I love that in the Kingdom, leaders as different as Bill Hybels and Brian McLaren are brothers and co-laborers. Don’t miss Brian’s upcoming Everything Must Change Tour next year, and don’t miss his thoughtful response to Bill’s unforgettable session here:
Bill Hybels’ closing session on inspiration was beautifully book-ended by an inspiring father-son team, Patrick John and Patrick Henry Hughes, and Kirk Franklin's unparalleled musical inspiration. Even by satellite or download, the energy and emotion in the room in South Barrington were palpable.
During Bill's talk, I kept thinking of Nehemiah's powerful words (8:10), "The joy of the Lord is your strength." Simple words, but amazingly powerful. What Bill called motivation and inspiration could, I think, also be rendered as joy. And the ten practices by which Bill has been able to sustain his own motivation for over thirty years (no small accomplishment!) could be seen as facets of practicing joy: the joy of knowing God, the joy of being called by God and gifted by God, the joy of being surrounded with a cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1-2) -- inspiring people past and present, the joy of creatureliness (acknowledging that we have a body which requires exercise, which responds to its environment, which benefits from recreation, and so on).
Last year was the one-hundredth anniversary of the Azusa Street Revival that launched the Pentecostal movement, which most would agree is the single most important spiritual phenomenon since the Reformation. Putting weaknesses of the movement aside (after all, the very best religious movements have plenty of weaknesses), I think we could agree that Pentecostals know what Nehemiah was talking about. There is the strength of Pentecostal joy that many of us have seen in slums and squatter areas, in storefront churches in disadvantaged urban areas, and in megachurches in the suburbs too: it is the strength of joy that enables us to prevail against the odds and rise above the obstacles and endure the suffering -- including the special suffering that often comes to those who lead.
Isn't it fascinating that joy is commanded again and again in Scripture (for example, Philippians 4:4)? This is a way, I think, of telling us that joy can in fact be practiced, and that realization was the heart of Bill's message. If you're a leader, like David you have to learn to "encourage yourself in the Lord." You have to learn to practice joy.
Let me offer several short reflections on four specific points in Bill's talk, relating them to this command to rejoice in the Lord always (and again, I say, rejoice!).
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Bill told a story about the torture of futility -- moving piles of dirt from here to there, and then back here again. He contrasted futility with the joy of knowing our calling. This joy, I think, is the original joy of creation: the joy of being co-laborers with God, colleagues in God's ongoing creative project. In a real sense, the joy that motivates God in creating the universe, in guiding its unfolding each new day, in showering it with possibilities and inviting the whole universe to move according to God's good pleasure … this is a joy into which we can enter, whether we're a stay-at-home-mom, a high school math teacher, a filmmaker, a business executive, or a pastor. We enter into God's creative joy through our unique calling. Hallelujah!
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Bill spoke in several different ways about exposing ourselves to people with contagious joy. I thought of the Proverb (13:20) that talks about carefully choosing our companions because that choice helps form our identity. Whether it's the colleagues we hire, the historic heroes we learn about through biographies, the speakers and artists we encounter at special events (like the Summit), the EIP's (exceptionally inspiring people) we go out of our way to be with ... the choice to be around joyful people is a choice to become a joyful person. I am thinking now (I hope you'll do the same) of the people in my life who bring me joy, and I'm thanking God.
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Three of Bill's practices for maintaining inspiration and motivation relate to our humanity: exercise, environment, and recreation (items 7, 8, and 9). It's so easy for us to forget that God made us with bodies that need exercise and sleep and nutritious food (and the ability to say no to still more tortilla chips, my personal dietary nemesis). It's so easy to forget that God also made water and mountains and songbirds and snow and coral reefs and beaches and forests -- as Paul says, "all things richly to enjoy" (1 Timothy 6:17) -- and that our joy will be less if we don't take time to experience these God-given joy enhancers. This, by the way, is something Bill has modeled so positively through the years -- his love of boating has given so many of us more permission to be human beings with hobbies and interests instead of human doings with nothing but duties and to-do lists.
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Bill concluded his review of joy-practices by emphasizing the importance of personal spiritual disciplines, and I was struck by the reason he implied for these disciplines. They aren't a kind of "I'm holier than average" score card for Bill, but instead, they're a way for him to hear the voice of God, to stay sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. He recounted a story of a recent touch by the Spirit (after picking up a stomach bug in India, and consequently being sick in an Australian hotel room). The disciplines, he implied, are valuable in large part because they help make space in our hearts for God to draw near to us and let us know we are "sought after," beloved, accepted, known. This is a joy that neither Bill nor any of us can completely describe because it "passes understanding." As the Psalm says (Psalm 16:11): "You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; In your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
Many of us are tempted to rewrite Nehemiah's words:
In success and achievement is our strength.
In knowledge and superior understanding is our strength.
In correctness and argumentative ability is our strength.
In conflict avoidance and playing it safe is our strength.
In financial prosperity and security is our strength.
But none of these is an improvement on the original: The joy of the Lord is our strength. May we savor the God-given power of joy, inspiration, motivation. It is the motion that fuels e-motion and puts us into motion. Thank God for the infusion of joy that so many have experienced through The Leadership Summit 2007.
