More from the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Tim Keller (“The Prodigal God”) added more insights about the lack of spiritual vitality that rests in so many churches. His telling of the parable of the Prodigal Son is that both brothers were alienated from their Father, and that both brothers wanted his money. But one eventually was saved through his badness; the other was lost through his “goodness.”
His takeaways–get it in your heart that you don’t do ministry to save yourself; when you teach or preach, move beyond Biblical principles to teach the Gospel.
David Gibbons leads a “Third Culture” (that is, multi-cultural) church. One of his teachings is that it’s the people. Not their skills, ambition, but their story. Do you take the time to know a person’s story? We all have a story of our life, and we all want to share it. Listen to the people. Therefore, it’s all about relationships. “We don’t need more visionaries. We need more relaters,” he said. He now spend 70% of his time on leadership development (equipping leaders) where he used to spend at least that amount of time on sermon and Sunday morning program development.
Where do you go to develop spiritual vitality within yourself? Can it be developed in your church? Are you equipping people for the journey–or loading them down with rules?
Tags: Christianity, Leadership, lifestyle
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