Defining Moments: “Is Training Christian Leaders Worth it?”

One of the questions people often ask me is why I train Christian leaders. I have a hard time answering. I guess the best answer is that it is one of the core values of our ministry. Much of what we do comes back to training leaders.

One of the best stories I can give fuels my fire, personally. Four years ago we started hosting The Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, which is a two day event of intense leadership training. I must say, it is one of the most exhausting things we do. It involves six months of very hard work. I remember feeling completely drained during the first event and I made the decision that the following year we would not do it again.

At the end of the last session one of the pastors came up to thank me. He began to share that he rode 12 hours on a bus from an extremely remote region in Bolivia in order to attend the event. As I began to mentally chart the course in my mind I realized that he had crossed some of the roughest and most dangerous parts of Bolivia to reach the conference. Then he asked a question that has been a defining moment for me. “Pastor, is there any way that you can help us train the leaders in our region? No one ever comes.” As I looked in the eyes of that pastor and saw his heart to bring leadership principals to his region I realized that what we do is so much bigger than ourselves. It helps people impacts lives for Christ. For that reason we have, and will do, whatever we can as a ministry to help others.