Visit to Willow Creek (Day two) – Gordon MacDonald

Tuesday 1^st December – Gordon MacDonald

Today felt like deep surgery of the soul. Gordon MacDonald, someone I respect greatly and has written numerous books such as ‘Ordering your private world’ and ‘The resilient life’, led the whole day on the discipline of self-leadership. From my experience, this is the hardest leadership of all. Gordon has been used greatly in his life, including as one of the three Christian leaders chosen by Bill Clinton (the others were Bill Hybels and Tony Campolo) who pastored him in the restoring of his life and kept him accountable after his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Gordon reminded us that for us younger leaders, we need to look at ministry from a 60 year perspective, with a self-renewing component in our ministry that helps us attack every decade with intentionality and resilience.

His first hour was showing us how history has reached a point where we are experiencing increasing cycles of seismic change. In this context of rapid change and community breakdown, we’re here as church leaders to help people stabilise, be rooted, and find conviction and belief. ‘This has very little historical precedent.’ In the midst of such profound change, which we ourselves are experiencing, how do we stay rooted ourselves and provide shepherding and prophetic leadership to others?

We have the tension of the idea of the gospel and the institution that surrounds it. The idea needs a home; the institution around it or the community that it forms needs to be malleable. Gordon quoted Jack Welch who said, ‘When the rate of change inside an organisation is slower than the rate of change outside an organisation, the end is in sight.’ His example from history is that this is what happened to the Temple. Pentecost was a Paradigm shift, when the information was taken from the professionals in the Temple and put into the hands of the amateurs, from a central location, and distributed into the streets of the city; a new order of things was made. As church leaders empowered by the Spirit of Pentecost, Gordon said, ‘…we have to have the ability not to associate with that which resists change but embrace that which welcomes change, which takes a great integrity, and great courage.’ How does one develop and sustain this integrity and courage and where does it come from?

The Spiritual Platform

Gordon reminded us that like the leaning tower of Pizza, there is a sense in which every one of us is leaning, for no one since the fall, stands absolutely straight up. The truth is, however, that some people end up falling over. The answer lies not at the top of the building, but at the bottom, in an area we can’t see – the Spiritual Platform. It is this area that is hidden and unseen that leaders need to focus their personal development energy on.

This leads us to the great question: How does one build a life to be more satisfying [unlike the disconnection experienced by Adam] more strategic [driven by something that is noble to achieve], and more pleasing to God with every year [how do I live to please God, so that his investment in me has paid off according to his expectations]?

We live, according to Gordon, by design or by default. People can be grouped into four categories:

• We live by reaction (allow the people around us to control the agenda of who we are)
• Conformity – (people pleasing, avoiding battles, taking cues from what others are doing)
• Compulsion – (somewhere in life there were deep wounds, perhaps never having the approval of their parents, we learn that we have something to prove, compulsion to meet approval.)
• Intentionality – [which Gordon says is the highest level of health] – we have an ability given by God to observe ourselves: our choices; our thinking; where the impurities and defects are; where God is doing redeeming work; in order that we create a context in which we can grow. It is an intentional life, pushing ourselves to grow. The average person doesn’t care about this. If athletes are intentional about development, why aren’t more Christians more intentional about their growth?

Gordon shared an inspiring quote from E. Stanley Jones, who was 83 when he said this after suffering a huge stroke that had left him debilitated and struggling to speak: ‘There are scars on my faith, but underneath those scars there are no doubts. (Christ) has me with the consent of all my being and with the cooperation of al my life. The song I sing is a life song. Not the temporary exuberance of youth that often fades when middle and old age sets in with their disillusionment and cynicism… No, I’m 83, and I’m more excited today about being a Christian that I was at 18 when I first put my feet upon the way.’ Where does this enthusiasm spring from? Gordon said from the heart by the Spirit, not dependent on circumstances but after a life of intentional growth.

He shared common difficulties of growth experienced by church leaders, one being that because we speak about growth a lot, and teach others, we confuse speaking about it for practicing it ourselves. This is definitely true. The other thing he said that is also very true is that “Growing is difficult…usually because it is done in secret, is humbling, and is rarely fun.” If we ‘sell’ the gospel as ‘fun’, we’re not giving the full message, because much growth is hard work. I recognise this in my own life.

Gordon then helpfully spoke about family and ministry. In the final session, Gordon turned his attention to Spiritual Leadership, and gave this helpful definition: A spiritual leader is a person who radiates the power of God in his/her life and service so that others are influenced to turn toward God and the building of his Kingdom. Essential realities for a spiritual leader that Gordon then unpacked and we discussed, are:

1. A dynamic view of conversion and call: ‘Be always converting and always converted.’ Thomas Shepherd.
2. A repaired past: ‘Every person we have ever known, every place we have ever seen, everything that has ever happened to us – it all lives and breathes deep within us somewhere…’ A Room Called Remember, Frederick Buechner
3. Essential personal initiatives/disciplines
4. Healthy intimate relationships

Under this final heading, ‘Healthy relationships’, Gordon ended the day by unpacking 10 Kinds of friends that everyone needs:

• Who coaches you? Who has unlimited access into your life to bring insight to you?
• Who celebrates the landmarks in your life journey?
• Who stretches your mind? (Gordon spoke about his friendship with Tony Campolo)
• Who listens to your dreams?
• Who protects you and shows mercy?
• Who offers you reliable judgment?
• Who serves with you?
• Who rebukes you?
• Who has fun with you?
• Who seeks God with you?