Limeade…quenching the leadership thirst

The Awaken conference kicked off today. If had a chance to meet and network with some great leaders.  I spent most of the day hanging out with by buddy Darren.

I also ran into my friends Marcus Goodloe, Gabriel Lawrence, Eric Bryant, Ben Arment, Mark Batterson, and Naeem Fazal.   I wish I could share all that I’ve learned thus far, but here are a few take aways:

Erwin McManus:  Too often we give leadership to whoever shows up first, not who goes first.  Leaders always go first.  If we simply keep choosing who shows up first, we will have leaders who don’t lead.

Erwin McManus & Wayne Cordero:  Every church has a rate of speed.  You want to get just a bit ahead of it.  If you go to fast, you will loose your people.  If you move to slow, the enterpreneurs will feel under challenge and leave.  This goes to show that we may have to pick up the pace in our leadership.  Yet, if God has the church going at 60 miles per hous, we have to be humble enough to allow those going at 90 miles per hour to leave.  Wow.

Wayne Cordero:  Wisdom comes from digging deeper into the word of God.  There is a spiritual famine in the land.  We will get caught up in it as leaders if we don’t dive into his word consistently.

Bill Hybels:  It’s not just enough to cast a vision.  The people must own the vision.  We have to take time to help people own the vision.  This means moving away from a Sinai approach (I go away, come back with a vision, and tell you what to do) to a Team approach (We work through the vision and implementation together as a team).

Mark Batterson:  We often trade in our imagination for what’s logical.  We can drift towards being predictable.  We have to keep dreaming and keep our innovation fresh.