WILLOW Magazine, Issue 3, 2005 The Leadership Summit Goes Global by Katie Adams Technology and vision merge to enable leaders in other nations to experience the Summit without leaving their country The Willow Creek Association’s International arm has big plans to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of The Leadership Summit. We’re launching the Global leadership Summit in nine countries and inviting international church leaders to come be transformed. The story of the Global Leadership Summit (GLS) can be traced back to 1996 when the WCA International was launched. For as long as the WCA has hosted The Leadership Summit, international attendees have been trekking to South Barrington, Illinois and asking the WCA to hold a Summit in their countries. The WCA realized there is a staggering need. “It’s hard for church leaders in the U.S. to grasp how few resources there are for churches abroad,” says Gary Schwammlein, executive vice president of WCA International. “We are bombarded with Christian bookstores and curriculum and TV but in most of the rest of the world there are very few resources for Christian leaders.” Before rushing in and offering training, the WCA knew that they first had to gain acceptance. “We worked really, really hard just to build relationships and establish credibility,” says Schwammlein. “As an American organization it’s absolutely crucial that we earned people’s respect. Our host partners needed to know that we didn’t have an agenda and that we weren’t going to start a denomination. Before we could begin helping develop Kingdom-prevailing churches we had to invest, invest, invest.” Earning an Invitation The investment paid off. The WCA began sending speakers to train church leaders abroad. Since1999 the number of church leaders participating in WCA training events has nearly doubled and the number of churches from outside the U.S. that have joined the Association has more than tripled to more than 4,500. Increasing acceptance abroad meant an increased demand for WCA training. But the speakers for the international events were almost exclusively from Willow Creek — Bill Hybels, John Ortberg, Nancy Beach, and Sue Miller. “The church said ‘we really can’t continue to do this,’’ Schwammlein explains. “It was becoming a significant staff burden on Willow Creek. They had ministry leaders that were away from the church for up to60-80 days a year. That’s a lot of time to spend away from your staff and congregation and still try to lead day-to-day ministry.” The WCA faced a crucial turning point. “On the one hand,” Schwammlein continues, “we had Willow Creek saying they needed other people to step in and make this happen. On the other hand we had 700-800 Summit attendees from other countries saying, ‘It’s so expensive for us to send people. We need this in our own country.’ You can imagine how expensive it is to send a team from, say, South Africa. But they were coming because they knew the caliber of The Leadership Summit. They knew there was nothing else in their country that compared to what they would get from the Summit.” Schwammlein’s team listened. And then they rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Baby Steps ... Big Lessons The first attempt to take the Summit global was, in Schwammlein’s words, “a disaster.” Two years ago, the WCA transmitted the German leadership Summit to another european country via satellite.They quickly learned the difficulty of trying to broadcast a live event. “We couldn’t do simultaneous translation, so it was broadcast in English with consecutive translation. The American speaker would present and then there would be a pause while it was interpreted in German. It was hard to keep the momentum with such awkward pauses.” Transmitting the U.S. Summit was out of the question due to the time of year (Europe essentially shuts down in July and August due to vacations) and the time differences. The team regrouped and came up with the idea of offering the Summit as a DVD session. “The DVD format eliminates the time differences and interpretation difficulties presented by satellite transmission,” says Schwammlein. “And it also gives us the ability to choose the speakers from the U.S. Summit that would really connect with our international audiences.” The team selects the eight “best fit” speakers from the U.S. Summit for the Global Summit DVD set. But the team anticipated the question, “Why would people want to come to a conference when they could just buy the DVD set and watch it at home?” The answer — the ambiance that only a conference can create, the worship of many people, the volunteers who serve all the guests, and the processing time after each session to apply some of what was said. “We know that this event has to just stun people,” says Schwammlein. “You have to realize that most overseas audiences expressed concerns based on their experience of having small screens, poor projectors, poor resolution, overall a very poor viewing experience,” says Schwammlein. Because of state-of-the-art technology that will be employed, Global Summit participants will experience a sound and picture quality that they have literally never seen before. Closing the Window and Creating Real Change In 2003 Schwammlein came across research on conference attendance that caught his attention. “This survey found that