25 Years of Growth: Reflecting on The Global Leadership Summit

The Global Leadership Summit (GLS) is happening August 8-9, 2024 at Warsaw Community Church in Warsaw. It’s a 2-day event that brings together global leadership faculty members and focuses on empowering attendees to effectively lead exactly where you are.

This annual event is hosted live from Willow Creek Church outside of Chicago and is broadcast to satellite locations across the globe. 

If you’ve never attended GLS, we want to give you an idea of what to expect, as well as feedback from one of our attendees, Denny Wilson, who has been attending GLS for 25 years.

As a past GLS attendee and Founding Pastor of Warsaw Community Church, we appreciate Denny taking the time to share his unique insights about the event in our interview below.

How Have You Been Involved With GLS?

I began attending GLS the second year it was offered in the late 90s and over the years I have attended approximately 25 times. Most of the time I took my senior leadership team to the live event in Illinois. In recent years we’ve been attending GLS at local satellite sites in Warsaw.

The benefit of having GLS here locally means that I have the opportunity to get to know and connect with other leaders in my community who I may not have met or connected with otherwise.

Sharing the GLS experience with other church staff members and members of the congregation has always been very valuable to me both personally and professionally.

What Is One Of Your Favorite GLS Memories?

The most memorable GLS for me was the first year Marcus Buckingham spoke. It was shortly after he had written the book First, Break All the Rules. 

He spoke about the importance of building up your strengths and managing around your weaknesses versus the other way around.

I had previously been to conferences that focused on strengthening my weaknesses, so this was freeing and something that has stuck with me to this day.

How Does Attending GLS Contribute To The Growth Of Yourself And Your Team?

Recently, we’ve become more intentional about inviting key leaders in the church to attend GLS.  It was really cool to see the value of leadership rise among our staff.

You will hear it said at GLS “When the leader gets better, everybody gets better”, and we have begun to see the fruit of that in members of our church’s leadership team.

For myself, as I have gotten older, I have realized that I don’t ever want to quit learning. I’ve been to many conferences over the years, and I don’t intend to change that practice anytime soon!

I have a love for learning about leadership and a strong desire to be a lifelong learner.

What Makes You The Most Excited To Attend GLS 2024?

I am really looking forward to hearing from Marcus Buckingham once again on his current philosophy on leadership. I also am encouraged by the focus on getting back to more of a spiritual emphasis during GLS.

I have been attending for so many years that I have been able to see the transformation of GLS from more of a church conference to a focus on marketplace leadership.  And now I think they have found a good way to bring the two together in balance.

What Advice Would You Give First-Time Attendees?

Come with an open mind and an open heart and allow yourself to enter into the whole experience, whether you chose to come on your own or were invited to attend as part of a professional team.

If you are not a person of faith, be open-minded to the speakers who are, and if you are a person of faith, be open-minded to the speakers who are not.

Ready To Get Your Tickets?

Tickets for GLS 2024 are on sale now, so be sure to get yours and reserve your spot at this year’s Summit.

Interested in being a sponsor? Our goal is to make it easy for you to motivate positive change in our community, so you can choose from a variety of sponsorship levels and bring your team to GLS this year.