It was brilliant hearing Bill Hybels speak at the Royal Albert Hall yesterday. For anyone unfamiliar with the name, he’s the founding pastor of the Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, where 25,000 attend weekend services. And 160,000 attend the annual Willow Creek Leadership Conference, which is streamed around the world.
In terms of the invitation to come to the UK, Nicky Gumbel had finished a phone call by asking Hybels, “Do you believe in free speech?”
Hybels replied: “I’m an American, of course I believe in free speech!”
Gumbel: “Great. Will you come and do one for us?”
Nice.
Hybels began with his famous maxim, “The local church is the hope of the world. There’s nothing like the local church when it’s working right. When the local church is working right . . .” And the plane was off into climbing into visionary leadership within the first 2 minutes of his talk.
He then talked more about vision . . .
“Vision is a picture of the future that produces passion in people.”
Then it was time for the ubiquitous Hybels flip chart. Black and red pens in hand . . .
“The job of a leader is to spend time on your knees, and then as humbly as possible move people from here to there. Inspiring people to go beyond where they ever thought they could go. Everybody cues off the optimism of the leader.
“Start with building an air tight case of why we can’t stay ‘here’. Rather than spending all your time painting a picture of ‘there’
“A vision is most vulnerable half way through. Not at the beginning. Not near the end.
“The same is true of a leader’s life. The first call is full of youthful idealism, and the power of God and at this stage of your life, you haven’t taken many hits yet. There are sacrifices in the first 10 years, but that’s not the most pressing time.
“Towards the end of your ministry life, again that’s not the most pressing time because there’s motivation in the last few years when you are near the finish line because you just want to finish well.
“But it’s in the middle section of your life, that’s when there is a pile up, as a couple of dreams get dashed, maybe you have some family issues. Remember, we don’t just fight against flesh and blood.”
Next came some stuff on motivating and sustaining a fantastic team, which began with . . .
“Leaders are not interested in achieving the vision by themselves. Who would want to do that?
And so in terms of building a team . . .
“You are looking for people with . . . Character, Competence, people with whom you have Chemistry, who understand the Culture you’re setting, and then finally people who have a Calling.
“It’s your calling that keeps you in the game, when everything else is going wrong.”
He talked about being “Dangerously over-challenged – if you stay there for too long, there’s going to be a disaster.
“If I’m running on empty, that’s my responsibility. When you’re running on empty, you get escapist.
“It’s my job to lead myself.
He talked about the need for having, “Multiple streams of replenishment.”
“David went out and encouraged himself in God.
“If you’re a leader, the best thing you bring to the church is a fully replenished you.
In the last section, which was very moving, he spoke about a recent baptism service at Willow . . . “At Willow, people pin a list of their sins on the cross, literally, a cross, as they go into the baptism tank.”
He talked about how during a baptism service, he felt compelled to interrupt the baptisms and do an immediate appeal for salvation and also for people who responded to be immediately baptised, “irrespective of what you’re wearing.”
They were baptising 100 people and were part way through when he interrupted. More than 200 extra people came forward. The service went on an additional 45 minutes. Hybels looked at his family and knew how excited they were. He thought to himself: “this is why I went into church work at the age of 22”.
The final challenge was a question: “If this is the only life you’ve got, what would you do with it?”
He said he was off to Mumbai tomorrow. If he’d taught all day you get the impression that the quality level would have been sustained at “excellent” all day. He’s been pastoring for 38 years. I left praying that I would finish well, and that I wouldn’t drop the baton and let the side down in the mid-section of the race.