Willow Creek A2 Conference – Day One Summary

Wow! What a day of team-building and mind-stretching by some of the best ministry minds in the land. Got to Willow and into the 7,200 seat auditorium in time for some great cross-cultural worship to open up the conference. Then Bill Hybels came out and began to talk about key events in his life that have shaped him as a leader (other than his profession of faith). These are not small things but events where God touched your life, rocked your world, and caused you to dive into ministry.
My Personal Key Takeaways from Bill Hybels:

• What would the world be like if every pastor raised their game 5%…just 5%. This had me thinking about incremental gains that could be made and time-hog projects that could be jettisoned to get 5% more effective in our ministry at Park Community Church in the city of Chicago.

• He was impacted because a Godly man asked him a couple of simple questions: “What are you going to do with your life that will last forever? Are you going to just keep accumulating stuff and experiences as the signature of your life or are you going to leave an eternal legacy?” Also, his youth pastor told  him “the only thing that will move on after the fervent heat of Christ’s return melts the earth is people, so why would you invest your one and only life in anything other than people?”

Man, can this guy tell personal stories that get you motivated or what?

Then Craig Groeschel from Life Church in Oklahoma came out to address their strategy of multii-site church. Life Church is one church, meeting in nine locations through the use of video and satellite technology. This enables all of the locations to be connected as one, no matter how far apart they are physically. Each LifeChurch.tv location has the same dynamic worship experience, with its own “personal touches”, including its own live band and campus pastor to lead worship. People who attend LifeChurch.tv find the quality of a large church with the intimacy and personal interaction of a smaller church. The Mission of LifeChurch.tv is to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ.

My Personal Key Takeaways from Craig Groeschel:

• They have taken an “evangelism as our priority” view and therefore have been on the forefront of multi-site church.
• He was quick to say — don’t follow us — ask your own questions and figure our what God is doing in your backyard.
• He did give us some great questions to ponder as he taught out of Acts 2:

• What is we invited peopel to surrender their lives to Christ’s headship EVERY Sunday?
• What if we gave to everyone who had need?
• What if we promoted other churches in the area and people left Craig’s church but got plugged in at their new church?
• What if you preached to people on video?
• What if a church was no longer bound by walls and buildings?
• What if we could redeem technology for Kingdom expansion?

This has promoted team discussion on the viability of multi-site in our young urbanite setting and its potential. Very interesting to ponder…..

We then got to hear from Matthew Barnett of the LA Dream Center, who gave a riveting message based on Nehemiah 2:10 — promoting the welfare of the Israelites. This was a good day to sharpen iron against iron — it also allows us to focus as a team on some of the issues raised and how we would deal with them.