Vision & History

In 1995, Bill Hybels and the Willow Creek Association saw leadership development in the local church, not as it was, but how it might be! They understood the challenges that church leaders face: casting compelling vision, recruiting teams, encouraging innovation, and creating life-changing community. That is why they created a brand new event, The Leadership Summit.

Now, 15 years later, the Summit in North America has grown from 1 site to over 140 sites linked together via satellite and over 65,000 leaders in 2008. And in 2008, The Global Leadership Summit brought together via videocast over 46,000 people in 114 cities and 50 countries.

The Willow Creek Association’s vision for The Global Leadership Summit is that every Christ-follower with leadership gifts, skills, or aspirations would gather once each year, dedicating themselves to raising their level of leadership on behalf of the local church and other organizations.

We hold a deep belief that if you change a church leader, you can change a church, and if enough churches start changing, you can change an entire region, country, and eventually the world.

Who We Are

Since 1992, the Willow Creek Association has been linking like-minded, action-oriented churches with each other and with strategic vision, training, and resources. Our desire is to serve local church leaders in building biblically functioning churches that reach increasing numbers of lost people, not just with innovations from Willow Creek, but with God-given breakthroughs with widespread potential from any church in the world.

The WCA is a not-for profit ministry with more than 12,000 Member Churches from 90 denominations and 45 countries. They represent a wide variety of sizes, denominations and backgrounds, and are ministering in literally every corner of the world. As they pursue their own unique, God-given vision for ministry in their community, Member Churches confirm a shared commitment to Christ and a passion for reaching lost people.