Jeff's Journal

I’m reading a book called “Courageous Leadership” by Bill Hybels.  It’s part of a class that I’m taking at Liberty University where I’m working on another Master’s degree.  Hybels, the pastor of Willow Creek Church outside of Chicago, IL, should know a thing or two about leadership.  He started Willow Creek almost thirty-plus years ago as a fledgling Bible study and raised it into one of the largest churches in North America with 20,000-plus in attendance on a weekend.  In any event, Hybels second chapter gets right to the core of his philosophy on leadership:  Without a vision, people perish.  Of course, that’s not Hybel’s idea; it’s what the Bible says in Proverbs.  Rick Warren made a killing off this idea when he coined the phrase, “Purpose-Driven” anything.  It seems like an absolute no-brainer to me.  God has a plan for your life!  Everything that he’s put in you and on you and around you is for the purpose of accomplishing that plan.  Oddly enough, he empowers you to do that work through the Holy Spirit and then plans to reward you based on how close your life comes to matching up to that plan! So much of who you are and what you’re doing on this earth has to do with that simple plan.

When people ask me about starting ministries, I always tell them the same thing:  If you want to be in it for the long haul, then you have to equip yourself with vision and calling.  Hybels uses the word ‘passion’ instead of calling, but I think they are synonymous.  Whatever you’re calling is, that is where your passions will lie.  I define ‘calling’ as that thing you have to do because you can’t do anything else. 

For the last twenty years the vision of “encouraging the body of believers by bringing the Word of God to life through creative expression” has been my calling.  It has sustained and directed my ministry.  When I long for an evangelistic ministry, I’m reminded of my calling and how God has given me a vision that ‘focuses’ itself on the body of Christ.  When I think I could be a pastor of a local church, the Spirit reminds me that I’ve been called (at least for now) to a larger faith community that extends around the world.  When I hear an interesting story from another culture that would lend itself to a strong moral theme, I’m struck by the fact that Bible is full of great stories with strong moral themes that need to be interpreted in creative ways.  Vision is a powerful and necessary ally in sustaining ministry over the course of time. 

Hybels book is a good read.  Outside of a chapter on ‘sacred pathways’, which help define a person’s best angle to intimacy with God, I haven’t discovered anything new.  But, I have enjoyed reading some of the anecdotes and stories of where his great adventure has taken him and the things he has learned.

Are You a Survivor?