Greetings from London! I am here with my wife attending Holy Trinity Brompton (Home of Alpha) Leadership Conference all week as leaders from all over the world gather to hear from some of the brightest minds in the Church, Business, Culture and Commerce leadership. Some of the notables include Tony Blair, Judah Smith, Christine Caine, Rick Warren, Nicky Gumbel, Matt Costley and many others. I thought I would share with you some great content from each day and save you the plane ride! PS I took this photo at Royal Albert Hall which is an incredible venue.

Main Session 1 Nicky Gumbel

Nicky’s opening of the conference was a great reminder of what leaders are and what great leaders are not as well. He discussed four traits of a leader.

1 – Leadership is not about being served, it’s about serving:  Jesus was the model of this, washing his disciples feet and as leaders we need to be the same. Above no task and constantly looking for ways to serve those we lead. A servant leader is easily respected and leads from humility. The word servant is found in the NT nearly 500 times and Jesus says Love as I have loved and we need to lead like Jesus did.

2 – Leadership is not about position it’s about being an example:  You do not need a position to lead, the examples of Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa were given as people who were leaders with out a defined or respected position from which to lead. Their influence, and leadership was drawn from a heart to serve and lead by example. Each of us no matter whether paid, unpaid, low or high on the church totem pole have the opportunity to lead by being an example. A title does not make the leader, the leader makes the title.

3- Leadership is not about rivalry its about Unity - Referring the metaphor of one body many parts, Nicky suggests that we need other denominations more than we need more of our own. By asserting that the body needs different parts doing different things, as opposed to twenty hands. People resonated most with the what he said about our reaction to hurt in other churches. His example was a person who stubs their toe, and he asserted that they likely wouldn’t stomp on their injured foot with the other and make it worse, so why do we do that to each other? Why do we not experience each others pain and suffering, instead we take jabs at other churches sometimes when they fall down.

4- Leadership is about the one – The core of leadership is that the only number that matters is one. Ones become two becomes three and it grows from there. Jesus always took time for the one, he had a massive vision to love one another so that others believe.  True vision starts with a desire to reach one person.

I will continue to post as I collect my notes and I just had my mind blown by Rick Warren and will post that soon too. Up next Judah Smith and Tony Blair

-GS  Twitter