Comment Here On Session 1

Comments

# Roddy Chiong said on 09 August, 2007 09:40 AM

Well, in the first 10 minutes of my arrival on the Willow Creek Campus I saw and caught up with JOE HORNESS who was my mentor and worship leader in high school. Minutes later I ran into MATT NUSSBAUM who was my mentor and teacher at Indiana University. How cool already!! Ok I better get bk to Hybels who seems to be doing awesomely right now...

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# Charlie Dean said on 09 August, 2007 09:55 AM

I'm a young(ish) leader...I'm not the Sr. Leader...but Bill is intimidating the heck out of me...There's a lot a pressure here on the leader, to come up with a vision that people are willing to die for! I agree with him...it's just scary.

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# Robin Green said on 09 August, 2007 10:05 AM

I'm serving as AOEM at the Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church satellite location. Candidly, I was somewhat skeptical that this year could start off any better than last ... happily, I'm eating those words! Great job to everyone at WCA! Our team is looking forward to the next three days. Oh ... and we beat last year's attendance both in numbers and in the number of area churches represented!

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# Wendy Seidman said on 09 August, 2007 10:16 AM

Robin, I was just looking at the attendance for the different sites...congrats and great job! It's fun to do this together. (I work at the WCA.) Charlie, so what are you thinking about Bill's talk now?

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# Eric Hall said on 09 August, 2007 10:27 AM

Hireling path is sooo much easier - at least in the short run

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# Beth Dahlenburg said on 09 August, 2007 10:40 AM

Welcome to the conversation. I'm part of the WCA marketing team and we've been eagerly awaiting this day for over a year. Great first session. Process is painful - I'm not a patient person Anybody else struggle with being patient? So glad that you've decided to join our online experience. Look forward to learning from one another.

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# Cathy Risberg said on 09 August, 2007 10:57 AM

Here at Bethany Church in Greenland, New Hampshire I've heard some amazing stories already of how the Leadership Summit is working in peoples' lives...a former homeless mom whose life has been transformed by the inspiration of the Summit....a band member who made a decision after coming to the Summit a few years ago to commit herself to a Christian style of living that resulted in her recent marriage...these stories are just a few I expect to continue to hear. What a difference the Leadership Summit is making.

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# Michelle said on 09 August, 2007 11:07 AM

The idea of the path...i am at the crossroads. I am a leader of a small family business. I see the potential for God to grow it into something wonderful. I have the hireling mentality often but i was very inspired by Bill's talk. Thank you so much for your passion Bill and everyone who put this thing together, especially all the volunteers!!! You guys ROCK!!!!

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# brook mattocks said on 09 August, 2007 11:16 AM

This is my 2nd summit. Each session, not only applies to my ministry but to work. This session applied to what I was working on with my team on creating ownership of our status meeting and not just having our manager give information. Thank you. I can't wait to bring back this information to my team members

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# Matthew Schroeder said on 09 August, 2007 11:16 AM

I'm the comunications director for a medium sized church in PA, and Bill's message was particularly inspiring as we prepare for our upcoming worship retreat in which we will be gearing up for the next season for our church! Particularly awesome that you'll be making the video available online – can't wait to share! Keep up the AWESOME work.

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# Joey Jones said on 09 August, 2007 11:24 AM

Another great opening session by Hybels - worth the price of admission by itself. I have to confess that I have a history of taking the Mt. Sinai method work as best as it can. Unfortunately, that isn't very well. I am currently trying to clean up the messes of moving to fast on a vision before those I am leading have captured it. Including others is a time investment up front that can prevent damage control later.

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# Anthony Burns said on 09 August, 2007 11:25 AM

Bill Hybels was very impactful... I am ready to go back and prepare a great vision with my media team and deliver it to the volunteers... Bill Hybels year after year has made a huge impact on my volunteering... I have learned a lot and look forward to the rest of the conference...

