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“My wife Fliss and I first came across the Global Leadership Summit in 2000. We were at the end of a sabbatical. I was ready to come home but my wife really wanted to visit Chicago and do the Leadership Summit, and I’m so glad we did—it was a life changing experience.

I don’t think we realised quite how tired we were and how we had actually run out of steam and vision for the future. But the Global Leadership Summit really impacted us; we rediscovered the joy of learning, being together, and it was just a fabulous thing. We thought then that if ever there was an opportunity to serve and to provide a place where the GLS could take place in the UK, we wanted in.

I have to say it’s been an extraordinary experience. It has changed the way we do church but also it has been a wonderful experience for our volunteers, because they have come to realise that not only is this an opportunity to serve the wider church but also actually there are those wonderful God moments where you meet someone who perhaps is just about to give up, and sometimes just a smile as they serve a coffee can be the big takeaway for someone.

So at every level, in terms of information, in terms of inspiration, in terms of actually an encounter with the Lord God, the GLS has been an absolutely fabulous experience for us here at St Albans.

For us personally, as we began to address some of the issues and challenges of leadership, we have realised that actually up until this point we had not really been as serious as perhaps we thought we were.

The GLS gives us an opportunity and a language and a framework to explore difficult issues, like how do you deal with conflict? And when casting vision, have we really grasped the fact that it is not just that we are going TO somewhere but actually we are coming FROM somewhere? All of that has been extremely helpful as we have sought to drive things along here as a local church in St Albans and Hertfordshire.

The local church, as Bill is fond of saying, is the hope of the world when it is working right. But the wonderful thing about the Global Leadership Summit is that it gives us that global perspective. It is not presumption to talk about the GLS as a global phenomenon. And the fact of the matter is that it reminds us in whatever situation we are in, be it some small church or a large church, that we are part of something bigger than ourselves—and that is the cause, the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ.”

THE GLS AND MEChris Lane is the Senior Pastor of The Vineyard Church, St Albans. He is Host Pastor and Facilitator of the Global Leadership Summit in St Albans.

The world is waiting for leaders who will put

the interest of others ahead of themselves.

BILL HYBELS

2 | GLS Journal—May 2017

GLS speakers deliver a unique blend of vision, inspiration and practical skills

you can immediately apply. Some of the topics* to be covered include:

Assessing an organisation’s growth potential

Creating an innovative culture

Streamlining process to boost execution

Reimagining performance management

Identifying personal attributes critical for success

*Topics are subject to change.

TOPICS

Thriving in the face of adversity

God Moves When You Move

Some of the most frequent questions I get from people are: How do I begin, what do I do, and where do I get the money to start when I know God has laid something great on my heart?

These questions are valid and important, however what’s more important is for us to think about how we can create or carry out a plan to do what God has inspired us to do.

Why? Because action always beats inaction.

You can consume countless books, sermon series, blogs, tutorial videos and memes and attend numerous conferences, seminars and anything else that provides information, but if you don’t implement these things you learn, you’ll never make progress.

We are discussing Taking Action. This is a simple and powerful message we have to grasp as believers. If you do not act on what God says, you will not see results.

I’ll even dare to say that if you do not even try to act on it, you will never know what God really wants for you. Jesus said: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” Matt 7:24.

This Scripture provides you with everything you need to know to get started. You might be asking, how? You can start living out the vision God has for you by taking three simple steps. First, you must hear. Then, you have to practice. Finally, you’re ready to build.

1. Hear

Most of us do a pretty good job of this because it’s the easiest part. We get fired up from a sermon or a book and we’re just like sponges—ready to understand and absorb what we’ve just heard.

But for those of us who have a harder time with this part, it’s important to realise that we should be taking time to be still and truly listen to God’s still, small voice to receive the guidance we truly need.

Because quite honestly, everything you hear isn’t God’s voice. So, be sure to take time to discern between what you need to listen to and what you need to ignore.

2. Practice

After you’ve heard God’s voice and His instructions to you loud and clear, it’s time to put what you’ve learned to work.

Taking action is not a one-time approach that will fix everything. Instead, it’s a long-lasting approach.

Continued on page 4.

TAKING ACTIONOne of Africa’s top leadership voices and Summit favourite, Sam Adeyemi, will return to the Global Leadership Summit in 2017 at Willow Creek. In this article, Sam explores three steps necessary for leaders to take action.

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ASK BILLQuestions sent in by UK/Ireland pastors matched with a transcript from an online Bill Hybels video coaching session: bit.ly/inspiringevangelism

How can I motivate comfortable Christians to share their faith with unbelievers?

“Most of the time my feeling is that senior pastors live in a bubble, they live in a church bubble, and because my second gift is evangelism I’ve always been involved in athletics and I’ve always been involved in activities outside the church that give me a lot of exposure to people who are far from God. I do sailboat racing—and that’s a very ungodly sport!—and motorcycle riding and some of these other things, you know, that I can do with non-church friends.

