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3 Reasons Not To Miss The National Leaders Webcast

April 4, 2013 in Events, Leadership with 0 Comments

Post by Lori Hermann, Executive Producer, WCA and The Global Leadership Summit

This week, I’ve been reviewing the video segments we’ve been preparing for The National Leaders Webcast coming up next Wednesday on April 10th. We are going to be changing things up a bit. :-) It’s unlike anything we’ve done before and I’m so excited for everyone to see it!

You will benefit exponentially from the Summit, so here are 3 reasons you absolutely should not miss this webcast!

1)    Get better at negotiating conflict – You may not think you negotiate much, but negotiating is the act of back and forth communication trying to reach agreement. How many times a day are you doing that? During this webcast, you’ll hear from William Ury, master negotiator and author of the world-side best-seller “Getting to Yes” as he talks about what prevents us from negotiating well. He also shares 4 specific skills we need to get good at it.

2)    See how God works to transform lives – I don’t know about you, but I’m always amazed and humbled to see what God prompts people to do. You’ll experience two stories of leaders who have been inspired to make bold steps of faith to make significant impact from their corner of the world.

3)    Meet The Global Leadership Summit speakers for 2013 – Our Summit team prays for and works year-round to put together a world-class faculty from church and business worlds to craft an experience that helps leaders grow in a multitude of areas including culture, influence, conflict, and more. Get to know the background of each speaker and what we are asking them to deliver at this year’s event.

The National Leaders Webcast includes practical tools for you and your team to get better as a leader, but it also delivers the story of how The Global Leadership Summit is a tool in God’s hand. It’s a tool to inspire every leader to make a kingdom impact. We look forward to see how God uses it again this year and it starting now.

Be there… Wednesday, April 10th from 11:30-12:30 CDT.

Lori Hermann is the Executive Director of Content Development for Willow Creek Association and Executive Producer of The Global Leadership Summit. She is living in her sweet spot doing what she loves to do and is passionate about creativity. She is also a lover of stories in the form of movies, books, photos and people. Follow her on Twitter @LoriHermann

5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Making a Presentation

April 3, 2013 in Leadership with 0 Comments

Post by Charles Lee, CEO & Chief Idea-Maker at Ideation

Making a remarkable presentation is not easy.

No matter how experienced or polished you are in doing presentations, it takes a little extra to make your talk truly remarkable (i.e., worth making a remark about). While presenting with confidence and content is great, it doesn’t guarantee that things will stick with your audience. Here are 5 questions to ask yourself while preparing for your next remarkable presentation:

  • What’s the main objective you hope to accomplish through your presentation? While it’s tempting to share all that you’ve prepared for a talk, don’t! Focus on the main point you hope to communicate. The more you blur the main objective, the more your audience will begin to distant themselves from your presentation. Keep in mind that you’ve had time to process your information leading up the talk. Your audience is processing ideas in real-time and don’t have the luxury of reflection. It won’t matter how important your content is if your audience can’t digest it. There’s nothing more frustrating than to listen to a speaker try to do too much with a presentation.
  • Why should the audience care about what you have to say? Don’t assume that your audience cares about what you have to say. Simply because your content may be important to you, it doesn’t follow that it is important to your audience. Your assumption going into a talk should be that the audience has no real reason to care about what you’re about to say. Do the hard work of creating mental on-ramps for your audience so that they can find reasons to care about your talk.
  • How do you want your audience to feel during and after your presentation? Put yourself in the shoes of your listener. What are they like and how would you like them to experience your presentation? Don’t ignore emotions. Many presentations stick with an audience because of how an audience emotionally connects with a speaker and/or his/her content. Are there things you could do during your presentation to heighten the listener’s emotional connection with the content being presented? Are there ways to illustrate and/or experience the emotions that are naturally tied to many of the things you present?
  • What role, if any, will technology support your presentation? Technology is meant to be a supplementary tool for presenters. It is not designed to fully replace the one doing the presentation. In fact, some of the best presentations I’ve heard over the years have been technology-free. If you do use technology, try not to hide behind the tool. Many simple read what’s on the screen and don’t leverage the complimentary nature of these tools. The tool is there to support your talk. The focal point in presenting is still you. If you’re using any type of presentation software, (1) minimize the amount of text you use on your slides because people will stop listening when they see that they can work ahead and read your points, (2) use images to create a visual imprint of what you’re talking about, and (3) take out any unnecessary elements that don’t add value to what you’re talking about.
  • How will your respond to the body language of the audience during your talk? Outside of seeing someone in the audience completely knocked out in deep sleep, it’s often difficult to read people’s body language. Many people make interesting facial expressions when contemplating ideas. In other words, it’s quite possible that many in your audience may appear disengaged when in fact they are thoroughly engaged. The key is to keep moving forward with your presentation without being discouraged by what you think you might be observing. Don’t let people’s body language derail you from focusing on the presentation. You’ll find that many who come up and speak with you after your talk are actually the one’s you perceived as not connecting with the presentation.

