We Are Not Alone, Part 2
Perry Noble
Perry Noble is the founding and senior pastor of one of America’s fastest-growing churches, NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina. What began in his home in 1998 as a weekly Bible study for college students grew from eight people more than 150 in less than two months. From there, it grew into a Sunday evening service on the campus of Anderson College. After several adults began attending the service designed for college students, a core group began praying about what planting a church that “did things differently.” Since its first Sunday morning service in 2000, NewSpring has added additional services – and about 5,100 people. In February, NewSpring moved into its own state-of-the-art facility, where it continues Perry’s vision of a creative, relevant church that makes a difference in the lives of those who attend.
NewSpring’s website
Perry’s blog
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Perry was hilarious. Absolutely fantastic. Following up on the heels of Mark’s talk, when the lights came up he said, “I don’t have a coffeehouse, but I’m sure we have some rednecks who will make you some moonshine.”
Mark Batterson did an amazing job of collecting the ‘Perry Quotes’ from the session.
If you are a senior pastor, you need to the fire in your church. Don’t say, “I just wish my people would get fired up…”, get on fire yourself, lead the way. Your church will get on fire when you do.
Perry shared a story about one time when he got sick and went out at midnight to get some NyQuil. (( He’s a Baptist, so he looks forward to when he’s sick so he can get drunk on NyQuil: it’s the night time, stuffy nose, sleepy…why the heck did I wake up naked in the bathtub? Medicine.)) He went to the grocery store and there was a lady in line with a ‘buggy’ of groceries. No one was there to help them and apparently the lady had been standing there for 10 minutes waiting on someone. No one came. Perry took matters into his own hands and he used the overhead pager to get someone up to the front to wait on them.
You have to be the one to take action, you can’t stand and wait for someone else to move. You’ve got to make the move yourself.
Perry said the South is known for two things: Waffle Houses and churches, because they have them everywhere. He shared about how when they started their church they didn’t want another church; they wanted a church with a real concern for what really matters.
He said the problem with Christianity oftentimes is that we focus on being too small.
He shared four ways we can impact our communities:
1 – ENGAGE
People have expectations. They expect when they show up to church it’s going to be boring. They expect to show up and make up their grocery list.
Why can’t church be fun?
Church should be the most engaging place on the planet because we have the most exciting, most engaging message. If the tomb really is empty, we need to act like it!
Remember God made everything, and what the enemy meant for evil (music, pop culture, etc) God can use for good.
We need to let God out of the box we have Him in so He can move. He wants to do something in our churches.
2 – ENLARGE
We need to see the Kingdom grow and numbers do matter because numbers represent souls.
We need to hit the needs people really need to hear.
We need to be more concerned with who is coming in our churches instead of who is going out. We shouldn’t be concerned with “steeple people”.
We shouldn’t be concerned with closing the back door, if we are the church and the church is the body… we can’t shut the back door, we’ll get spiritually constipated and we’ll need a ‘Holy Ghost enema.’
People who don’t know Christ are more important. We will offend the Pharisees.
If we target the people nobody else is reaching we won’t be able to contain our growth.
Hold true to your vision, be more concerned with who is coming in instead of who is going out.
3 – ENDURE
The church is not effective when the pastor ministers to the people; it is effective when the people minister to the people. You are successful when your people do the ministry. Teach people how to endure. Teach the church to depend on each other.
4 – ENABLE
See people discover their potential in Christ. As people begin to volunteer they begin to discover things about themselves they never knew before. They will sit on their blessed ASSurance as long as you let them.
We don’t need to worry ourselves with other people’s passions. People’s passions are not our responsibility or our burden. Be true to who you are, not to who you aren’t. We will empower people to fulfill their passions, but we won’t accomplish it for them.
Get on fire and stay on fire. This is the greatest time for the Church. We need to get out of the pews and into the field – that brings transformation.
