst of all the pain.  What is God’s plan for making it believable?  We are the plan, and God doesn’t have another plan.
2. God’s passion for Jusice.  The Scripture is replete with passages about God’s desire for justice.  (cf. Psalm 11; Micah 6)  “What if justice is not my thing?”  Then God says, “You’re not my thing.”

But the work seems hopeless, scary and hard.  How do we lead in times when these are the circumstances?  Here is what IJM has learned in these times:

• What have we learned with the task seems hopeless?  By recentering the basis of our hope.  When we focus our eyes on what we do, it leads to dispair.  Hope is recovered when we remember who God is.  If God is passionate about it, he’s responsible for it, too.  Jesus asks when he feeds the 5000, “What do you have?” and then invites them to give it to him so that he can do the work through what they have.  Sometimes God is asking you to lead in a situation that seems hopeless and give Him what he have, and that the miracles are His job.
• What have we learned with the task seems scary?  Jesus didn’t come to make us safe, he came to make us brave.  If my life isn’t scary, I might check if it’s really Jesus I’m following.  Jesus is asking us to lead out of lives of triviality through his passion for justice in the world.  The church today is too often like spending your day in the visitors center, safe, but missing the vigor and life of the real mountain.  “I sense among many of my Christian friends that we’re on the journey with Jesus but we’re missing the adventure.”  God invites us to follow him beyond what we can control, and we will experience Him and His power, and His wisdom and His love.
• What have we learned with the task seems hard?  God wants to take our strengths on a more demanding climb in which we will actually need Him.  Effective Leadership comes from  four choices:

  +Choosing not to be safe – this will be evidence in our prayer life because our prayerlife will demonstrate that we are out of control and actually need God.  We don’t need God at the visitor’s center.

  +Choosing deep spiritual health – the more demanding climb requires a higher level of spiritual health.  We can’t do hard things without it.  Our devotional lives are boring in the safe, suburban suburb of the safe Christian life.  Our spiritual disciplines, on the demanding climb, have a desperate purpose.  Discipline turns into desperation.  Obedience turns into urgency.  If you want to ignite purpose and passion in the people you lead, lead them to a place that is unsafe in which they need to depend on God.  Real justice in the world is that place.  Nothing will get done unless we take an hour doing nothing but seeking God.

  +Choosing excellence – the church is generally not known for excellence today.  That wasn’t always the case.  In years past, the opposite was true.  As Christianity in the last century has moved into climate controlled cul-de-sacs, something has changed.  Rigourous of thought and excellence in execution matters, and in areas of justice it is often a matter of life or death.  Enough of the Christian adjusted scale of mediocrity.  It is bad for those we serve and for our own souls.

  +Choosing to see the joy – Dallas Willard:  “The first thing to disappear when spiritual health declines is laughter.” [paraphrase]  It is humorous that God deploys such flawed and humorous people as us for His plan and his appeal to the world.  That’s hilarious!!  Jesus came to bring us his joy, to make our joy complete, and to fill us up to overflowing with the joy of the Lord.

If you think about what Hybels said about axioms, here is Haugen’s leadership axiom: If you want your leadership to matter, lead in the things that matter to God.

This all reminds me of a CS Lewis quote that talks about our contentment to make mupdies on the yard in exchange for what we could have – a vacation at the sea.  We are near-sighted, and we exchange the glorious, beautiful, amazing things that God has for us.  So, here’s my own personal question:  why do I settle for comfortable, controlled-environment cul-de-sac Christianity instead of seeking the adventurous battle of hopeful, meaningful, and passionate journeying with Jesus as he ushers in his Kingdom of love, justice, and joy?

“Your courage asks me, ‘What am I afraid of?’
Your courage asks me, ‘What am I made of?’”