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# Rob Willis said on 09 August, 2007 11:27 AM

I'm here in Greenland, NH at Bethany Church - and they are a wonderful host church. Bill Hybels continually demonstrates the anointing of God on his opening sessions. To me, the whole fee of the Summit is worth the two sessions Bill speaks. Everyone else to me is gravy. I thank God for this chance to steer me clear through leadership obstacles that would otherwise hinder my ministry or set me back for a season or take me years to figure out.

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# Robin Green said on 09 August, 2007 11:27 AM

"homeless karaoke" - what amazingly powerful story of transformation! these folks absolutely aren't on a hireling path...

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# Adam Roades said on 09 August, 2007 11:28 AM

Well, Bill definitely "brought it" to begin the Summit on such a strong note. Yes, the path of the hireling is easy...but ultimately a dead end! I loved Bill's presentation of vision ownership. That's a two-way street. You have to own the vision in that you have to be sold out for it, but not that you hold it and hang your reputation/name/fame on it. That type of ownership doesn't allow anyone else in. In that regard, you have to give your vision away, let others help you mold it and give it life. Then it becomes a "shared ownership" of a common vision. That's powerful stuff.

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# Stan Buck said on 09 August, 2007 11:30 AM

Thanks for "bringing it" Bill! Great stuff! Thanks for "naming" that dreaded process thing - and thanks for showing the value of "ownership" - and giving solid Biblical example in the "hireling vs. shepherd" analogy! Thanks to the arts folks for the GREAT media/drama on the history of the church! This thing is to die for!! LEAD ON!

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# Samuel Park said on 09 August, 2007 11:40 AM

I come from a Korean community. In our culture it is hard to have people be apart of the vision process. They want to have a leader that is able to lead them in this area. Is there a cultural difference in helping people own the vision? America is a democratic society so people want to be apart of the process in every level of the group but there are other cultures like mine that are more hierarchical. Are we just behind in the times or is there other ways to help people who live in different culture help the people own the vision?

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# Jeff Wasden said on 09 August, 2007 11:45 AM

Hello From Highlands Ranch. Bill certainly brought it. I felt I was in the front row, live. The only thing missing on his perfect Sunday was after spiking the bible, the wave should have broken out while he was taking his victory laps. Great start to the session

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# Ray Pelletier said on 09 August, 2007 01:17 PM

Hey Samuel, This is Ray from Willow Creek. I had many Korean friends in Seminary and I do think there are cultural differences in how leadership is received. I'm a half-Venezuelan from Miami and have seen differences in how leadership works in the Hispanic community as well. However, the core of what Bill talked about rings true in every context I've seen so far, even if important nuances may differ. My favorite professor from seminary, Peter Cha, was part of the team that wrote/edited a book which may be helpful. Growing Healthy Asian American Churches.

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# Tim Rathjen said on 09 August, 2007 01:47 PM

My greatest leadership challenge currently is at home where I'm a husband and father. It is interesting and challenging seeing how I can apply the principles discussed at Summit both at work and at home.

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# David Drury said on 09 August, 2007 02:36 PM

Three cheers for the WCA team in opening up this forum during the conference. All of us pastors should go home and think about letting our people make online comments after our messages online! :-) /// Bill Hybels' sessions was great! My key notes = > We should increase the bandwidth of who we can learn from / > Vision is painting a picture of the future that produces passion / >Process is a dirty word for many leaders :-) / > There's the Sinai Approach and then the Team Approach / > Great leaders spend more time building ownership than they do communicating what they think about the vision / > BIG QUESTION: Are you a hireling or an owner [two paths]. /// great stuff! - David Drury, Executive Pastor at College Wesleyan Church

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# Michael Afonso said on 09 August, 2007 02:50 PM

A big New England "High Five" to Carly Fiorina. Here in NH we have a ministry called The Marketplace Connection and the focus is to bring Integrity and Ethics back into the workplace throught men and women of God. In regards to the classes you took in college, I don't know many who would do that other than you and I..