If a pastor gets too ‘bubble-ised’ so they’re just meeting with staff and elders, only with Christians all the time, I think they’re going to inevitably lose their evangelistic edge. And I think it affects your preaching too; I think you start to preach to the already convinced instead of preaching with a certain kind of evangelistic logic and intent.

So I think it’s very important for a pastor to look at his life or her life and to say, you know, “Does my schedule and do my relationships allow for me to be salty enough and light enough in a dark world to remind myself what the world is really like?” It’s a very good question.

This is a frequent conversation I have with pastors.They’ll say, “Our church is not very evangelistically fired up right now.” I’ll go, “Oh.” And they’ll say, “Can you give me a couple of lessons about how I can get my church more revved up evangelistically?” I go, “Well when’s the last time you’ve had a breakfast, lunch or dinner with a lost guy?” They’ll go, “I want to get my church fired up and now you’ve changed the question!” I go, “I don’t think you can get your church fired up about evangelism unless you are, and I don’t think you can stay fired up about evangelism unless you’re actually sort of face to face with lost people that you care about.”

I was asked this question in a setting recently around Willow with some lay leaders and they said,

“You know, Bill, we’ve known you for decades and you still seem fired up to reach people far from God.” And I said, “Please understand, these people that I’m trying to reach are not projects; they’re actually my friends and I can’t bear the thought of going into eternity without them. So it’s not…I’m not checking off a box!”

The other thing I like to really drive home to people around Willow is, I—and I do some of this for shock value but mostly just because it’s true—I say, “Some of the finest people I know are people that don’t have the Holy Spirit in their life.” I say, “Some of my non-church, non-Christian friends are the least judgemental, most generous, kindest hearted, open-minded. You know, they’re extraordinary people! I wish my heart were as good as theirs! Think what would happen if they had the Holy Spirit in them. My gosh, they’d be angelic!”

But what we do is we fall into this polarised version of reality, and it’s not reality, that those of us who are ‘Christian’ are all the good-hearted, nice, wonderful people and all those lost people who sleep in the wrong bed and drink too much and vote wrong and all that, they’re terrible, see? That’s not my experience gang! I’m around a bunch of Christians who misbehave horribly and I’m around a bunch of non-Christians who are some of the finest, most loving, accepting people I have ever met in my life.

I like keeping that disequilibrium in my mind because it keeps me from being a black/white guy who teaches with, you know, that edge that we’re right and they’re wrong. They get it right more than we give them credit for and we get it wrong more than we like to admit.”

“Two days watching videocasts from a conference in America!

Why would I want to attend that? Because it proved to be

inspirational, challenging, thought-provoking, heart-wrenching as well as heart-warming and an immense

blessing!”

Anne Wells, Werrington Parish Church

4 | GLS Journal—May 2017

YOUR INFLUENCE MATTERSEveryone has influence and the ability to create positive change. When you improve your leadership, you impact

lives, churches, businesses, governments, schools and families.

Book Your Seat:WILLOWCREEK.ORG.UK/GLS

Continued from page 2.

The Scripture above says ‘if you practice’ meaning you have to keep doing it over and over again.

Your decision to take action today will elevate you above other people in your field. All you have to do is keep trying and learning from your actions until you see results.

Truth is, some of us are not where we want to be in life because we’ve given up too quickly. We have to be willing to stick to something long enough to yield results and take solace in the fact that we can rest on God’s word.

3. Build

As you start to practice and learn, you’ll start to build. This is the part where you start to see the manifestation of the vision God has given you.

The Scripture above says, ‘like a house built on a rock,’ meaning with practice, you will be strong, confident and full of faith. And no matter what happens, you will not waiver on the path toward long-lasting success.

The reason we often do not see results in our lives is usually because of lack of action on the information

(revelation) we receive from God’s word.

Simple action will provide results (whether they are positive or negative) and you have to be willing to try something—even if that particular action doesn’t immediately propel you toward your ultimate vision.

The goal here is progress—not perfection. As you start taking steps, you’ll learn along the way and what you learn will help you make informed decisions on what to do next.

My Challenge to You

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

I want you to know that God will move on your behalf during this season and you will experience changes in your life like never before. But you must have enough faith to take ACTION.

So I challenge you to do something today that you have been putting off. Make that phone call. Implement what you’ve learned in that conference or seminar. Start that business. Take that course. Go back to school. JUST DO IT! Start taking action today and remember: When you move, God moves. God is on your side, my friend!

We invite you to join us at the Global Leadership Summit videocast for a unique

blend of vision, inspiration and practical skills you can immediately apply.

GLS 201724 VENUES

OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2017