I don’t go to conferences. Ever. Unless I am speaking or hosting. But I caved into Every Nation Nashville office peer pressure and attended the Nashville live satellite feed of the Willow Creek Association’s annual Global Leadership Summit last week. I’m glad I went. I learned a lot.
Here’s my summary based on my top 10 tweets during the conference. Some people take notes in meetings. I tweet my notes. What I tweeted is in bold font. Tweeted quotes are in bold italics. My comments follow each tweet.
1. “Everyone wins when a leader gets better.” –Bill Hybels (Lots of winners this week because tens of thousands of leaders got better. Thank you Bill Hybels and Global Leadership Summit!)
2. “I hate cats.” -Bill Hybels (I’ve always respected Bro Bill, but never more than this moment, which was probably the highlight of the whole conference. I felt the power when he made that statement. Wanted to stand and shout HALLELUJAH!)
3. “People in positions of authority need truth tellers . . . who will walk in the room and say ‘YOU ARE WRONG.’” -Condoleeza Rice (My question after this session: why is this woman not running for President? Run, Condi, run!)
4. “The X factor of great leaders is not personality; it is HUMILITY.” –Jim Collins (This guy said so many profoundly simple things, it was impossible to capture them all in 140 characters.)
5. “An organization is not truly great if it cannot be great without you.” -Jim Collins (What level of arrogance is required to build a church or ministry around a fallen fallible human leader?)
6. “Authenticity trumps cool . . . Nothing worse than a 50 year old fat preacher in skinny jeans.” -Craig Groeschel (Big decision: should I diet, or toss my skinny jeans?)
7. “Everything I say is simple . . . People need to be reminded more than instructed… Life is simple but hard.” –Patrick Lencioni (Lencioni was hilarious, deep, and quotable. Not enough space for all the tweetable quotes from his session. One of the rare times when a speech seemed too short.)
8. Usain Bolt can run. Gabby Douglas can flip. Joey Chestnut can eat. John Ortberg can preach. #statingtheobvious (After that tweet and one of the greatest sermons I have ever heard, I immediately went to the lobby and bought this book by John Ortberg. Seriously, maybe the best sermon I have ever heard.)
9. “The local church is the hope of the world.” -Bill Hybels (It is a good thing I love the local church because I am a member of not one, but two local churches. One is pretty big and the other is small but growing. One is in Manila, the other is in Nashville. Both are healthy and filled with some of the finest people on the planet.)
10. My Global Leadership Summit summary/conclusion: I get to work with amazing people at Every Nation, Victory Manila, and Bethel Franklin.
It will probably require much less peer pressure to get me to the 2013 Global Leadership Summit.