Having not attended college, conferences have served as a learning opportunity for me, and I’ve valued the opportunity I have to learn and grow by attending them.

While there are many great conferences out there, one I consistently look forward to is the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit.

I attended my first Leadership Summit in August of 2002. I’ll never forget Bill Hybels talking about “Courageous Leadership” and the fact that  “the local church is the hope of the world and its future rests in the hands of its leaders.” That moment marked me, gave me passion for the Church and began a leadership journey that continues today.

Leadership Summit delivers fresh insights from some the best speakers from both the religious and business communities to over 100,000 leaders around the globe.

The 2010 Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit is coming up August 5-6 and this year’s lineup includes:

• Bill Hybels – Founder & Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church
• Jim Collins – Best-selling author, nationally acclaimed business thinker
• TD Jakes – Best-selling Author, Chief Pastor of The Potter’s House
• Jack Welch – Best-selling Author, Former Chairman and CEO of General Electric
• Andy Stanley – Senior Pastor, North Point Community Church
• Christine Caine – Author and Director of Equip & Empower Ministries, Founder of The A21 Campaign
• Tony Dungy – Winning Coach of 2007 Super Bowl, NBC Analyst
• Zhao Xiao – Leading Chinese Ecnomist, Chairman of Cypress Leadership Institute, Professor, University of Science and Technology, Beijing, China
• Blake Mycoskie – Founder and “Chief Shoe Giver” of TOMS Shoes
• Terry Kelley – President and CEO of W.L. Gore & Associates, Innovation Leaders and makers of GORE-TEX® Products
• Daniel H. Pink – Best-selling author, Business thinker, Former White House speechwriter
• Adam Hamilton – Founder and Senior Pastor, The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
• Jeff Manion – Senior Pastor, Ada Bible Church

And, I’m excited to let you know that this year I’ll be the official blogger for the Global Leadership Summit! I’ll be blogging notes from each session here on my blog and on the Willow Creek Association Blog.

There’s still time to register! Visit their website to find a satellite location near you.

Here’s some highlights from last year:

Thanks to the Willow Creek Association, you can download three of my favorite sessions from last year…

• Against All Odds, Harvey Carey (download code: BvXmD8Tr)
• The KIVA.org Story, Jessica Jackley (download code: JaCkDLrv)
• Leading People to the Prodigal God, Tim Keller (download code: TmKLrDxr)

And, as a special giveaway this week, I’m giving away a copy of the 2009 Leadership Summit Team Edition DVD which includes the three talks above along with sessions featuring: Bill Hybels, Gary Hamel,  Dave Gibbons, Andrew Rugasira, Wess Stafford, David Gergen, Chip Heath and Dan Heath,  and Tony Blair.  [Retails at $299!]

Here’s how to enter:

1. Tweet This: I just entered to win a copy of The 2009 Leadership Summit Team Edition DVD. Comment here and RT to enter: http://bit.ly/9L8NJp  #wcagls
2. Comment Below: With your Twitter handle [so I can verify you did the first step] and share the speaker you are looking forward to hearing from the most this year.
3. Check back at noon on Friday, July 16. I’ll announce the winner then!

Stay tuned and watch for notes August 5-6 from the 2010 Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit!

Alister McGrath  [AM]| Theologian and Author
Dr. Alister McGrath was a research scientist at Oxford University before he became a theologian. He holds doctorate degrees in the fields of molecular biophysics and theology. He is presently Professor of Theology, Ministry and Education, and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture, at King’s College, London and is involved in theological research and the professional development of clergy from a range of Christian denominations. As a former atheist, he regularly engages in debate and dialogue with leading atheists, and is presently researching the iconic role played by Charles Darwin in atheist apologetics.

Brian McLaren  [BM] | Author and Activist
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and networker among innovative Christian leaders. In 1986 he founded Cedar Ridge Community Church, an innovative, transdenominational church in the Baltimore-Washington region. He recently left the pastorate to devote full time to writing and speaking. Time Magazine listed him as one of the twenty-five most influential Evangelicals in America. He has appeared on Larry King Live, Nightline, CNN, FOX, PBS, and many other national media. Brian’s books include, The Secret Message of Jesus, Everything Must Change, Finding or Way Again, and A New Kind of Christian among many others. A New Kind of Christianity will release in 2010.

