At NCC we have three leadership summits each year.  They’re 3-4 hour events for our small group and ministry leaders where we cast vision, provide training, worship, and celebrate wins.  We typically produce them entirely in-house, but this year we decided to bring in some outside voices who could speak to our leaders in a fresh way.

For our spring summit we brought in Dr. Bill Donahue, former head of group life for Willow Creek Community Church and the Willow Creek Assocation.  Dr. Donahue has a BA from Princeton, an MA from Dallas Seminary, and a PhD from the University of North Texas.  Prior to joining the ministry he worked for Proctor and Gamble and PNC Bank.

He spoke to our leaders on the need to raise up others into leadership.  Here are my unedited notes from his talk:

There is a crying need for ongoing leadership.  It’s not an arrogant thing or we need to be the leaders, but it seems that God has prioritized leadership/shepherding.

But what happens is, people begin to say, wow, this is hard.  So I began to brainstorm, what keeps leaders from sharing their leadership.

Barriers

What begins to happen if I give up control?  If I give up control, it might stop working.  There’s fear of a loss of control, sometimes that’s for right reasons and sometimes it’s a control issue.  There’s a risk there.  But if anyone should have held onto control was Jesus, but he passed it on even though he knew they were going to bumble around a bit.

If I give away leadership, what if they’re better than me.  It’s an insecurity issue.  I love John 14:12 – Greater things than this will you do because I go.  Think about that for a moment.  Greater things? Than Jesus? Dead-raising, it doesn’t have to be a long list.  Maybe it’s greater in scope.  Maybe Jesus is like a boulder dropped into a lake.  He made a huge impact, but we’re the ripples that reach the shore.

Ego gets in the way.   John Vanye – Community is the place where ego comes to die.  You have John the Baptist, he must increase, but I must decrease.  It is fun to be in the spotlight.  I played football at Princeton, not very well, injured most of the time.  My training regimen of late nights and beer probably didn’t help.  Sometimes when you want to shine, you end up failing in front of a lot of people.  And then you don’t want to step back out.  So you ask someone, and they don’t want to step back out because of insecurity.

Sometimes you think you don’t have anything to teach.  But Gerald May says how you view yourself really has very little to do with who you are.  It’s God who makes you adequate

Fear of failure, what if I pick the wrong person?

A sense of short supply or shortsightedness.  I’d pick somebody, but I don’t see anyone around.  I don’t think that’s true, but there’s this perception that they’re just not ready yet.

A plain old unwillingness, we say, there are people out there, but they just aren’t willing to step up.

The list could go on, but there are afew things that hold us back.

When the how doesn’t work or the what isn’t clear, I can come back to the why.  Why do we share leadership?

There’s a pattern of it in Scripture.  Jethro tells Moses in Exodus 18 to setup a leadership structure to allow others to share in the responsibility.  There’s Elijah and Elisha.  Jesus chose the twelve to be with him and send them out.  The twelve raised up people to serve the widows.

It’s essential for the health of any community.  When leadership resides in a lone person, there’s danger to it.  We’re weak and broken people, and we can mess up.  David Gergen when reflecting on the four presidents he served under said that a leader with character without capacity is weak but a leader with capacity without character is dangerous.

It shifts a focus off the few to the many.  It’s a flatter church, a flatter organization.  Heirarchy can have a role in places, but it’s dangerous if it’s very narrow.

If you begin to share leadership in your culture, this is not an assistant.  An apprentice does what you do.  An assistant does what you don’t want to do.  It takes away that hierarchical you’re helping me get my leadership done to I’m helping you get your leadership done.

Go back to one of your first leadership experiences.  Doesn’t have to be church.  What was the first time you were in a leadership role and you were conscious of it.  How did that feel to you?  How did it go?

One of the things that I do when someone has some hesitancy to step into leadership is go back to when I was there, when I wasn’t sure I would do well or when I failed.

Identifying and engaging emerging leaders is work and skill.

What are you looking for?

A learner, someone who wants to grow.  Every now and again I’ll ask someone to be a leader, and they’re like, it’s about time.  Suddenly we have a lot more hesitancy about their leadership.  This versus someone who is hesitant and unsure.  Don’t worry about the person who says no the first time.  They could be the next Moses.  It might not be the right time.  They might not be ready yet.  You need the courage to grow in your leadership to make another ask.  How many asks was that?  One?  You’re done?  Pray, stay connected, you’ll see another opportunity to ask.

Where do you find leaders?  I really don’t know.  I would look for leaders and not find them.  I’m not good at looking for leaders.  People are easy.  I can find them.  If you’re looking for a leader, it may be hard to find one.

But if you’re looking for some people who might be open to leading, you can find them.  I don’t even ask them to lead.  I just ask them to help me, maybe help me brainstorm some ideas.  It’s not hidden necessarily, but it is a bit subtle and subterranean.  This person may find some joy in beginning to help lead.  Can you help me?  We will plan together.

