Attending Leadership Institute at Church of the Resurrection

Last week five folks from Chain of Lakes joined me in attending Leadership Institute at United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, Kansas. This church was started in 1990 has grown to be one of the largest Methodist churches in the country. Every fall they share a Leadership Institute event. Through small classes, large group talks, and worship participants learn how Church of the Resurrection has become so successful. This was the sixth time I’ve attended Leadership Institute, and this was the largest group I’ve taken to the event.

By far the best workshop for me was lead by Martha Grace Reese. She has developed a wonderful process for mainline churches develop the practice of evangelism. I bought all four of her books and look forward to using them at Chain of Lakes. One quote she said that resonated with me is “it’s hard to teach people how to do evangelism if we are not clear on why we do evangelism.” At Chain of Lakes we have done a lot of work on the “hows” of evangelism. We could grow in teaching people the “whys.”

Adam Hamilton once again did an extraordinary job of teaching. He shared five basics that every church needs to get right. He said that the basics are: 1) It’s all about relationships with people; 2) Leaders clarify the purpose; 3) Leaders help churches or ministries to discern God’s vision; 4) Leaders honestly face shortcomings and pursue excellence; 5) Meaningful, moving, well-led worship.

Bill Hybels spoke on Friday morning. He shared five ideas that he would share with church leaders. He imagined himself on his death bed and being asked to share these five. They are: 1) Vision—taking people from here to there; 2) Get the people engaged; 3) make worship memorable; 4) pace yourself for the long haul; 5) pay attention to whispers from God.

The best part of the conference was to listen to the excitement of the folks who attended from Chain of Lakes. They were touched by the ministry and mission of Church of the Resurrection and very interested in taking some ideas back to the north metro for ministry. I’ve shared that I rate a conference a success if one idea is still implemented in six months. I’m hoping and praying that six ideas will be implemented from this conference in March 2012.

Notes from each workshop and plenary session will soon be posted at cor.org.