Tim Keller [TK]

*Disclaimer: I was fighting hard to keep up, so these are as close to exact as I could get… again, my interpretation of what I heard… so just know that!*

When we think about the term inerrancy, is this something that has existed through all of the different ages of the church? Why is there so much focus on it today?

AM – Christians have always insisted that the Bible is reliable. It’s trustworthy. To say it’s inerrant is to admit  it’s errant. The real issue is that we have to interpret. We might have inerrant text but we may have an inerrant interpretation. We’ve got to work out how we take the text and do something with it.

Terms like inerrant mean one thing to some and another to others. How does our reading an interpretation of Scripture… how should it inform how we think of our current context.

AM – We’re looking backwards and forwards and asking what the text is saying. How does the narrative of Scripture align with the narrative of today. Our danger is replicating what worked yesterday. How we use the bible needs to be examined.

BM – It’s a problematic word. The problem is in most churches if you don’t use the word you will be fired. The word is litmus test for saying you belong. All that comes along with the word is that people who use it the most make the least distinction between the text and interpreting what it means. Interpretation is a complicated thing. People who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible successfully defended the practice of slavery by using the Bible.  The gap between what the Bible says and how we use it is huge. We undermine people’s confidence in anything we say about the Bible if we don’t acknowledge the complexities hat come with interpretation.

What are our reliable sources?

TK:  If they see us wrestling with the text and being as fair as possible with it we show them that we are taking the text seriously.
You need spiritual humility. As a sinner, we’ve got our prejudices. We’ve got to be really, really careful with being too quick about saying, “this is what its says.” If people seeing us wrestling with it and being spiritually humble, they will follow. Spiritual humility along with a clear interpretation is what has taken me through.

FD – Every time we talk about inerrance, the issue of authority comes up. What is always fantastic is that God always has a pattern of behavior that we can discover in the revelation of Scripture. God used human instruments to manifest himself to the world. We need faithful interpreters of the message.

We’ve seen the abuse of scripture to promote ideologies, thoughts, campaigns, etc where people pick and choose scripture to make their case. What’s an appropriate way for a Christian engaged in the public space to use Scripture?

BM: We have many layers to this struggle: the struggle in our own lives, our churches and denominations, and the struggles there are big. Some churches give women freedom and others don’t because of their interpretation. We view gays differently. We are worried about inerrancy but not worried about being racist. We allow ourselves to be spiritually formed by corrupting ideas. When we bring it into the public sector we’ve got problems. We’ve got people who aren’t following the same script we are but we expect them to. The way that we read the Bible would bring us into public spheres in different ways. We are silent on the issue of healthcare or the environment and extremely vocal about gay marriage and abortion. Different Christian communities are going to live out their interpretation of the Bible in public space in different ways and some will gain influence and others will lose it. We have to find the logic, reasons and publicly accessible concerns so we can enter into public debates. Scripture forms us, but we have to engage using the language of people.

AM: It’s about the personal assimilation of the values we read in Scripture that form us and lead us to act in certain ways. It’s embodied in us and we carry it into situations in certain ways. We can read Scripture and believe it’s true but live it as if it’s not real. The way we read should demonstratively be seen in what we say and do. We need to rediscover the true ethics where we are shaped and molded as people. Where we are shaped by God’s grace and molded to act and think in these ways. Scripture is not a text at distance but a resource that transforms and energizes us internally.

Are there unique challenges in post-Christian world context?

TK: If people don’t see anything about our behavior that makes them hungry, we have more to blame in ourselves, not the Bible.

AM: People are rootless and are looking for a story they can align themselves with. They want to be a part of a bigger picture. They are in exile looking for a home. We need to make the connections. When people see them it changes thing.

FD: People are hungry and thirsty to get to know God. Sometimes, they have doubts about the structure of the church, but the essence of looking for God is amazing. It drives people to struggle. We’ve got to make the text alive.

BM: We have to recover good preaching.. bringing the Bible as a text, not as a hammer to get people to submit to our agenda, but as a resource to bring people into a transforming relationship with Christ. When the text is allowed to speak to us and no one is controlling it, it brings us together to think about things we’ve never thought about before. There’s great value getting people interacting with God’s word together.

Is there any fear to letting Christians come around the text together and discover what it is saying to them as a community without a leader or a pastor directing it?

