Willow Summit Day One

I’m going to out myself and admit that I attended the Willow Leadership Summit today at a satellite location. This is a dangerous thing to admit (it’s easy to Willow-bash, and even easier to conference-bash), but I was encouraged by some of what I saw and heard:

• A pastor from a church in South Africa who pastors a church in the impoverished township of Soweto, and is transforming that community against impossible odds. He buries 10-12 victims of AIDS per week.
• A suburban mother who moved her young family into the inner city of Detroit and now leads Focus: HOPE which feed tens of thousands, and works to overcome racism, poverty, and injustice.
• The New Yorker who started the Guardian Angel movement – he kind of called Hybels a wimp.

Setting all criticism aside, it’s exciting to see a Willow Summit take a more international flavor and to call us to holistic ministry. Also nice to see different models of leadership on display. I’ll blog more tomorrow. (No wifi there and they are very hostile to laptops.)