Let Me Summit Up

On Thursday and Friday I was treated to The Leadership Summit, a conference held by Bill Hybels and Willow Creek that is simulcasted across North America to places like St. Louis. It is geared toward gathering, training, and motivating church leaders. Their motto: Lead were you are.


I was accompanied by two of my coolest seminary friends, Todd and Zank.

Note: Zank, you should know, has foosball skills on offense that rival mine on defense, and I (probably) could not have won the doubles intramural foosball championship without his talent and dedication. I also want to personally apologize to him and the world for not mentioning his contributions in our previous post on the subject.

The summit had several highlights, including a person asking to interview me, a free milkshake, and a foosball table in the breakroom.

The speakers had their moments too. I heard a lot of great stories: a woman in her 20s who quit her six-figure job to teach business skills to convicts so they could find jobs and start over when they leave prison; an agency whose lawyers fought to free a man in Africa who had been robbed by the police, shot, and then imprisoned upon release from the hospital in order to keep him quiet; the story of the Harvard graduate who started Teach for America when she recognized that a person's educational development is often determined by where that person is born.

It was both educational and motivating. The Summit even made me excited to start classes again in September! Only four more weeks!