Leadership


Me and one of my favorite leaders.

I am in Syracuse New York.
A group of leaders from the church and I are attending the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit.

This is an incredibly large event that makes the United Nations look like a city council of a small town.

170 000 attendees in 101 countries in 42 languages!

The main event is in suburban Chicago - but the leveraging of technology sends it out all over the world - including central New York, where I am.

The folks from our church are a music prof. from Ithaca College and a couple who work for InterVarsity at Cornell.

I have never attended the Leadership Summit, but have always wanted to.
My only regret now is not attending sooner!
What an amazing day.

Today's speakers included:

Bill Hybels
Colin Powell
Mark Burnett - the guy who has produced Survivor, Apprentice, The Voice and Shark Tank.
Patrick Lencioni - most likely the best consultant to corporations alive today.

All in all it was quite a stunning day of inspiration and information.

It will take some time to digest all I have taken in today.

I think something that stuck with me today is the need to overcome fear as a leader.

Many leaders abort visions prematurely because they fear failure. We need courage to give birth to grandiose visions.
This has challenged me to question what MY vision is - what do I want to see happening in the coming years in Bethel Grove Church and in Ithaca?
And how does my fear stand in the way of that?

How do I leverage what I have been gifted with for the furtherance of the Kingdom of God?

Wait and see.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whine and Geez

Image
Last night we hosted a wine and cheese party for our floor. Out of the 11 other people that live on our floor, 5 came over. It was really fun. We had 3 kinds of cheese, crackers, red wnd white wine, baklava, fruit and other goodies. It was really great getting to know some of the folks on our floor. We have always talked about doing it so it was nice to finally pull it off. One of our neigbours is a concierge at the 4 seasons. She said one of the oddest guest requests was a guest from Texas who wanted 100 A&W ketchup packets. He said he really liked their ketchup - I guess. Finished " Joyful Exiles " so unfortunately no more excerts for you - buy the book. Have moved on to " A Grief Observed " by C.S. Lewis . This might seem like an odd choice - I'm not really grieving the death of anyone or anything like that. I just have a personal goal of reading everything Lewis wrote. In the past few weeks I've finished Miracles and Mere Christianity (sorry - I got ...
Read more

Coaster goes up (a little)

Image
Unused photo from the Globe and Mail shoot. So, last night and all day today I was on the top floor of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Vancouver. Quite auspicious surroundings for church council/pastors meetings! there were stunning views of the North Shore mountains, Stanley Park and the downtown buildings. The meetings were lengthy, exhausting and a lot of work. Basically, FBC has been on a year long journey of crafting its vision statement and core values - we did it with the assistance of a coach from Outreach Canada. We are coming down the home stretch and needed to hammer out everything for presentation to the congregation. Today was the first day that I have begun to feel lighter and ready to resume the work. Although still feeling wounded from this whole mess, I'm ready to limp on. It's true: Sunday,Monday - elation at finally reaching a goal of holding a first@night service in a trendy nightclub - excitement at getting press coverage - even thoug...
Read more

Oh no, Dr. Montgomery!

Image
"Healthcare in the heart of Yaletown - if you can afford it" For the past 6 years I have had the same physician: Dr. Brian Montgomery. We are quite close and I call him Brian. He knows me inside and out (literally). This is the longest period of time I have had the same doctor. We have quite a good relationship. I've invited he and his partner over to our place, but we've never been able to sync our schedules up. Well, I am sad to say our professional relationship is over. Brian will no longer be my doctor. I made the decision earlier this evening. As I was watching the news, Brian's face all of a sudden popped up - His clinc - the Mainland Clinic - is now going to start charging its patients to make appointments. The fees are going to be $30/appt. or $75 for the year to become a "member" of the clinic. The only motivation I can see is obviosuly money. The physcians obviously decided that the amounts they were billing the government was not enough. I hol...
Read more