only 25 percent of people attending any conference plan to implement something they learn at the conference. That means that 75 percent have no clear plan to implement anything they hear. That’s startling!” Even more stunning is that only 6 percent of conference attendees actually act on what they hear and see. “The research showed that if you don’t implement something within four days, you won’t. And I thought, ‘That’s true of me,’” says Schwammlein. “I know from my own experience that I might have a great mountaintop experience at a conference but when I get home the urgent crowds out the important. I put it to the side to do next week and next week never comes.” To help Global Summit attendees close that four-day window, following each session a moderator leads attendees through reflective questions. “With six weeks between the U.S. Summit and our Global Summits, we have time to extract major learning points from each speaker and then create questions for attendees to begin processing,” Schwammlein says. The application doesn’t end there. “The Leadership Summit is really just a kickoff for a 12-month learning process. Beginning a month after the Summit, we will offer training sessions, led by a local pastor, every 4-6 weeks where Summit attendees can meet at a regional location to talk about topics that flowed out of the Summit.” But Will They Bite? With high hopes and some reservations, the Association pitched the new format to their affiliate countries. “We told our partners that we will give attendees a great worship experience, a fantastic speaker lineup, time to process and apply what they’ve learned, and then 12 months of high-quality follow-up training,” says Schwammlein. The response? “We were blown away,” recalls Schwammlein.“Almost 90 percent of everyone attending the meetings agreed to help put the Global Summit on in their country.” When the Global Summit was described to conference attendees in the United Kingdom in February, 888 people had registered — “and paid!” marvels Schwammlein — by the end of the conference. Three days later, 1,333 people had signed up. The Global Summit has received a similar response in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and South Africa, and already more than 3,300 people have registered for these events. In some countries, people registered before they even knew the program because they were afraid if they waited until the brochures and other information were distributed, they might not get a seat. The High Cost of Quality Ministry Building prevailing churches and visionary church leaders abroad doesn’t come cheap. The price tag for putting the Summit on in nine countries? A mere $2.6 million. “When the Board approved the project it was a good news/bad news scenario,” laughs Schwammlein. “The good news is that we got approved for $2.6 million dollars. The bad news is that we got approved for $2.6 million dollars — which we have to raise!” With the Board’s blessing, a deadline approaching, and a looming price tag of $2.6 million, Schwammlein and WCA teammate Dick Anderson hit the road. “We started flying across the U.S., inviting churches and individuals to get a big vision for what God could do through them to impact churches internationally,” explains Schwammlein. “We tell churches they could develop a partnership with a WCA Affiliate and a number of churches in a targeted country and be real impact players in facilitating Kingdom growth.” Churches and people are responding to the challenge. Already the team has raised a little over $1 million from churches and individuals. “These churches are seeing the big picture and what they can accomplish with us on an international level. They’re giving to the WCA because they want to be involved in missions in a very strategic way.” Most churches coming on board through the WCA’s Church Partnership Program are committing $100,000 to fund the Global Summit and create long-term relationships to build prevailing churches worldwide. “These churches are stepping up to the plate, and doing this big, exciting, scary thing in faith knowing that God will lead and provide,” explains Schwammlein. “We don’t have a step-by-step plan for how this will look. Maybe churches will develop a heart for a country and send ministry teams to that country to train their leaders. Maybe they’ll create a mentoring relationship or a staff exchange program. We’re inviting them to get involved and giving them ownership of the process.” The Future Looks Bright The WCA’s motto for the Global Summit is AAA — “The Global Summit will be held annually, it will be accessible and affordable everywhere we go. That’s our commitment,” says Schwammlein. Looking ahead, the WCA has, predictably, high goals. With over 50,000 church leaders participating in WCA training events last year, and now 12 affiliate offices staffed by nationals in countries worldwide, Schwammlein believes that the WCA can expand the Global Leadership Summit to 80 countries and 187 sites by 2010. “We see such a desperate need and are getting such an eager response that we know we are helping feed a genuine hunger. We’re working hard, calling people to be involved and staying the course, and may God get all the glory!” If your church would like to get involved with the Global Leadership Summit, call us at (847) 765-0070 ext. 1370. Top