The GLS—What's the Big Deal About It?

Often when we are in discussions with potential donors or with organizing committee members in a country, we hear comments such as, “For the GLS, don’t you just put a DVD into a player, press the ‘play’ button and watch it?” or “Wow! Why is the GLS so expensive? What can cost so much? It’s really just a DVD conference.” Let us give you a glimpse into the process we go through each year in a relatively short timeframe, between the US Summit in August and the GLS events being held as early as October and through November of the same year.

It all starts with getting the script of a Leadership Summit speaker’s presentation. At the original presentation at Willow Creek, we have six court reporters who write down every word a speaker says. When they are done, it is forwarded to an editor who makes sure that it is understandable and has made the necessary corrections to enable the message to flow appropriately. These texts are then used for three purposes: developing learning aids, translating the material, and producing the printed version of the talks.

First of all, a set is sent to a group of people who are learning experts. They examine the presentation for specific learning points which will be used in a workbook for each GLS participant. These workbooks are then used at the GLS during the processing time as well as later when churches use the material for further training. Once these workbook lay outs are completed, they are sent to various countries around the world for translation and production.

Another set is sent to any countries which will require translation to translate the sessions and other elements of the Summit into their own vernacular. This year we will translate all the Summit content into 29 languages. This includes common European languages, as well as Russian, Chinese, Malay, Faeroese (do you know where that is spoken?), Icelandic, Estonian, and Polish, just to name a few. Depending upon how the translation will be included in the DVD, whether by voice-over or sub-titles, a lot more work must go into adjusting the translation to fit the particular requirements for either of those delivery methods. Sub-titles can only use about 80% of the words; voice-over necessitates the spoken translation to fit with the original delivery in English.

Then, once the translation work is completed, it has to be included in the DVD for use at the conference. This requires quite a bit of technology, whether voice-over or sub-titles and we work dozens of vendors around the world to make that happen. After a thorough quality check, the DVDs are produced in the particular format for a given country, which is NSTC, PAL, and Secam. Because the sessions are also sold to anyone wishing to buy them, thousands of Team Editions (12,000 units this year) are being produced, labeled, packaged and sent to each country. And remember, the workbooks and the Team Edition of the DVDs in the translated form must all be ready when the first GLS takes place in some counties already in mid-October. Because of customs regulations and other import challenges, the Team Edition DVD sets are produced locally within a number of countries in relatively small production runs, adding significant costs. Because some countries do not have a wide availability of DVD or even CD players, those countries will actually print the material and hand it out in booklet form to the GLS participants.

Due to the particular needs of various audiences, it is not always effective to use the specific sessions from the latest Summit. Therefore, we go through the archives and select appropriate sessions from what has been presented in the past years. Sometimes that requires editing for certain comments which may be out of date, cultural appropriateness, deterioration of quality, or making sure we have the agreement of the speaker to use it again. For this year, 2009, we have 24 unique versions of the GLS. What complicates matters even more is that for each version different program elements, such as dramas, multi-media elements, and worship music, are required to maximize the impact of the event.

In order to provide an impactful experience for an event lasting two full days, the projections of the DVDs require very high quality equipment, almost comparable to the equipment used in top movie theaters. Consequently, we are using very powerful projection equipment and enormous screen sizes, like 8x12 feet. This section alone could be expanded to fill several pages because to procure projectors and other equipment of the quality we need, as well as the operators who understand all the technology, is a significant challenge in many countries and often very expensive. In some countries, there may be only one or two pieces of equipment of this quality and these may be owned by a TV station or a large corporation and are therefore not available to us. Some may say, “Do you have to go to that extent when it comes to delivery quality?” to this, we can only answer, “Absolutely! It is a gigantic hurdle to have people come to a conference which has no live speakers. One way to overcome that is to have exceptional audio and visual delivery of the presentations.”

At first we had considered merely making the sessions available for purchase so people could buy it and watch it at home rather than holding a conference. However, we abandoned that idea when we discovered that less than 18% actually watch the sessions after purchasing it. Although over 90% of respondents to a survey we conducted in various countries indicated that leadership is one of their greatest development needs, getting people to attend a multi-day conference watching DVDs, even at the outstanding quality we described, is still a challenge. Therefore, we thought of a few other ideas to enhance the experience. One is that we do a guided discussion or process time after most sessions, in order to maximize the learning from each session. When this is well done, it adds incredible value so we spend a considerable amount of time in selecting and training the facilitators who manage that portion of the program. Another thing we do is assure that attendees are served with great excellence, care and professionalism. To achieve that, as well as all the delivery of other production elements of the conference, we conduct training sessions in various regions in the world where everyone involved in a critical discipline of the GLS is properly trained and equipped. As a side benefit of this training, we have been told by many churches that it had a hugely positive impact on the way they do church. The level of excellence, and remember, “Excellence honors God and inspires people.” has markedly increased in all the churches that are involved in the GLS in some way. After looking at all of this, we are sure it will become clear to everyone that the GLS is much more than putting a DVD into a player and pressing “play.” It requires incredible planning and administration skills, people skills and long hours because of the time pressure everyone is under to be ready when the day comes.

This year we will probably offer the GLS in about 160 cities in approximately 60 countries, requiring an overall investment of $4.4 million. Is it worth it? In Russia, some pastors came in a minibus, driving five days and nights one way to attend the event, and begging us to bring it to a city closer to where they live. In another situation, people have to make all the preparations and hold the event very low-key so that the local authorities do not become concerned. In spite of potential serious personal consequences, they are putting on the GLS and reaching hundreds of Christian workers, hungry for leadership development. Let us close with a comment by one attendee about how he was impacted by the GLS. “The church in my country in many ways is still operating as if we were living in the past century. If we don’t change, we will become even more irrelevant than we already are. I can think of no other event that provides the inspiration, skill, and level of excellence that would prepare us to implement the changes necessary to build churches that will reach this generation in ever increasing numbers. I would not miss the GLS for anything and look forward to each event with great anticipation! Please, do not quit offering this vital training to us!”

The GLS is big deal for many, requires a lot of work and funds and there is not doubt that God is using it in amazing ways.