Bill Hybels’ hardest years

As one of the founders of Willow Creek Community Church, Bill Hybels knows the sacrifice that comes with starting a church. At the 2012 Exponential Conference on April 25 in Orlando, Florida, he spoke with church planters about their early successes and struggles planting Willow. And he invited his wife, Lynne, and two grown children, Shauna and Todd to join him for the interview.

“The first five years after Willow started were one of the hardest experiences of my life,” Bill shared with church planters. “I did a lot of scrambling. In the first five years it was like 25, 100-yard dashes a day.” 

Willow Creek began meeting in a theatre in Palatine in 1975 with approximately 100 people in attendance—most of them from a youth group who had met in the suburbs of Chicago. After six years of steady growth, the church took a leap of faith and committed to build a building at its current location in South Barrington. 

“When I look out at a crowd like this and see how many of you are in the first five to ten years of a church plant, I just want to sprinkle pastor dust all over you and wish you well,” he said. “I think [church planting] is inherently messy. I think it’s inherently confusing. I think it’s inherently complex. We can help, and council, and bless each other, but one of the toughest things I’ve ever been through is the first five or ten years of planting Willow,” he said.

It was hard on his family, too. “We didn’t have anybody giving us any direction or council,” Bill’s wife, Lynne said. “We weren’t a part of any organization. There were no church planters’ organizations that we knew of back then.” 

But as a family they were still able to make some good decisions. “We made a decision that if we had to choose between disappointing people in our congregation or our kids, we would disappoint the congregation because if they don’t like us they can go to another church, but our kids are stuck with us,” said Lynne.

“It was important for us to keep focused on our family while building into the church we were planting,” said Bill. “When our two kids arrived, nothing ever touched me as deeply. The thought of leaving these kids in the jet stream of a fast-moving church was unconscionable to me,” he said. “[My family] is my ultimate, lifelong small group. They are my permanent community. What do you have when you drive away from your church after 35 to 40 years if you don’t have an ultimate community?”

With a belief that after a church planter has established the fundamental commitments and isn’t going to quit, Bill believes it is becomes a matter of managing the commitments. “The idea of bailing on this, and I don’t mean this unkindly, I think it’s the coward’s way out. I think it requires more courage to be a covenant keeper—your covenant with your calling to God, your covenant to your marriage, and your covenant to your children,” he said. “I had to pray to God, that unless you take my life or release me from my call at Willow, I’m going to serve this church with my heart, soul, mind, and strength every day. I’m not breaking that covenant.”

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

5 Ways to Embed Evangelism in Your Culture

Few people would claim that evangelism comes naturally. In fact, for most, it means taking risks and stepping outside their comfort zones. But Christ doesn’t ask those with the gift of evangelism to be the only ones to share their faith. He asks all of us. When it comes to embedding a culture of evangelism in a church, it boils down to this:

1. Live a lifestyle of personal evangelism
Pastors can engage in very specific steps to embed a culture of evangelism in their church, starting by living it themselves. When the pastor and the leadership of the church are fired up about living a lifestyle of evangelism, they are sending a clear message to the congregation that it is a priority.

2. Teach regularly about evangelism
Walking the walk is key, but so is talking the talk. Pastors need to teach about evangelism on a regular basis. 

3. Provide training to equip the congregation in how to engage in personal evangelism
It’s important to offer training classes that can help people learn how to share their faith. At Willow we recently began offering Alpha and Just Walk Across the Room trainings to equip the congregation in personal evangelism. And we didn’t just offer it to adults; we also offered an age-appropriate training for kids. If kids can learn the importance of personal evangelism at an early age, it can set them on that path for the rest of their lives. 

4. Vision cast the importance of evangelism every few months
Every time there is an opportunity to vision cast about the mission of the church, evangelism should be at the top of the list. When we offer support groups to those who are hurting, we want people to get healing and meet the great Healer—Jesus Christ. When we open the doors to provide immediate relief (food, clothing, etc.) in times of crisis, we want to introduce people to Christ because He is the One who meets all our needs. At the heart of outreach, there is a burning desire to see people come to faith. Don’t pass up an opportunity to vision cast to every ministry about the impact they’re having on reaching people for Christ. 

