Nicky Gumbel began the conference with a talk on leadership, love and truth. Below are my notes…
Everything is moving east! World power is moving east, world economy is moving east and so is spirituality.
Pipa and Nicky traveled to Hong Kong recently and discovered that the church continues to grow in the east. It is estimated that there are between 200-300 million Christians in China. Christianity is on the up across the world apart from in the west. What is happening?
This year the eyes of the world will be on the United Kingdom, the Olympics will be watched by many. We, the church can make a difference. There is a hunger for God, there is a desire for people to engage in church once again. But people are looking for leadership.
Leadership is challenging because the church are not so good at leading the way. The church needs to take leadership seriously. It is our God given responsibility to lead. So how do we lead? We look to and learn from Jesus who is the greatest leader and now has billions of followers.
Jesus took 12 young people and trained them to change the world. Jesus taught his disciples the greatest leadership quality…to love God and love one another. Leadership is about love.
Many of us believe that we don’t have a position to lead but we do. Martin Luther King did not have a position, Mother Teresa didn’t have a position but they still lead the way. They lead the way by love.
Jesus says that we should love one another. If we don’t love one another then people won’t listen. For many of us in church we love our little bit but forget the rest of the church. Sometimes we can believe that the other parts of the body are wrong but how wrong are we? All the parts of the body need one another. If we are to be the body of Christ, we must work together, we must begin to love one another.
The truth is Jesus! Truth and love can not be separated. We must be the body of truth, pointing to the leader of all leaders…Jesus!
It is about the one. If one person came to faith then it would all be worth it. But it is also about the many because Christ gave His life for the world.
Jesus paid the price for all. Once we know this, once we learn to love one another and begin to lead like Jesus did then we will see this nation changed.
The church in the west needs to take the lead and see this nation again with Jesus Christ at the centre.
