Bill Hybels, the founding pastor of Willow Creek Church and the Global Leadership Summit, opened the event yesterday and his presentation has had me reflecting on how to apply it to my own life and ministry. Hybels shared a simple definition of leadership: “getting people from here to there.” I believe he summed up his thinking with the idea that “a leader knows it’s not okay to stay here and that we need to be going somewhere.”
Amen! We can’t stay here. I can’t stay here. Our churches can’t stay here. If I’m the same person five years from now that I am today, I haven’t grown or developed in the way God is calling me to grow and develop. Have you ever encountered the forty year-old-man who still wears his high school letter jacket and is living more in the glories of the past than he does the present (think Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite)?
You’ve got to leave “here” to get to “there”.
But here’s the rub: we really like it “here” because “here” is familiar and safe. Going “there” is going to cause me to step out of what is familiar and safe and experience risk and the unknown. Even when we’re aware enough to realize our “here” isn’t a good place to be, we hesitate to leave “here” because at least we’re familiar with “here”. It’s what we know.
Most of leading is about being willing to leave “here” to go to “there”. God called Abraham to leave his own country to go to a land that the Lord would show him. Jesus left the glories of heaven to take on human flesh and “moved into the neighborhood” as Eugene Peterson paraphrases in The Message. Jesus called the disciples to follow Him and they left their nets.
What do we need to leave in order to go where God is calling us to go? What do you need to leave in order to get there? What is God calling me to leave, the safety and security of “here” in order to be able to go “there”?
We’ve got to leave here. You’ve got to leave here. I’ve got to leave here.
“Here” may be a model or a way of doing things. “Here” may be an actual place. “Here” may be a regular paycheck. “Here” may be the safe confines of the church building walls. Jesus is calling us to leave “here” so we can go “there”.
If we want to faithfully follow Jesus (which is the only way we can lead well), then we will have to leave “here”. I’m praying that God gives me the courage to leave “here” so I can help us get to “there”.
Christ’s Peace,
Lance
CGGC eNews--Vol. 10, No. 33