5. Celebrate!
And it’s always important to celebrate. The Bible says that every time someone crosses the line of faith, there is rejoicing in heaven (Luke 15:10). For us at Willow, every June the entire congregation gathers at the lake on our campus for a lakeside Baptism. People bring picnics and sit on blankets on the shore and as people are baptized, there is a lot of shouting, cheering, and celebrating!
 

Bill Hybels (@BillHybels)
Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church
Chairman of the Board, Willow Creek Association

 

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

How Bill Hybels and Andy Stanley Plan Weekend Services

How would you like to hang around Bill Hybels and Andy Stanley for a while and pick their brains about their approach to developing weekend services?

That’s what I had a chance to do recently, along with a group of church leaders in the town of Bracknell, England.

When Bill and Andy were asked about how they go about planning their weekend services, every leader was leaning forward to hear their response. I too, leaned in and also recorded it on my iPhone. I didn’t want to miss a word, and I don’t want you to miss a word either.

Friends, if you’re involved in weekend services, this stuff is gold.

BILL
You probably can’t really peg high enough just how important every single weekend is.
I have a creative team. And I meet with them for two and a half hours every single week.
I feel that’s a very important role of mine.

ANDY
One of the things I learned years and years ago to help our creative people is this. They would always say, “What’s the message about?” or “What’s the series about?”

But then I discovered, I’d say, “I’m not going to tell you what the bottom line is. Let me tell you the tension I want you to help me create.”

read the rest of this post

Scott Cochrane (@WScottCochrane)
Executive Director, Willow Creek Canada
http://www.scottcochrane.com

Coping with December Pressure

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

I have a love/hate relationship with the month of December. My birthday falls near the middle of the month and Christmas falls near the end so those occasions should make the month of December a banner month, right? Senior Pastors know better. December is easily the most pressure packed month of the year. Teaching fresh material every December is a herculean challenge. Extra time is always needed for celebrating the staff, honoring the volunteers, raising year-end funds, and being even more available than usual for pastoring the church and community. And then there is your family- your spouse and kids and grandkids and extended family. Neglect them and well, you know… So, each year there are the 2 things that I make sure I do to recharge and stay grounded. The first is prayer. 

Out of desperation I started a new practice decades ago. On the first Monday in December I take my Bible and journal to a place that offers solitude. My prayer is the same each year: “God, please help me get this Christmas right…or at least a little better all around than I did last Christmas.” Then I start journaling about whatever comes to mind. Sometimes I start with making sure I’m learning from mistakes of previous holiday seasons. Other times I begin by reviewing what I got right the year before. But regardless of where I start, God always speaks to me.

I specifically remember the year that God whispered to me to stop pretending to my wife and children about what my schedule was going to be in December. Ever the optimist, I would joyfully announce that I was going to be around more this December than last year. Then reality would strike. Almost every year I spend December 26 apologizing to my family for not keeping my word about my schedule. 

This all changed with a whisper on a Monday. 

God said, “Why not tell your family the truth? Why not simply explain to them that December is the most intense month of the year for pastors and despite the flurry of activity in the first three weeks of the month you will all get sweet revenge the final week of the month.” Sweet revenge! 

The second strategy I have for staying grounded in December is replenishment (aka: Sweet revenge!). My children, who were young at the time, loved that term. Our family would scheme, plot and plan what we could do as a family that would make the chaos of the first 3 weeks fade. For over 25 years, the Hybels family packs up to go somewhere on Christmas Day and we aren’t seen around Barrington until the first of January. 

These “sweet revenge” travel days have been a lifesaver for our family. We cook meals together, jog together and watch sunsets together. On Old Years Night, we all list the top 10 blessings from the previous year. By the time the ball drops in Times Square we are all good with God, the church and each other. The deeper point in revealing all of this is that the idea came from a humble prayer for help from God on a Monday morning in early December decades ago.

Other years God has whispered other directions to me that gave me new ways to cope with the intensity of December pressures. Nothing has been more valuable to me than the first Monday of December, alone with God, armed with a Bible, a journal and an earnest prayer to get this Christmas Season a bit more right than last year.

