Leadership Summit – Day 2

Today was a pretty stellar one I thought – I thought the level was just a bit higher than yesterday or it could have just been that I connected with this set of leaders better than the last – not sure why…but I thought it was pretty stellar…

Instead of looking short thoughts from each of the speakers, I’m going to focus in on one speaker who I thought brought it and brought it well…here are my thoughts:

Craig Groeschel, Senior Pastor, LifeChurch.tv

Craig opened up his session by asking the question, “What is it?”

Some things about “it”:

• it’s not projectors
• it’s not space
• it’s not chair color
• sometimes churches have “it” and sometimes they don’t
• You can have “it” but you can lose “it” too

So what is “it”?:

Craig doesn’t know but here are some things that he knows about “it”

• God makes “it” happen
• It is for Him and by Him
• You can’t create “it” or manufacture “it”
• It is rare that one person will bring “it”
• But it is very common for one person to kill “it”
• “It” can’t be taught but “it” can be caught
• “It’s” not a model
  • It’s not emergent or submergent or seeker friendly
  • But “it” can be found in all these churches and in none of these churches at the same time
• When “it” happens – lives are changed
• There is bad and good news about “it”:
  • If you have “it” it doesn’t mean you are going to keep “it”
  • IF you don’t have “it” doesn’t mean you can’t get “it”

Acts 2:42-47

• This church had “it”
• Everyone had “it’
• Go through and look at everything they are doing together
  • Everyone was together, not just episcapilians or baptist
  • Gave to everyone
  • Anyone

But who do you get it?  Craig doesn’t know but he does know that several qualities exists when “it” is present

The three qualities are:

• Ledership with laser focus
  • If you have 287 ministires – how can you do any well?
  • Today most churches think more ministries = better
  • Craig says, better ministries are better and what can you do best
  • In order to reach people no one is reaching you are going to have to do things that no one is doing but in order to do things that no one else is doing you can’t do things that everyone else is doing…get it…
• Opportunities when other’s see obstacles
  • Others without “it” are always complaining about not having the stuff
  • But those with “it” believe that God has given us everything that we need to do everything that God wants us to do
    • So when you don’t have what you think you need, God allows you to see what you didn’t think you had in order to do what you didn’t think you could do.
  • A lot of people says that God moves with what he provides but Craig believes that God moves by what He doesn’t provide – be creative and depend on Him
  • So if you are in the shadow of a bigger church, you don’t have the money, the board is in the way – what is God trying to show you through your limitations?
• Organizations that have “it” are willing to fail – I really believe this one!
  • Those with “it” are all about trying and failing and those without “it” always play it safe
    • I love approaching all things ministry related with the “why not?” philosophy – if it works awesome – if it doesn’t lets move on but at least we know it doesn’t
  • Failure is when you truly see God
  • Peter would have never seen God for who He was if he had never failed
  • God may have three steps of failure before you get it right
    • Get out of the boat Peter!
    • Say, “why not?”
    • Just because something failed doesn’t make you a failure!  You are a child of God and you have everything tyou need to do what God has called you to do!
  • What has God called you to do that you are afraid to do?

Craig concluded his talk by focusing on when he lost “it” once and how he got it back and I thought that this was really interesting and thought provoking as well as giving us, the audience, an opportunity to see his heart and what his desires are…

When Craig lost it, how do he get it back:

• It wasn’t easy…
  • He stopped listening to sermons, stopped reading Christian books because he was too tempted to copy and not be himself
  • He got in the word every day and allowed that to infect him
  • He fasted
  • He fell in love with a lost guy…

So if you don’t have it, how do you get it?

• Lay aake at night and pray until you get it!

That’s what rocked my world today at the conference and in fact, I spent the rest of the conference and some time during the other speakers still digesting some of the points that Craig made.  Good good stuff…I hope you got something from it too!

Filed under: Reflection