AM: There’s a real issue here. When I preach there’s a danger where I’m saying, “don’t read the Bible, you just need to listen to me.” The preacher’s job is to encourage people to read Scripture, to discover things. The best approach is to give people an invitation to find what you are discovering. We have a corporate responsibility where we are all contributing. Preachers are to lead the way. Preachers have accountability to the scripture and the preacher has accountability to the congregation. We are all priests. Preachers are the catalysts of discovering God’s word for the corporate body but it’s also a corporate responsibility.

TK: Believers want direction when it comes to studying the Bible. There’s room for both. They will show us things we don’t see. But there are things we need to give them direction in it.

The idea of Scripture becoming a commodity… hot pink Bibles, Bibles on our phones, magazine-style Bibles, etc. Is there anything sacred about a medium? Should it go forward in any way possible?

BM: We think things are sacred because we are familiar with them. I hardly ever working with a paper text, I’m always working online. This is changing. There are strengths and weaknesses to it. We are in a strange time in a new time of literacy. A literacy that involves reading digitally. We are also moving to an increased orality… where the telling of the stories of the Bible is important. This is a significant opportunity for preaching. It’s not something that’s just on paper but what is heard.

How are you seeing Scripture alive and well where you are at.

AM: People always need help reading, understanding, and applying Scripture…  that’s what these new commodities are trying to do.

TK: I think if the Bible is preached and taught in an interesting way, all generations respond. New generations like great stories, the Bible is full of them.

FD: Scripture was born out of the oral tradition. Faith came through the ears of the people who were listening. We have the text, and the text came out because it was a need to faithfully preserve what was communicated orally. When we make the text alive again, orally, we’ll engage our society. We live in a society driven by mass media that is powerful and we have to be able to use that to make the same message more effective.

• There is  a kind of polarization happening in the Christian community between justification people and justice people.
• Justification by faith alone is doctrine reformers recovered during the Reformation.
• The doctrine of justification by faith alone is a traditional evangelical Gospel.
• What’s happened is that people who really guard the doctrine believe the implications of it are that we are mainly here to do the work of evangelism.
• People see justice and compassion as a misnomer.
• People who are passionate for justice and cultural engagement have walked away from the traditional Gospel… they aren’t using the terms or using the words “bearing the wrath of God”…
• Justification and justice are joined at the hip… it’s a seamless cloth.

1 – Justification by faith leads to justice.

• Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah… Isaiah 29 “they honor me with their lips but their hears are far form me.” – people who didn’t care for the poor. Isaiah 58, while you fast you exploit your workers. The fast God chooses is to loose the chains of injustice.
• If you say you believe you’re a sinner saved by grace but don’t have a heart for the poor, your heart is not right with God… you haven’t expereicned God’s love.
• Luke 11:42 – full of greed and wickeness and reject the poor.
• If you really encounter the grace of God you will care about the poor, orphans, widows, immigrants, etc.
• The way you know you are right with God is if you care for those who are in need.
• Matthew 25: people will say they know me, but I’ll know the difference by what they did for the least of these.
• Faith unaccompanied by action is dead.
• We need to live a life that is poured out for the needs and service for the poor.
• The experience of justification by faith alone gives you a higher standard of justice.
• Legalism says if you try hard enough you’ll be ok; relativism says anything is ok.
• Justification shows you a higher view of the love of God, compassion, wrath, judgement and justice of God.
• We need to be forgiven perpetrators of justice.
• We must remember to go out with gentleness.

2 – Gives you a new attitude toward the poor.

• “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” – you’ll never be condescending again.
• You look at a mirror when you look at a poor person.
• Rather than being poor in spirit, we’re middle class in spirit.
• With God’s grace we bcome poor in spirit; when the spiritually poor meet the materially poor we can’t be condescending

3 – Changes the attitude of poor.

When we practice justice it will lead to more justification by faith alone.

Tim shared the story of a wealthy woman who had one heir, her nephew. He appeared to be a kind, caring person, but she wanted to test him to see if he really was. She dressed up as a poor woman and laid on the steps of his house and when he came out he threatened her and told her to leave.

Jesus said, in Matthew 25, if you know you are saved by grace, you will care about the poor.

Jesus is the poor man on your doorstep.

How you treat him shows if you are saved by justification through grace.

This year’s Leadership Summit was fantastic. Thanks to all of you (well over 3,000!) who found your way to my blog. I guess I take good notes? [By the way, I'm still taking 'Notes for a Cause' donations to go to Kiva.org!]

