As I pulled up to the hotel entrance Thursday afternoon, I realized I had been here before. It was a Marriott in Colorado Springs, but it was not always a Marriott. At the front desk I asked about a special conference room in the facility and they knew exactly what I was thinking about.
The last time I was here was, I believe, December 1996. The occasion was a Leadership Network learning experience. The speaker was Jim Collins, author of Built to Last and later Good to Great. The topic was succession planning. The audience were the pastors of many of the 20 largest churches in the USA.
A few of us who were not pastors were allowed to sit in and learn from the experience. It was, indeed, a great experience!
Collins, who was not at that time a Christian, but I know a lot of people who have been working on him about this issue ever since and I do not know his current spiritual status, had a tremendous statement that hooked everyone present. Here is how I remember it:
“If building your great church has been all about you, then do not worry about succession planning. If building your great church has been about your God, then it is worth investing 20 years in developing a succession plan.”
Collins was there for one day. The rest of the learning experience was having the pastors in small groups talking about their reactions and what they needed to do about what they had heard.
It was a learning experience from which I am still learning.