The first time I saw a leader when I hadn’t seen one was a really quiet guy in one of our groups.  Whenever he spoke, everyone would listen.  He had great insights.  But I didn’t think “leader.”  We had coffee and he told me he sometimes thought about the group.  I broached the subject of “leader,” and he withdrew.  I went to promise keepers with some guys, and he was one of them.  We started a mens group, but there was no “leader.”  But suddenly Steve was asking probing questions, directing the group to pray.  What I realized was it’s about getting alongside of people in a process.

Some of you may have great discernment gifts and can figure this out easier, but me and I think a lot of others do it by trial and error.  Some people may need a bolder ask.  Maybe that guy doesn’t need to be in three softball leagues.

Invite people into a relationship, not a role.  Join me, let’s do something together.

You’re looking for people who are willing to learn, not people who see autonomy as the ultimate goal.  Becoming autonomous is not the ultimate goal.  The Bible says that interdependence is when you’ve arrived.  When the hand needs the eye.  You don’t want people who feel like they’re all of it.

Love – When I’ve worked with people, the first thing, especially in a group, is I want the apprentice or the aspiring leader, even if they don’t know it, is give them someone to love.  Henry Nouwen says service is love.  The main problem of service is to be the way without being in the way.  I there are skills to be learned, they are primarily to serve getting out of the way.

Learn – Give them something to learn.  Ask them to stay five minutes after the group and to give me feedback on my leadership.  Then when they start to lead, I’ll give them feedback.  Experience plus feedback is the best way to learn.

Lead – Give them time to lead.  It’s okay if they fail.  Learn to give leadership away.  Don’t hold it tight  Early on in the apprenticing process is to give them the value of passing things on.  Say to them: Hey, why don’t you start praying about a shared leadership experience?  Who can you pass things on to?

I want to ask you a couple of questions.  We’ve been talking about government shutdown in our culture.  We don’t have to worry about shutdown, except… but we’ll come to that.  We have a great policy manual in Scripture.  We know our values.

Jesus says to his followers that the harvest is there, we need laborers.  So pray, beseech, ask, the Lord of the harvest to go out.  God will create in you a Romans 16 legacy where Paul describes his ministry relationships: Pheobe, a deacon; Priscilla and Aquilla, who risked their lives for Paul; Appenitus, the first follower of Christ in Asia; Mary who worked for your benefit; Adronicus and Judica who were in prison with him…

It’s not a prideful thing.  It’s just that one day you get to write a Romans 16 list.  It’s not a prideful thing.  My impact is limited by the number of people I can touch and invest in.

Henrietta Meers started a Bible study at 6 AM on UCLA’s campus, some people on her Romans 16 list: Bill Brighton, Campus Crusade for Christ; Senate Chaplain Halverson; Billy Graham

Main Session 4

Description: Why do some community initiatives fly and others fall flat? Bill Donahue investigates how certain strategies flounder, the missing essentials that can lead to their failure, and how you can avoid making the same mistakes. Or if you´ve made them already, learn how you can get back on your feet.

Speaker’s Bio: Bill Donahue’s passion for helping churches develop leaders through small groups led him to Willow Creek in 1992. Bill is currently the Executive Director of Group Life for the Willow Creek Association. Prior to that, he served on the staff of Willow Creek Community Church for six years, helping launch and develop the church-wide small group ministry. He was also leader of the Couples Ministry, Director of the Willow Creek Institute, and headed the Leadership Training Department. Bill has a Ph.D. in Adult Education from the University of North Texas, a Master’s in Biblical Studies from Dallas Seminary, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Princeton University. He and his wife, Gail, have two children, Ryan and Kinsley.

Bill is the co-author (with Russ Robinson) of Building a Church of Small Groups, The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry and Walking the Small Group Tightrope.

Notes:

Good ideas, great strategies, and our best laid plans can turn out to be disasters. Sometimes we think we’re being creative or revolutionary, but we just end up being stupid.

We have a saying around Willow Creek, the only thing worse than no drama is bad drama.

Sometimes we make decisions out of selfish resasons that stem from selfishness, pride or insecurity. We recruit a willing person instead of waiting for the best person. We’re looking for the next big idea instead of waiting for the still, small voice. Paul told Timothy to look out for people who are rash, conceited and lovers off pleasure rather than lovers of God.

But sometimes we fail after doing things for the right reasons, and that’s harder. We’ve prayed, we’ve worked hard, we just have to chalk it up to, “Well, it’s a fallen world, and it’s fallen on me.”

2 years after I became a Christian I decided to start a group. I worked hard to make it work. I had 3 other guys who were my core group. Within 6 weeks, that group of 4 burst forth into the huge number of 1. I did everything right. We started on time, ended on time, didn’t do any small talk, we got down to business. I realized what I had on my hand was a group of losers. The Holy Spirit informed me that wasn’t the case. I’ve often thought about writing a book, “How to turn your small group into a quiet time in just 6 sessions.”

