Leadership Challenges

I've had the chance the past couple of days to hear some of the speakers at the Willowcreek Leadership Summit.  Michael Porter, Harvard Strategy Professor, had some challenging things to say this morning.  Here are a few quotes I wrote down as he spoke:

Charity is not an end in itself.  We must achieve results.

We have an obligation to society to use the money well that we invest in social causes.  If you get a tax deduction for what you give, you are also using society’s money, so you have a responsibility to use it wisely.

Where can we do more than just give money?  Where can we do more than just giving unskilled labor?  Where can we use our real skills to do good?  Lawyers and doctors should not be slinging a hammer and building homes. (I thought this was a great question for us--how do we use the tremendous human resources we have at CCC to make an impact in Aurora?)

Most congregations do too many things and therefore achieve limited impact.

There is a difference between reducing poverty and improving quality of life for the short term.

It is hard to do well at doing good.  It is easy to give money.  It is easy to feel good.  It is hard to have an impact.

I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on these statements.  If you have been involved with Community 4:12, do you have any comments on how Community 4:12 can be a more EFFECTIVE ministry?

 

Comments

[Desiree Guzman]

I loved Michael Porter's talk. I think the biggest challenge is getting his message to people in the church and getting their commitment to an involvement with the poor that is actually more about the needs of the poor than about the needs of our own church. And I think it's an identity thing. The kind of good work he's talking about is going to take more...more staff whose main responsibility is figuring this stuff out and more resources that are earmarked for this purpose. We need to be serious about this. Bill Hybels ended the summit challenging Pastors to re-examine their budgets and their staff. Our budget and our staff time will tell us what we take most seriously. Right now the reality is that the poor are pretty much at the bottom of the list. We have to change that. I'm not sure how, but we do. Rick and I will do anything we can to help with that.

[Desiree Guzman]

I loved Michael Porter's talk. I think the biggest challenge is getting his message to people in the church and getting their commitment to an involvement with the poor that is actually more about the needs of the poor than about the needs of our own church. And I think it's an identity thing. The kind of good work he's talking about is going to take more...more staff whose main responsibility is figuring this stuff out and more resources that are earmarked for this purpose. We need to be serious about this. Bill Hybels ended the summit challenging Pastors to re-examine their budgets and their staff. Our budget and our staff time will tell us what we take most seriously. Right now the reality is that the poor are pretty much at the bottom of the list. We have to change that. I'm not sure how, but we do. Rick and I will do anything we can to help with that.

[Desiree Guzman]

I loved Michael Porter's talk. I think the biggest challenge is getting his message to people in the church and getting their commitment to an involvement with the poor that is actually more about the needs of the poor than about the needs of our own church. And I think it's an identity thing. The kind of good work he's talking about is going to take more...more staff whose main responsibility is figuring this stuff out and more resources that are earmarked for this purpose. We need to be serious about this. Bill Hybels ended the summit challenging Pastors to re-examine their budgets and their staff. Our budget and our staff time will tell us what we take most seriously. Right now the reality is that the poor are pretty much at the bottom of the list. We have to change that. I'm not sure how, but we do. Rick and I will do anything we can to help with that.

[Julie]

I'm sure there are lots of ideas for being more effective, so this is definitely not all-encompassing but rather just a start. (And maybe we're already doing this, I'm not sure!) Let's identify leaders in our community at CCC who have some type of a 'skilled' gift, like finance professionals or legal counsels, and then encourage and empower them to utilize those gifts 'on the weekends' as Porter suggested (not necessarily literally on the weekends, just outside of the scope of their regular job) to help the community of Aurora in those areas. Let's utilize our finance professionals to hold informational seminars for $1 and meet with families one on one to help them with their budgets and with paying off their bills and with building equity... Let's utilize our legal counsel to help families struggling with expensive custody battles or expensive asset division after a divorce so that they don't have to pay the high price it costs to administer these things... There are many 'skills' we have, and I just bet that we might discover and -- it is my hope -- UNLEASH the 'skills' within our friends and neighbors in Aurora if we interact more in this way with them. We both have a lot to learn and gain from one another. :)

[Janus]

Besides planting a campus to the locals, Trying to get more of the community involved working alongside us. I don't know how to do either one mind you, but I am thinking on it.