Unleashed at NewSpring February 05, 2008

Several years ago, Ed heard about a young pastor named Perry Noble whose church was setting attendance records that were unthinkable for the small town of Anderson, South Carolina. With roots in that region, Ed was amazed by his story and had to hear more.  It became clear that God was doing incredible things at NewSpring Church and He hasn’t stopped since!

After getting to know Perry, Ed invited him to speak at Fellowship Church in the summer of 2004 and called on him during the 2005 C3 Conference to offer his perspective on church leadership:

If you operated an airplane like you operate most churches, you'd have a pilot and his crew in the cockpit, and they know how to fly that plane, they know every instrument—that's their job.  But if it was run like most churches, these pilots, or this crew, before they needed to make an important decision, would have to come out of the cockpit and go into first class and meet with a plumber whose cousin was a pilot at one time, an electrician, a housewife, and a doctor and then after they met with those guys, they would take it back to the coach section for a "business meeting" and a vote. Then after they voted they could go implement what the coach section had told them to do. Now my question to my congregation is, "How many of you want to fly on that plane?" But you want to go to that church?  That's why so many churches are crashing and burning—because they are not properly structured.

Not only is Perry one of our featured speakers at this year’s upcoming Creative Church Conference, but this spring, he and his team will be hosting Unleash 08, a conference designed to challenge, encourage, and motivate church leaders to take action to reach their communities for Christ. This one-day conference takes place on March 13 in Anderson, SC. Early bird registration deadline is February 11—learn more here.

Comments

[Bob Marcaurelle]

I am a retired "conventional" pastor in Perry's Area, and God grew the largest conventional church through me. I always knew I was fighting a losing battle with the structure. Perry is dead on target. There are a lot of people out here like me who cannot jump into the loud music or the raggedy jeans, but want to jump somewhere and get the kind of relevant preaching guys like you offer. I hope you can put your heads together and come up with something in between, especially for the SBC. The old churches are becoming Baptist family chapels, and I have no idea what will replace them. It has to be more than the huge, loud music structure that turns folk off who are turned on by the preaching. Peace. BobM