What do we do when our group fails? How do we learn from failure in ministry and leadership.

Four reasons things fail:

• An obsession with vision while ignoring reality
  You begin to evaluate, and you get around visionary people, get feedback. You see how you’re doing after 6 months. You start telling stories about success, but it’s all about the same person. It’s like you’re trying to cultivate an orchard, and you focus on one tree.
  You ignore feedback. Bonhoeffer: If you love your dream for community more than the community itself, it will fail.
• Implementing a strategy without building an infrastructure
  Campaigns can be amazing things. A lot of people tried a 40 day approach to something to generate energy, but if it’s a strategy without a structure, it can be 40 days of purpose followed by 40 weeks of chaos. You can’t just do that and slap a bunch of groups together. No one knows why you gather, who to call if there’s a crisis. People will just sit there week after week in a stupor. It happens at the small group level as well.
• Empowering leaders without developing them
  Small group leaders, it is our responsibility to make sure that we get developed, to ask our leaders to provide it, to tell them where we feel weak and where we need help.
  Point Leaders, it is our responsibility to make sure that small group leaders are equipped.
  Sometimes you need a “grouper scooper” to clean up a mess in groups, but we probably caused it by not supporting our leaders.
  Groups can be led by 4 different things: process (like 12 step), values (gathering to pray for our kids in college), curriculum (tells you what to say, when to say it, etc.), and a leader. I happen to think when you put all four together, you have a great thing, but the leader is the most important part.
• Launching groups that never really learn to become communities
  It was based on an assumption that if you place people in a circle, they know how to be a community. You know that right? That first meeting when everyone arrives and they’ve never experienced good community before in the past, and we say things like, “Be open. Be vulnerable.” Very few people who have grown up in our individualistic culture know how to live in redemptive community.
  We had to develop some group training material after developing our leader training material. Part of what we have to train people to do is to learn how to have relationships again.
  Anyone can start a group, but who will help them become a community? That’s you. That’s your responsibility.

How you respond when you have failed really matters?

You have to admit that some of our failures are the result of something darker, pride, etc. If this is the problem, we just need to own that. Before God and all of those who are affected by it, we need to apologize. If we’re willing to name reality, people are willing to respond and often with grace. People just want us to own that. They know we’re going to make mistakes.

That’s the easy part. The harder part is often forgiving ourselves. Our relationship with ourselves was fractured in the Fall. We ask ourselves, is there really hope for me? I failed again. Why didn’t I follow up and pray for that person? Why didn’t I call them? Why am I a leader? I shouldn’t be a leader.

What you want is the same thing that your people want. If you feel desparate sometimes and need hope, that’s what your people need as well. They need hope. When people come together in groups with their battered souls and weary bodies, they ask themselves, “Is this the day I will find hope? Maybe this is the day I will find wisdom, the strength to confront my addiction, that someone will show me love. Will someone see my heart today?” Jesus knew we needed community. He called the 12 together, and it wasn’t just a good idea, it was a great idea, the best idea, that Jesus would come to be with us. Christ is our hope, the anchor of our soul, and he wants us to be hope filled people.

Erwin McManus: Faith is about conviction, but hope is about confidence.

We need a theology of failure that says God can go back and redeem those failures. The story of the Bible is a failure story into which God has stepped and redeemed it.

I needed to fail in that first group. Sometimes when a leader is away, they learn to turn to Christ. That’s the point. There’s a ministry of absence, and sometimes we can only experience that in failure. It teaches people that their trust must be in Jesus and not in a leader who was imperfect.

We think failure is fatal, but there is hope. There is hope in Jesus Christ who is the anchor of our soul. I want you to leave this conference hope-filled, not just hopeful.

A few weeks ago I started a small group. You never know when God is going to show up. We had been reading some material about expectations, about hope. One of the men shared how he hoped God would redeem some of the mistakes he had made as a father. He had that look in his eyes like, “I hope it will change.” There was a guy across the circle who had his head down. His son had leukemia for the last five years. He struggled with alcohol. He goes to an AA meeting at least once a day. I watched another man share how he had struggled with a season of infertility. Years ago they adopted a son, and later met the birth mother out of the blue. And the adoptive family was worried they would lose their son, and was able to speak hope into the man’s life. Two other men were quiet. Another man got an e-mail from his daughter who had a friend killed in an accident a few months ago. The e-mail said, “Thanks for teaching me to pray through hardship.” A man across the circle, the CEO of a $100 million company has a daughter with chronic pain. He looked across at a man and said that your son met my daughter at college and ministered to her.

I realized that people want and need to be connected to hope. That’s your job. That’s your priveledge and opportunity.