I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 14th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

Here are some takeaways from the third session with Bryan Stevenson, Founder and Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative:

• You can’t be effective leader from a distance.
• Leadership requires that the people we are serving know that we are with them.

• The goal of leadership and life is to do something that brings you life and passion.
• Don’t simply settle.
• Problems can’t be solved from a distance.
• There is power in proximity. The answer comes in proximity.

• If you lead by fear and anger, you will allow yourself to be led to dangerous places.
• We need to understand the narratives that we believe.
• True narrative change can liberate us.
• Leaders can never give up hope.
• Hopelessness is the enemy of justice. It is the enemy of leadership.
• Hope is about talking about what we’ll do, not what we’ve already done.
• To be an effective leader means we must be willing to do uncomfortable things.
• What is it about us that resists and run from the people that are broken?