I believe it was 1985 at Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs that I first met Bill Hybels. I was sitting in on a small group of pastors of large churches from around the country for three days and, no surprise to anyone, there were a number of speeches made and even a little bit of posturing. The moderator had his work cut out for him to keep the brothers from talking right over each other. However, his biggest challenge was getting the youngest guy there to say anything. He hadn’t tuned out. He wasn’t rude. He just seemed to know something no one else knew. It turned out he did. He knew exactly where he wanted to go and how he wanted to get there. His mission then is the same now: “turning irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ.” No one in the room had ever heard of seeker friendly churches and this was ten years after Willow Creek was founded but by the end of the week everyone there knew something was about to change and they had just met the visionary driving it.

Bill Hybels is the most natural but most disciplined leader I have ever known. Bill is the most focused and still most flexible leader I know. Bill is the most intentional and yet the most intuitive leader I know. Max De Pree in Leadership Is An Art said “the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you, In between, the leader is a servant.” I do not know anyone who has so clearly defined reality not only for Willow Creek but for thousands of churches, pastors, business leaders, politicians and high profile individuals as Bill Hybels – and not just once. One of the hallmarks of Bill’s style is to keep redefining reality – even if it means extreme discomfort to himself. Bill is the author of more than twenty books and the subject of countless articles. In 1975 he and his wife Lynne founded Willow Creek Community Church with a youth group and no staff in a rented theater and today it is one of the most attended churches in North America. In 1995 he convened the Leadership Summit to help pastors develop their own gift of leadership and that Summit now attracts more than eighty thousand participants across the world.

In Acts 27:13 Luke describes the ship taking Paul to Rome as waiting for a gentle wind and then sailing close to shore. Nothing could be further from reality for Bill. He’s never waited for gentle winds or sailed close to shore in his life and, as he said in a recent interview, “As I get older my risk profile is going up – not down…Since the day I became a Christian I’ve wanted everyone in my life to experience saving grace the way I experienced it on a hillside in Wisconsin when I was seventeen years old.”

Would you join me in welcoming that guy who still knows things no one else does and will all his life be sailing out in the deep waters of following God’s assignment for him?