Bill Hybels launched the Leadership Summit at Willow Creek by teaching a session on “Leading in a New Reality.” Here are some of the highlights of his talk.

• “The normal we all knew and loved has left the building.”
• “Do we still believe that the local church is the hope of the world?”
• “There’s nothing like the local church when the local church is working right.”
• Leaders need to “call the church to be the church.”
• “I don’t think anyone is coming to church anymore who isn’t looking for a full dose of God.”
• Jack Welch: “In a crisis, cash is king.”
• “Healthy cash reserves gives leaders what they need in a crisis: time.”
• “At Willow Creek, we have 25% of our annual revenues in cash reserves.”
• Financial plan at Willow:
  • no more than 50% to staffing (including benefits)
  • 10% given away
  • 10% for whatever God is blessing at Willow (or cash reserves)
  • 15% to ministry budgets
  • 15% for facilities, utilities, debt service, etc.
• “Don’t lose heart in a downturn.”
• “I’m looking for God to do great things in our day.”
• “God usually does his great work through people who are totally yielded to him.”
• “Are we building backup positions for key leaders in our organization?”
• Bill admitted recently, “My life is unsustainable right now.”
• “The pace at which I’m doing the work of God is destroying the work of God in me.”
• “When I listen to God slowly, he speaks more frequently.”
• “What do your colleagues and followers see when they look at you today?”

For those of you following me on Twitter, here are the top 10 links that received the most clicks in recent days:

1. 7-year-old uses family car to ditch church (1,182)
2. Watch Joel Houston’s new video from Hillsong (481)
3. 5 worst movies of 2009 (367)
4. Granger launches new series on family life (363)
5. 7 tips for better sleep patterns (323)
6. Mr. TechCrunch quits the iPhone (302)
7. John Piper is not a fan of drama and video (279)
8. The “Stuff Christians Like” guy is jealous of me? (277)
9. My readers identify their favorite storytellers (244)
10. Matt Chandler can’t stand the Reformed community (236)

Don’t miss the action. Follow me on Twitter.

People are often asking me, “How’s the book doing?” That’s a very relative question. As I mentioned last week, writing books isn’t really a money making proposition for me. But, if I can generate helpful resources to encourage and equip church leaders, it’s worth the effort.

That said, every now and again I get a little feedback to give me a clue of how well folks are receiving these resources. Today, as an example, I was chatting with my publisher about their desire to create an iPhone app for Killing Cockroaches. I learned that the book is “one of B&H’s top-five bestselling ebooks since its release in March.” That’s pretty cool.

If you’re interested, here are a few places you can download samples or purchase electronic versions of the book:

• Amazon for the Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle for iPhone
• MobiPocket for Blackberry, Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Windows PC, and iRex reading devices
• Sony eBook Store for Sony reading devices

Just out of curiosity, what ebook reader, if any, are you using? How are you finding it compares with reading traditional books? Are you reading more or less?

Hillsong’s newest album, Faith + Hope + Love, released today. I shared a video from the album last week. Now you can listen to the entire album one time for free. Here you go:

If you liked what you heard, you can download the album using my Amazon link.