A bonus of being a host church of the Global Leadership Summit is being invited to the debrief in Chicago.  Part of the debrief is getting to do a mentoring Q and A with Bill Hybels.

Bill has one of the best leadership minds I’ve ever encountered.  To be in a room with him is like drinking from a fire hydrant.  My two biggest takeaways, however, had nothing to do with what Bill said.

First, Bill made a reference to a leadership book he recently read.  Here is a guy who is about to transition away from being the lead pastor at an amazing church he founded; who is leadership guru; and who is at the stage of life where he doesn’t need to prove anything, and he is still reading leadership books!  I remember Hybels saying once he has to read about twice as much as he wants to so he can keep up.

Lesson #1:  When you stopping reading, you stop leading.

Second, a well known pastor of a church of 15,000 was in my group.  I see him at this gathering every year.  He was taking notes feverishly.  This guy has done amazing things for Jesus, things I could only dream of.  Yet there he was, legal pad in hand, scribbling as fast as he could. 

Lesson #2: When you decide your organization is so big, you don’t need to learn something new, you just decided to shrink.

Read.  Learn.  Jesus needs good leaders in his church and outside his church representing his Kingdom.