I got the privilege to go to NewSpring’s Unleash Conference today. It was an incredible experience. It was amazing to see what God has done here! This will be a 2-part review! One with a summary of key takeaways and another of the practical ministry takeaways. Here were my big takeaways:
It’s All About Making Jesus Famous One Life at a Time – This is NewSpring’s Vision. It is beyond evident that the vision is burning in the hearts of every staff member and volunteer. Everything they do as a church, is done with the intention of changing people’s lives. When I say everything… I mean everything!
Quit Playing Games and Start Preaching the Word – I love how simple Newspring is. I.E. The youth – ALL they do is preach, worship, small groups, and a summer camp. It’s all centered around pointing teenagers to Jesus. Period. I love it!
People Act Like they Don’t Know Christ, Because they Don’t Know Christ – Let me clarify! They had a 5th grader that went to their childrens ministry for the first time. He saw a PS3 and Wii and said, “They have a PS3! A Wii! This s*** is awesome!” Those are the people we’re trying to reach, we need to have people like this coming to church! Instead of correcting them, let’s love them and point them to Jesus. They’ll only change as a result of knowing Him!
People Can Believe in You and Go to Hell – I love Perry. He was saying that we should never try to get people to believe in us or think we’re awesome. We need to constantly be getting their eyes off of us and onto Jesus. He’s the only one that can save them.
Celebrating Wins is Critical – Every staff meeting they start with sharing victories in their church. Then they celebrate them – this fuels them with passion every week becasuse it helps them recognize they are doing what God called them to do!
They Don’t Know How They Grew! – Twice in their church their attendance has doubled in a one week span… from 400 to 900 and 4,000 to 8,000. What did they do? Nothing… They have no idea how it happened! Perry always relays it like this: Leadership is as easy as listening to God. Then do what He says! Perry said, “If you can explain what God is doing in your church, He’s probably not that involved in it!
I loved being at Newspring! I know it definitely fired me up to come home and do more for Jesus. I’m so glad they are doing what God called them to do and inspiring the body of Christ while they do it!
Tomorrow I’ll talk about the practical things I learned that we can implement in our ministries!
