SEU Leadership Forum 2010 – Brian Houston
Brian Houston – Hillsong Church
Great leaders are servant leaders.
Servant leaders think generationally.
16 In place of your fathers will be your sons;
You shall make them princes in all the earth.
17 I will cause Your name to be remembered in all generations;
Therefore the peoples will give You thanks forever and ever.
Psalm 45:16-17
The great challenge in leadership is being able to empower the next generation to become princes in the land.
While we learn from the fathers and we learn from the past, we have to press forward and think forward.
Being predictable is your friend when it comes:
- To your loyalty.
- To your reliability.
- To your beliefs.
- To your credibility.
- To your example.
- To your word.
24 A man of too many friends comes to ruin,
But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 18:24
Influence doesn’t come by doing things the way they’ve always been done.
Innovation comes when people dare to be unpredictable.
I would rather be a musician than a music critic.
I would rather be a chef than a food critic.
I would rather be a movie maker than a movie critic.
I would rather be a church builder than a church critic.
Don’t bring things back to the proven. Move to the unknown. Create change.
We need to be moving things to the sons. We have to be more loyal to the future than we are to the past.
Fresh life doesn’t come from being predictable.
I love an environment in which there is a predictable unpredictability.
Spontaneity and innovation never comes out of predictability.
To be a learner is to inherit the future.
Books must remain our servant and not our master.
When books become our master, we keep moving to what is already known.
Great churches and great ministries aren’t birthed out of textbooks.
We need to set up the future generations so that when they look back to what we have done, it will pale in comparison to what they have accomplished.
Experience isn’t everything. Look at Hollywood marriages for examples. People who have been married four, five, and even six times, don’t have any more knowledge than I have.
Wisdom is what builds the house. Not experience.
When culture is our master, we never move to the unknown.
When the program is our master, we stay in the predictable.
I don’t want to live my life just serving history. I want to live my life making history.
I want to learn from history, not repeat history.
Live your life where you are setting up princes in the land. Set others up for success.
