Pastor Bill began the conference this morning by talking about the impact of the rogue waves currently hitting the church. The economics of our day, along with culture shifts, leave us wondering when the old normal is going to come back. Hybels argues it probably isn’t. Now is the time for leadership to emerge – times of crisis separate the wheat from the chaff.
Hybels invited us to consider four great lessons of rogue wave times…
Philosophical – Do we still believe the church matters in the world? How will the difficulties of these days serve to focus what we do? Willow Creek is working, among many other things, to ensure their Sunday mornings are “all killer, no filler.” They start before the beginning, blur the ending and do serious church in between! Every Sunday morning.
Economics – What is the church when the math doesn’t make sense? As we Luke 14 this thing, counting the costs of doing ministry, how can we better allocate funds and prioritize ministries to maximize all we do? Hybels talked about three-bucket priorities – what is tertiary, what is secondary and what will we never, ever stop doing regardless of the rogue waves that hit us? He also analyzed our budget pie according to predefined values of the church. He told a wonderful story of people stepping forward to “pop” for water filtration systems in Africa (22 of them at $25K each!) Remember: people will always continue to give to a white hot vision and, secondly, financial crisis is a wonderful time to teach God’s financial management. People are finally ready to hear it now that their own financial management has left them in crisis.
Relational – Drawing on Habakkuk 3:2 and the prophet’s desire for God to do cool things in our day just as He has done in the past, Hybels asks how many of our people are willing to radically become instruments of God’s activity. God moves through surrendered people.
Personal – Is the pace at which we’re working spiritually and emotionally sustainable? Is our workload demonstrating our confidence in God’s ability to get the work done successfully? Or our own lack of faith? Is the pace at which I’m faithfully working destroying the work of faith God is doing in me?
A very passionate and challenging message.
