Barnabas File

Craig Groeschel, the founder and senior pastor of Life.Church. The Global Leadership Summit which began as a project of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, and its founding pastor, Bill Hybels, over 25 years ago was held this week without Hybels. For several years, the GLS has been now produced by the Willow Creek Association, a spin-off organization and a loose network of churches but Hybels has been its driving force. Attended by thousands at the church facility in South Barrington and broadcast to thousands more at satellite locations, the annual meeting brings together not only evangelical leaders but outstanding speakers from business, charitable organizations, politics, and business.  For the first time, Hybels did not appear due to allegations of sexual impropriety brought against him over the past year by former employees, staff members, and business associates.  He has already left the church and resigned from the board of t...

File photo of Steve Carter, Heather Larson, and Bill Hybels As Christian brothers and sisters, we need to pray for Willow Creek Community Church.   On the eve of the Global Leadership Summit, a worldwide conference sponsored by the church in cooperation with the Willow Creek Association, church leadership imploded as a result of further allegations against former pastor Bill Hybels. Last year, Hybels introduced the team who would assume church leadership upon his retirement--lead pastor Heather Larson and teaching pastor Steve Carter.  Although the founding pastor planned to stay on to assist in a time of transition, reports of sexual impropriety involving Hybels surfaced early this year.  He accelerated his departure from the church and left the board of the Willow Creek Association. When other charges emerged last week, teaching pastor Carter resigned. On Wednesday evening, Larson and the entire elder board--lay leaders who provide accountability ...

When I served as collegiate minister, I tried to get to know as many freshmen students as possible.  When leaders come and go as they do on a college campus, you are always looking for the next generation of leaders. Whether a minister is working with volunteer, part-time, or full-time people, she or he needs to have the same mindset. Although turnover happens less frequently in a congregation, leaders come and go more often than we would like.  Volunteers are those lay leaders who form the core of every church’s ministry.  They teach Bible study for adults, youth, and children, work with preschoolers, lead in worship, provide maintenance and administrative support, and perform vital ministries both within and outside the walls of the church.  Ministers need to identify, cultivate, and encourage these lay leaders. Often in churches today, a gifted lay leader shows the potential to become a part-time staff member in a specialized area such as music, a...

There is one meeting every year this is a priority on my calendar:  The Global Leadership Summit sponsored by the Willow Creek Association.  The meeting originates live at the Willow Creek Church in South Barrington, Illinois, and is livestreamed to over 600 sites around the country.  Wherever you live, there is a site near you. Although some may have problems with the megachurch, Willow Creek does it better than anyone else.  Under the leadership of pastor Bill Hybels, the vision and mission of this church have expanded over the years to involve members in significant local, national, and international ministries. And there is no meeting like the Global Leadership Summit.  Each year the WCA brings together a great mix of academic, organizational, and ministry leaders to share insights and stimulate others to grow as leaders.  The theme of this year’s summit is “Marks of Influence” and will be held August 10-11. The program features fourte...

I usually come away from the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit with ideas to pursue, new books to read, and at least one new “person of interest”—someone I did not know about before and whose work I would like to learn more about. The speaker who was the “person of interest” for me this year was Chris McChesney, the Global Practice Leader of Execution for Franklin Covey.  McChesney is the co-author of The 4 Disciplines of Execution and is a very dynamic presenter.  He emphasized something that most leaders have learned the hard way—developing strategy is easier than executing that strategy (just ask any church that has produced a strategic plan and never looked at it again).  He explained that execution involves people and a change in human behavior which is often hampered by the system in which they function.  His insights were helpful and I look forward to reading the book. Another speaker that I anticipated hearing was Erin Meyer, an instructor ...

No, we are not talking Tennessee Basketball here, but the Global Leadership Summit sponsored by the Willow Creek Association.  The conference is held live in South Barrington, Illinois, each year and broadcast to 590 locations across the United States. It is also repackaged and presented in over 125 countries around the world.  I have often said that Willow Creek, the parent congregation, knows how to do big church better than anybody else.  One reason is Bill Hybels, the pastor, who can get a bit emotional at times, but is willing to address social issues (like AIDS, racial relations, and the refugee crisis), is clearly a lifelong learner, and is remarkably transparent about his struggles and those of his congregation.  Once again, the Summit has brought together a great line-up of speakers—leadership gurus, business leaders, ministry entrepreneurs, and preachers—to challenge and inform.  Hybels himself is one of those people....

One of the most remarkable speakers at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit was Sam Adeyemi, f ounder and senior pastor of the Daystar Christian Centre in Nigeria.   My expectations were not high.   Of the ten richest pastors in the world , five are Africans and they are all Nigerians .   This seems to be a predominant model for the way they do church in Nigeria! So I was moved by the presentation of Rev. Adeyemi when he started by saying he had built his ministry on this simple truth:   “The focus of Christ’s leadership was not His own success but the success of His followers.” Under Adeyemi’s leadership, Daystar Christian Centre grew from a handful of people in 1995 to more than 25,000 people weekly—with highly recognized community impact projects. Adeyemi founded Daystar Leadership Academy which is dedicated to releasing a new generation of leaders who will serve as catalysts in the transformation of Africa and the world. You can read compre...