By: Bill Hybels (@BillHybels)
Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church
Chairman of the Board, Willow Creek Association

4 Leadership Best Practices for Pastors

reposted from http://wcagls.blogspot.com

I receive several sailing magazines each month pertaining to sailboat racing. Sailing has been a recreational passion of mine for a long time. Recently I read an issue that had six articles on how to how to win races. I counted up all of the recommendations from each article about how to win sailboat races. There were 35 recommendations. Unfortunately, a list that long doesn’t help me because it’s just too overwhelming. I would like someone to say, here are four recommendations that are super important and if you do these, you’ll vastly improve.

Sometimes the same kind of thought process happens to me when I think about leadership. When I read Michael Feiner’s book on the 50 facets of leadership I thought, “50, wow—that’s a little intimidating”. John Maxwell did the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and sold millions of copies. Thank God he whittled the list from 50 down to 21. Jack Welch wrote Winning, and he boils the list of 21 down to eight basics. But that had to be hard just boiling it down to eight. 

And so, in a bold moment, I’m going to share four leadership points that are on my ‘must do’ list for church leaders. As I interact with pastors around the world, I often am asked questions about the facets of leadership. If I had to say—above all things—do these four recommendations when you get back to your church, I think the points below make the highest impact.

 1. Keep the vision clear. Proverbs 29:18 says—without a vision the people perish. Great leaders attend to every single detail with regard to a vision talk. When a vision lands in the hearts of people in the church, people start soaring in their spirits because there’s a vision in the church worth investing in, praying for, giving toward.

2. Get people engaged. Nehemiah 4:6 says—and all the people worked with all their hearts. Imagine that for a moment, every single person you’re leading working with all his or her heart. What we have to understand here is the difference between someone who passively agrees to an exciting vision and someone who buys in and has an owning stake in that vision.

3. Make your gatherings memorable. Another way of saying it, create great church services. Work so hard to make your gatherings memorable that your people wouldn’t think of missing them. Acts 2:43 says—everyone kept feeling a sense of awe. Awe as in holy transcendent moments where the awareness of the presence of God is palpable. 

4. Pace yourself for the long haul. The key verse here is 1 Corinthians 9:25—Run in such a way as to win the prize. I’d like to finish the race with a family that loves to be together, and with friends that I can belly laugh with, and still stand in front of Jesus who finished His race (and had the toughest assignment of all).

Leaders, we need you. The local church is the hope of the world, and its future rests primarily in the hands of its leaders. We can’t lose a single one of you from your race. So I plead with you, pace yourself for the long haul. I pray that through our leadership and the leadership of others the church will reach her full potential in this world.

Bill Hybels (@BillHybels)
Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church
Chairman of the Board, Willow Creek Association

2011 GLS Highlights Session 1 - Bill Hybels

Wondering what the Australian Global Leadership Summit will be like?!

Check out what's to come with Bill Hybels session 1 highlights!

Does God Whisper?

Recently, our team has been considering what might happen if God’s people and churches started listening for God’s quiet whispers--and then acting on what they hear.

Hoping to spark conversation and encourage people to listen for God’s promptings, we’ve just released a two-minute video.

Feeling challenged? Explore further at Http://doesGodwhisper.com  

If you like it, share it!  We encourage you to post the video to your blog, your facebook page, or your twitter feed.

Our belief is that God is still speaking to His people today. Together, we’re hoping to elevate the truth that listening, hearing, and responding to God’s whispers is not only one of life’s greatest joys, but will change the world.

Obeying the Spirit instead of your own self-centered whims will lead you to places you've never been, challenge you in ways you have never been challenged, and invite levels of sacrifice you never dreamed you could make. This is the power and the promise of full-throttle faith, of living a life fueled solely by God." -Bill Hybels

God Will Speak to You!

reposted from http://wcagls.blogspot.com/

 

In 2011, God is going to speak to you.

He’s been speaking to his kids since the beginning of time. He loves you and He’d love to have a bigger place in your life. God would love to open doors for you that you think can’t be opened. He’d love to take you on adventures that you think your life can never be about. God would love to whisper to you about the poor, about race, about greed, or other things that wreck this world. Broken things in this world don’t get fixed unless someone receives a whisper from God, steps up, steps out on faith, and does something about it.

So God is going to be speaking to you this year. My question is will you hear it and heed it? You will never regret this! But it actually takes a decision! Will you take the risks to walk by faith and not by sight?

By: Bill Hybels (@BillHybels)
Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church