This Leadership Summit session was led by John Burke and Efrem Smith.

John Burke is the Lead pastor at Gateway Community Church, in Austin, TX.  (Not the John Burke of North Dakota…er…ah…fame.)

John talked about what it would mean to create the kind of environment that God has people grow in.  He had three areas.

First, a grace giving environment of acceptance is required.  He asked us if we are helping our people see people first through the eyes of grace.  He talked about some of the most prevalent barriers to people seeing acceptance, the homosexuality issue as well as the issue judging people of other religions.

Second, we need authentic and confessing communities.  He talked about how relational connectedness is a key part in connecting to God.  He talked about having people involved in their groups and church who did not yet know God.  He reminded us that not everyone around Jesus was changed people…some guy named Judas never got it.

Third, we need to inspire constant connection to God’s Spirit.  He talked about John 15 and how when people say connected to the vine, fruit is the result.  Staying connected changes people.  He talked about challenging his church to do this and gave examples of how this changed people.

I liked John Burke, though nothing he said blew me out of the water.  It seems like many young, mega church pastors could have given a similar talk.  One thing that did impress me was the facility their church occupies.  Looking at the intro video they did, it seems very well thought out.  If I am in the Austin area, I am going to check it out.

Next up was Efrem Smith.  Efrem Smith is the pastor of Sanctuary Covenant Church, just out side of Minneapolis, MN.

Efrem was presenting on getting our churches involved, to whatever level we are able to, involved in multicultural ministry.  Here were my favorite nuggets.

One, it is a shame that sociologists use 11:00 AM on Sunday worship, the time Christians worship, as evidence that racial separation still exist.  This ought not be so.

Two, it is important for Christian leaders being aware that more and more people in our churches are of more than one race.  Today, in urban areas, it may be has high as 10% of the children being born are mixed race children.  What does that mean for ministry today?

Three, he quoted a friend who said this, “God is concerned about justice, but until he returns it is ‘just us.’”  Great quote, huh?

Fourth, he challenged us with this statement, “If you can’t love across racial lines, you can not lead today.”  That is hard hitting, is it not?

Fifth and finally, he really made me think when he talked about how it is wrong, in normal settings, to create a church that targets only one segment of the population.  He made the point by pointing out the absurdity it would be to have a restaurant that only caters to African Americans.

Regarding both presentations, I think it would be helpful to have people address these kinds of issues from the perspective of people who are not church planters.  Most of us serve in established churches, not new churches that have a DNA in early formation.

It was a lot to have 4 speakers after lunch.  I like the format of having it over two days and not including Saturday, but this was exhausting. Probably could have done with one less speaker.