Willow Creek Leadership Summit - Follow-up
I REALLY enjoyed The Leadership Summit this year. I thought that each speaker brought tremendous leadership insight and the folks at Willow did an excellent job hosting the event.
I’m sure this won’t surprise you, but our team is so proud of how great Craig did in his session. We have been praying that God would use this event to “bless leaders around the world with discomfort” - I know from the many conversations that I’ve had in the last several hours that He is doing just that!
Many of you who follow swerve already get a daily dose, but thousands of pastors around the world were hearing some of these insights for the first time. Craig talked about the qualities you’ll see in churches/teams/organizations who have “IT” - based on his new book.
A few of the questions that Craig challenged the conference with were:
- What are we doing that we should stop doing?
- What is God trying to show you through your greatest limitation?
- What has God called you to do that you’re afraid to try?
If you were able to go to the Leadership Summit this year - What were some of the key takeaways for you?
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What a powerful session that was!
One of my biggest take-aways was the question Craig asked “If you don’t have IT, what are you going to do to get IT?” and also when he said “Failure is often the first step to seeing God.”
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Hands down, Craig was the absolute best speaker of the entire conference.This was the best conference of the past 3 years.
Bobby and Craig,
God spoke to me during the conference. Craigs message spoke to me big time. At Catalyst I couldn’t sleep for a week and I resigned 3 weeks later. Craig prayed a similar prayer this time and I’m struggling again. I have to process what God said to me (I’m not Charismatic either) but God spoke big time to me. During Bill Hybels last talk I was overwhelmed by what God was telling me. I bought Craigs book too and look forward to hearing what God will share through “IT.”
My biggest takeaway from Craig’s talk was that pain may come along with IT. IT could hurt, IT could make you miserable, IT could kill you. But IT is worth it.
I’m facing a decision right now to either stay in a comfortable worship leader role in a large, well-resourced church, or plant a church with no guarantee of a paycheck. Some friends are telling me not to plant the church unless the pastor can offer me a guarantee of a certain level of income. From Craig’s talk, I’ve been inspired to open myself to the Spirit’s prompting, even knowing the Spirit may prompt me into a situation where I lose income, which could put my family in uncomfortable situations.
Thanks, Craig, for helping me see what IT may take and that IT is worth it!
I loved what Wendy Kopp said about using college seniors for her mission. Such an ingenious move. I think more churches could learn from that.
Dang- how blessed are we to have “sat at the feet” of the speakers at the Leadership Summit this year? AMAZING and totally humbling. Here’s what I walked away with:
“Obsession with the mission will produce growth.” ~Wendy Kopp
“Spiritual Leadership is the art of rallying people to stay connected to the Holy Spirit together.” ~John Burke
“Why is the Church the only place where segregation is OK?” ~Efrem Smith
“Your team or organization cannot have IT if you don’t have IT!” ~Craig Groeschel
“I wish we took being Christian as seriously as Marine’s take their job.” ~Chuck Colson
“In today’s society, criminals are never forgiven. Paul, Moses, and David were all murderers and are now considered saints.” ~Catherine Rohr
“True leaders are most fulfilled when they are motivating those they lead rather than by personal acheivement.” ~Brad Anderson
“I will refuse God nothing.” ~Mother Teresa
In a nutshell, God peeled away all the “to dos” and refocused me on the fact that HE is what produces all results. May I never claim the glory that belongs to Him.
It was awesome to hear God speak through Craig. I’ve been reading this blog for about a year, and I often send specific links to my colleagues in leadership when your posts speak most powerfully to me. One of the greatest joys was seeing our team of 45+ people hear Craig and ‘get it’, en masse. We feel like God’s blessed us with ‘it’ and we are inspired to honor Him with his blessings…
I’m with Cody; I think the Summit was the best of the past three or four years.
Thanks for an amazing ministry through this blog, the book and lifechurch.
Biggest take-aways:
1) am I fully and uncompromisingly getting about God’s purposes in this world? (Hybels first session)
and
2) Craig’s last 3 minutes when he said God broke his heart again. When he said “it makes me miserable…I am never satisfied….and I want more of it”
That nailed me to the floor. I was absolutely called out by God through this confession. It’s almost like I was breathing the same breath as Craig and every other completely surrended follower of Christ throughout history in that one moment. The bridge to “some other path” for my life was burned instantly. I embraced my own misery and resolved to refuse God nothing. (Thank you, Craig!)