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# Karen Chae said on 09 August, 2007 02:54 PM

Hey Ray! Karen Chae from WCA. Totally agree with you! I know Peter, we go back... :-) What a small world! Let's catch up.

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# Michael Hofer said on 09 August, 2007 03:51 PM

Great sessions: Loved the part on Process being a curse word for most of us. It made me think about the way I need to involve MORE people in the "PROCESS" to get some buy in and be more of a team instead of the Mt. Siani approach!

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# Todd Ladd said on 09 August, 2007 09:37 PM

Thanks Bill for bringing it. Will the church history video be made available through your online store? It was an amazing piece. Thanks for talking about process. In fact my church calls me "Pastor Process" They were all over me when that part of your talk started. Thanks however for affirming my ministry skills as sometimes I wonder if it is the right direction. I also want to mention the dark side of process. The dark side is that sometimes you can over process things. Unless you have an aggressive time line to follow you could stay in the same place and never move

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# David Korsen said on 09 August, 2007 09:59 PM

Hello from the Grand Rapids Site... Great day today! Can you tell us where to get the chart of the song Greg Ferguson sang after the church history video?

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# Melissa Madara said on 10 August, 2007 12:03 AM

After having experienced and thoroughly enjoyed all four of today's presenters, I have a few suggestions to strengthen the program for future years. As a young woman who is relatively new to ministry, at times I have felt during this series as if my group has been talked around and ignored. Hybels has spent much time reflecting on the responsibilities of the "senior" leadership of the church, but has given little or no nod to the important visionary role of associate, staff, and lay leadership within the life of the church. And I am a firm believer that while the role of the senior pastor is indispensible in the visioning process of the church, the ability of the rest of the church to vision and dream is an arguably more important subject to tackle, when it is the laity who will ultimately carry a dream forward. Additionally, in a lineup of nine faculty presenters there is only one woman listed--and this particular woman, though remarkable, was not given the chance to speak on her own (as all the other presenters have thus far), but was moderated by a white male. I understand that next year there will be an on-site seminar offered the day before the Summit for women who consider themselves to be leaders. While this is commendable, this is not enough, as it relegates the role of women in the church to a special interest group that has no business taking up time within the conference itself. Rather, there needs to be a substantial lineup of women asked to speak in the conference itself--both clergywomen (of which there are none represented this year) and lay business women. Also, we need to have at least some Hispanic voices represented as well. For a conference that speaks so much to racial reconciliation, I am disturbed that this growing group of individuals is so underrepresented.

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# wendy seidman said on 10 August, 2007 09:53 AM

Melissa, I agree with you and hear your frustration, I also feel that. As a part of the planning team (and the team feels that same frustration), it is difficult to find women leaders who can communicate to a large audience. We have investigated hundreds of women and Carly is the first woman in years that may even receive a positive response from our audience (we'll see from the evaluations at the end). Even Karen Hughes (Bush's communication's guru) didn't deliver. However, we are committed to having women represented as well as other ethnicities and nationalities. We are actively investigating the Hispanic leadership arena and are always open to people's recommendations. And if you have some names of leaders that are leading, or people that have studied or done research in the leadership arena, we will take them! pls send them to me seidmanw@willowcreek.org.

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# Aaron Horton said on 10 August, 2007 01:58 PM

is there a download of session 1 that's more than just a highlights video? Is there one that has the entire vision to die for message? and if so where can I find it? Thanks and I'm loving the summit!

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# djchuang said on 10 August, 2007 10:15 PM

Ray, excited for your new role at WCA as the web 2.0 guy! I'm glad to see bits and pieces of the Summit and the motivation and inspiration this event continues to provide to thousands everywhere. One of these days would love to experience it live rather than via satellite.

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# Kristen Aikman said on 16 August, 2007 08:03 PM

Aaron, Hello!  You can get session one on video in the team edition of the Leadership Summit.  There is a link for it if you click on Hybels' session tab under Next Steps.  

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