So I was at The Modern Wing at The Art Institute of Chicago today with a friend and overhead someone saying near the end of their trek through the galleries, “wow, I’m saturated…”

I think that sums up how I feel right now. Absolutely saturated.

There was so much information, inspiration and ideas that leapt out at me over the past couple of days and I’m still processing everything… but while it’s fresh, I thought I’d share a key thought or take-away I had from each session.

• Bill Hybels’ first session, Leading in a New Reality, reminded me that I need to slow down and gently listen to God, even in the midst of the chaos of the world around me.
• The panel discussion on Hiring, Firing, and Board Meltdowns challenged me to think of the kind of work culture we are creating at Park and how I, as a part of the team, am contributing.
• Gary Hamel blew me away. There was so much he said, I don’t think I caught it all. But the one thing he did say that’s going to stick with me is that the Church is God’s plan for humanity and He has no “plan B.”
• Tim Keller’s session, Leading People to the Prodigal God, was a sobering reminder to remember the true heart of the Gospel.
• Jessica Jackley’s insight on the whole idea of co-creation totally excited me when thinking about new ideas and possibilities that are out there. It just starts be taking one, small step.
• Harvey Carey didn’t have to do much to convince me that I just need to do something!
• I could have listened to Dave Gibbons a lot longer, but I did get a copy of his book. I’m stoked to read more about his thoughts and insights on creating a Third Culture, a culture of adaptation.
• Andrew Rugsira really challenged me to think differently about the continent of Africa and to not just look through the lens of compassion, but to also see the opportunity that is in the people there.
• Wess Stafford… wow. What an amazing story. And how humbling to think that nothing is wasted, everything is redeemable.
• David Gergen had tons of great insights but the one that stuck with me was the idea that who we are says a lot more about us than what we actually say.
• The Heath Brothers were stellar, as usual. I’m going to really cherish their statement that “failure is oftentimes an early warning sign of success.”
• Bono was great, too. I think the biggest challenge from him this year wasn’t so much about the HIV/AIDS as it was what he said about the Church. He said some things I think we really need to take to heart.
• Tony Blair’s interview was way too short, but I think more than anything his reminder of what a privilege it is to be in leadership was something I needed to hear.
• And although not a formal session, Bill Hybels’ closing remarks were a great way to end, reminding us that the little things are often the most important.

So, after all that… what’s my final thought?

I think the theme of this year’s conference says it all: lead where you are. No matter who you are, where you are, what you do, what you have or what you don’t have, God is calling you to do something. To lead where you are.

In thinking through each of this year’s speakers, they were all the first to admit their flaws and shortcomings but also the first to admit that in order to make a difference, you have to be willing to take a risk and do something. Even in the midst of your own failures or at the risk of failure.

I cannot think of a more exciting time and opportunity to be a part of the Church and to be a part of what God is doing in our generation. I’m so thankful for the experience of the Leadership Summit to remind me of the importance of the call to leadership, but more importantly, to remember first and foremost, before I do anything, I’m called to be a child of God.

So how about you?

What’s are your take-away’s from the Leadership Summit? What challenge are you going to face? Or what simple thing are you going to do differently? Would love to hear!

• Tim has been a minister for 35 years and has been a sucker for anyone who has come along and said,  ”I have the key to spiritual renewal…”
• The thing that shocks us is the amount of spiritual deadness in our congregations.
• A small part of the congregations do most of the work.
• Spiritual deadness is still the main problem.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son