2) The “perspective” Wendy had about asking leaders to sacrifice–when she interrupted Bill and said we don’t ask them, we give them the opportunity to sacrifice….that was powerful. If leaders in minstry could develop a passion so gripping for the purposes of God that we energetically “presented the opportunity to sacrifice”as constantly and fervently as Wendy does..what could God not do through us?
Speaking to leaders and speaking in a worship experience will be somewhat different. But in 7+ years of listening to Craig I thought that was his best. I loved the way that speakers made reference to things previous speakers said. You knew they were participants, not someone who flew in, spoke, and flew out.
Craig’s session was one of the best at summit!
All four qualities he talked about were great. The biggest take away from his session was that God can guide in what He DOESN’T provide. The other aspect I enjoyed was the follow-up questions he gave for people to wrestle with after sharing each quality aspect of IT.
Craig’s talk is having an immediate impact on how I engage my leadership responsibilities and feel extremely blessed to have been apart of how God spoke through him!
Thanks to all of you for the kind words.
It was an awesome experience being back stage with the Willow team and all the speakers.
Bill Hybels is a giant of a leader and a person. His wife, Lynne, is equally amazing. They are both more down to earth and humble than you could imagine.
All of the speakers were very gracious.
It was a very spiritually packed two days.
What was amazing is not just the IT Craig unpacked, or the application points IT lended - but what the Holy SpirIT did with IT. I know of leaders who were moved by God to quit their job and go start a church, a school teacher who realized it was her job to chase after IT not wait for her pastors to create IT for her, and a host of leaders who were reminded, refreshed, refined and released to go after the heart of God with “laser focus” long lost. For many of the Summit speaker sessions the miracle is what God does with the 5 loaves and 2 fishes of content they bring to the table, as God then nourishes and infuses His life into 100,000 leaders across the globe!
Thanks, Craig, for the humility of heart and determined delivery of a powerful message at Summit!
[...] Willow Creek Leadership Summit was this week, and here are three challenging questions from [...]
Actually, one of my key takaways was from Craig, about the IT. Nice! In fact, I just blogged about IT myself. I’m a Lead Pastor in Calgary, AB and love where mulling this over is taking me.
As I mentioned in my blog, when Jesus tells the Ephesian believers that he will remove their lampstand if they don’t recapture their first love, he’s talking about the IT. The lampstand is the IT! Ding!
[...] I hear Craig brought ”it” at the Leadership Summit. [...]
WOW - Craig was incredible!
I have to not be afraid of FAILURE! Sometimes I only take safe risks. The problem is I never give God a chance to show up - I could do it on my own. I have been asking myself, “What do I do that REALLY requires faith?” Then I’ve prayed, “God you know my heart, you’ve given me passions and dream, I want to go for them.” I feel that big changes are coming…
Also, the truth that to get IT, the leader must have IT first. How incredible would it be if thousands of leaders had IT personally - honestly that’s THE missing ingredient! Craig was incredible!
I thoroughly enjoyed Craig’s session. It brought a lot of validity to what IT takes to provide a church that is successfully focused and also how those aspects of IT could be applied to the public business sector. I also enjoyed Craig’s discussion in the Unscripted Portion on Friday and thought he best represented a stance on how the Word of God should be communicated and how to challenge others to understand the Truth.
[...] [This is not an original thought...Craig Groeschel said this at the Leadership Summit...to meet the author of this question, click here.] [...]
[...] 22, 2008 at 2:00 pm (Uncategorized) Yesterday I shared a question [originally posed by Craig Groeschel at the Leadership Summit] that our leadership team discussed at our meeting this past week. The [...]
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for sharing your stories about Wendy Kopp’s interview at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. It was a fantastic conference overall, and we’re glad so many of you found Wendy’s thoughts on the importance of service so valuable. We are so excited about continuing to grow our movement, and want leaders to join us. If you, or someone you know, is interested in learning more or joining our movement, please visit http://www.teachforamerica.org/jointhemovement.
Thanks,
Ellie Campisano
Recruitment Coordinator, Faith Community Relations Team