We humans are funny creatures.

What are some of the things you think about before making a remarkable presentation?

Charles is the CEO & Chief Idea-Maker at Ideation, an idea agency that specializes in helping businesses & organizations create & implement remarkable ideas via creative business design, organizational innovation, branding, design, marketing, social media, and divergent problem-solving. He is also the author of Good Idea. Now What?: How to Move Ideas to Execution, a practical book designed to help people move ideas to implementation. In addition, Charles is the creator of grassroots efforts including Ideation Conference, the Idea Camp, and the Freeze Project as well as the co-founder of JustOne. Charles regularly speaks on topics such as creativity, innovation, idea-making, branding, collaboration, new media, and social entrepreneurism.

All The Days Before And After Easter

March 30, 2013 in Leadership, Spiritual Transformation with 0 Comments

Post by Laura Crosby, ministry leader at Christ Presbyterian Church

It’s Saturday of Holy Week.

Or maybe it’s Monday, because what ministry leaders have time to read a blog during Holy Week? (Unless they’re desperately looking for a last-minute illustration. Let’s be honest here.)

As I imagine you sitting in front of your computer or phone I see someone really tired. Maybe vaguely anxious about whether you’ve “done enough”, or been “good enough”. Maybe you’re just numb.

You’ve said a lot of words, read a lot of words, talked to and prayed with a lot of people. You’ve worked hard to preach a fresh, relevant, contextualized message of redemption.

Holy Week may be the most important week of the year for you. The Super Bowl and the State of the Union rolled into one. It’s the bad news of sin and death and the good news of resurrection and forgiveness and eternal life. It’s what you’re passionate about so you’ve poured yourself out.

For Jesus.

For the people in your congregations.

But here’s the thing…

I’m privileged to be a facilitator for the LIFT (Leadership Institute For Transformation) classes and you know the biggest “aha!” each semester? Participants realize they’ve cared deeply for the souls of others at the expense of their own soul health. They realize how seldom they choose the discipline, or even feel the permission to merely sit at the feet of Jesus and ask, “What do you have for me? Just me. Today.”

Like Elijah you may have seen God do amazing things through you this Holy week, but now you just feel exhausted and you need God to meet you with a snack and a nap and a gentle whisper.

Or, perhaps you’re like Mary in John 20, so wrapped up in processing both the hosanna’s and the horrors of Easter week that she doesn’t recognize Jesus.  And He’s right there! With her. But like her, you are stumbling along, tired and oblivious.

I imagine a gentle tone and understanding in His eyes as Jesus asks her “Why are you crying?”

What would He ask you?

What might you answer? ”I’m lonely. I’m afraid. I don’t know what to do next.”?

And then Jesus says her name. “Mary.” And I imagine it like a parent would softly say the name of a distraught toddler as they tried to soothe away their tears.

In that one word it seems Jesus is telling Mary, and us, so many things.

I’m here. And it will be ok because I’m here. I see you. I understand your loneliness, your exhaustion, your fears.

Sometimes I need to be reminded that Easter isn’t just about Easter. It’s about all those days before and after Easter when we feel exhausted or confused or alone and tired of caring for others and we need to be reminded that Jesus hasn’t left the building and He doesn’t just love us for what we can do for His sheep.

What if, right now, you were to kneel in silence with no other agenda than to bring yourself to Jesus? Your whole self – your weary, unsure, lonely, longing self – and let Him restore you and whisper HIS words of love and reassurance for you and you alone?