• Prodigal means “recklessly” extravagant.
• We need an extravagantly loving God to deal with our wayward son
• We often think of the younger son when we think of the prodigal son
• In Luke 15, we see two groups of people around Jesus… the sinners and the relgious leaders.
• Religious leaders don’t understand what Jesus is doing with sinners.
• He tells three parabels to them (the religious people)… lost sheep, lost coin, and the prodigal son.
• The younger brother is like the sinners around Jesus.
• The elder brother is like the Pharisees, religious leaders.
• The last part of the parable is all about him.
• At the end, the father is addressing the older son.
• The point is to address the people in the church.
• The main point of the parable: both younger brothers and older brothers are alienated from the father, who represents God.
• They are both lost, the Father has to go out and invite them in.
• The younger brother is obvious, he doesn’t love the father, he wants his money and does whatever he wants.
• The elder brother doesn’t love the father either.
• He’s upset with how the father is using the estate… the elder brother loved the father’s things, but not the father.
• The younger brother got the money by demanding it.
• The elder brother tried to get it by staying home, by being obedient.
• There’s two ways to be your own saviour and lord, two ways to get control of your life… one is by being immoral and irreligious, the other is by being moral and religious.
• The elder brother says, “because I’m so good, God has to bless me…”
• For the elder brother Jesus might be his inspiration, but not his Saviour.
• Both ways are ways that reject God.
• Elder brothers believe they are with God.
• Both are alientated from the father, he has to urge each son to the feast (salvation).
• Younger brother goes in, older brother doesn’t.
• The “good boy” is not lost in spite of his goodness, but because of his goodness.
• Religion operates like this: I obey, therefore I am accepted.
• The Gospel operates like this: God accepts me, therefore I obey.
• Elder brothers are obeying God to get things, making God a means to an end.
• Everything we need is already ours when we receive the Father through the Son.
• Elder brother’s standing with God is based on performance.
• On one level we believe the Gospel, but we constantly go back to religion.
• Elder brother is our default mode.

Marks of an Elder Brother

• Elder brothers get incredibly angry when their lives don’t go well. They get furious with life and with God. It shows they believe God owes them.
• Elder brothers can’t handle criticism. How do you respond to criticism? When they get criticized they reply with vicious counter-attack. Their self-regard is rooted in their self-image and reputation of being a good person, not in their identity in Christ.
• Elder brother’s prayers are petitionary. They never just enjoy God. There’s no intensity or intimacy in their prayer lives. They only pray when life gets rough.
• Elder brothers are loathing. If your self image is based on you having right doctrine and not what the right doctrine is about… or if you are hardworking, you’ll look down on anyone who’s not.
• Elder brothers can’t forgive. It’s impossible to stay angry and bitter at someone unless you feel superior to them. You have to have a fair amount of pride to stay bitter.

The Remedy

1 – You’ve got to get a new level of repentence

• Repentance is more than “being sorry.”
• Secret to renewal is repenting for the reasons for your rightdoings, not just your wrongdoings.
• “The main thing separating you and God is not your sin, it’s your damnable good works.”
• You don’t see your need.
• Until you learn to repent for the reasons of your right doing, you think you’re doing something for God.
• You’ve got to get to a deeper level of repentance.

2 – You’ve got to get a new level or rejoicing.

• It’s typical to read the prodigal son and say: if you do wrong, humble yourself and be sorry and God will welcome you back.
• But if you do that, it’s just one more thing for you to do. Another religious activity.
• What did it cost to bring the father to bring the younger son home?
• Their inheritance was split between the two sons, so because the younger son spend his half, the calf, the robe, the ring, everything was the expense of the older brother.
• The atonement was costly and the older brother was angry about it.
• What kind of elder brother do we need?
• We need a brother who would come from heaven to earth.
• We need an elder brother who would save us at the cost of his life.
• The only reason we can be clothed in the father’s robe is because he was naked on the cross.
• The only reason we can drink at the father’s table because our older brother drank the cup of God’s wrath.
• We are humbled out of our self-righteousness and lifted out of our pride.

How do you get this basic idea, Biblically informed and spiritual empowered into the deeper parts of people’s hearts?

• The Gospel is religion or irreligion; morality or immorality; it’s a new thing, it’s something else.
• Young people are demoralized by religion and legalism.
• We’ve got to distinguish the Gospel from moralism.
• Moralism creates older brothers.

4 Ways to get this into people’s hearts…

1 -You, the leader, have to get this into your heart.

• Don’t let the ministry save your soul.
• Too many of us base our identity in our ministry.
• We’ve got experience personal renewal and revival for ourselves.

2 – If you are a preacher or teacher, when you communicate, move beyond Biblical principles to the Gospel.

• To the degree you see how you have everything you need in Christ, is the degree by which you will give. You’ll be more generous if you believe the Gospel in your heart.
• Don’t teach it unless you take it back to the cross.
• Never end the teaching without pointing back to the One who did it.
• Make it Gospel-centered, not moralistic.

3 – Get a group of leaders and go through his book The Prodigal God…

• Don’t make it a class… that takes you back to step 1!

4 – Let it spread through your church.