 

Laura Crosby has served as a ministry leader for more than two decades. She currently serves with her husband John at Christ Presbyterian Church near Minneapolis. Read her blog at http://awakemysoulblog.com and follow her on Twitter @lauracrosby_mn

God on a Cross

March 29, 2013 in Leadership, Spiritual Transformation with 0 Comments

Post by Jerrell Jobe, Pastor at Palm valley Community Church

 “Messiah, is He? King of Israel?
Then let Him climb down from that cross.
We’ll all become believers then!”
Even the men crucified alongside Him
joined in the mockery.”
Mark 15:32

 

In the book, The Cross of Christ, author John Stott writes this descriptive reality about the cross:

 I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as “God on the Cross.” In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world.

But each time after awhile I have had to turn away. And in imagination, I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through his hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me!

He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering.

Reflection: Jesus suffered a brutal death. He was executed on a stake as a criminal. Many were they who came within spitting distance of this so-called Messiah. Somehow many of us have become numb to this scene. Perhaps, ever so slowly it has become buried under the rubble of pop culture and consumerist religion. Spend some time reflecting on these penetrating words by Alexander Whyte:

You will understand that spitting scene that night
when God lets you see your own heart.
(Alexander Whyte, The Best of Alexander Whyte, 76)

Prayer: Humbly ask God to reveal to you what your heart looks like without Christ. Allow this image to produce within you gratefulness today for what He’s done and how He’s begun to give you a new heart.

Jerrell Jobe is a teaching pastor at Palm Valley Community Church in Mission, Texas. Jerrell is deeply grateful for the transformative power of the resurrection and contributes to a weekly Lent Guide for his congregation. You can follow him on Twitter @jerrelljobe

Vision Casting To…Yourself

March 26, 2013 in Leadership with 0 Comments

By Jenni Catron, Executive Director of Cross Point Church in Nashville

If you’re a leader, you understand the importance of vision casting.  You frequently have to remind those you lead why they do what they do.  You remind them of how every task, no matter how seemingly insignificant, ties back to the vision of your church or organization.  It’s leadership 101.

You’ve likely worked hard to develop the skill of vision casting.  Great leaders are masters of this art.

But how good are you at vision casting to yourself?

I’ve been through numerous seasons in my time in ministry when I have forgotten the importance of remembering the vision myself.  I have taken for granted that I need to be reminded of the “why” behind the “whats” just as much as those I lead.

I haven’t exactly forgotten the vision.  If you asked me I would rattle it off by rote.  But while my head remembers, sometimes my heart forgets.  I can get busy doing the what of ministry and slowly find my heart disconnecting.

Have you ever been there?

As Bill Hybels has so wisely taught us, “vision leaks”… even for leaders.  As the leader, you’re less likely to have others who will consistently remind you of the why.  In fact, you’ll more commonly get pestered with questions rather than encouragement… unless you know where to look.

To keep your head and your heart connected to the vision, you have to create ways to cast the vision to yourself repeatedly.  Here are some ways that I have learned to do this:

1)    Prayer.  The demands on your leadership often make extended prayer time feel like a luxury you can’t afford.  This is the easiest way for our hearts to disconnect from the vision and purpose God has called us to.  Don’t neglect the amazing gift of spending time with God and hearing from Him.

2)    Stories.  Whether a quick testimony that was told to you on a Sunday morning or an email that someone penned to share their story of transformation, let each story be a reminder of the power of God’s vision in action.  I keep a file on my computer for emails and stories that I’ve received.  On the days where I’m struggling to find significance in my work, a quick read through a few of these stories reconnects me with the heart and the impact of the work we do.

3)    Mentors.  You need people you can go to on the dark days.  These might be other ministry leaders, co-workers or friends, but they need to be people who know how to re-inspire you with truth.  Beware: they’re likely to regurgitate your own words back to you, but that’s okay, it’s probably exactly what you need to hear.

The vision isn’t going to burn brightly every day.  Some days it will feel like a flicker, but acknowledge that and create ways to help you reignite it.  That’s what will set you apart as a leader!      

About Jenni Catron: Executive Director of Cross Point Church in Nashville. Founder of Cultivate Her. Loves great books, the perfect cup of tea, playing a game of tennis with her husband and hanging with her dog Mick.

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