NewSpring

On the weekend of Oct. 21st, I attended the All-Access event at NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. I went there with the aforementioned Matt McKee (see earlier post) and though he already did a nice job of summarizing our visit in his blog I want to get my impressions down in writing too.

We went to figure out how a church in east nowhere (pop. 26,000) is growing so rapidly (avg ~ 8k/weekend.) Besides the obvious fact that God is being especially awesome in Anderson, it's clear that NewSpring's pastoral team, staff, and volunteers are laser focused on their vision to reach the unchurched. Their "less is more" philosophy and commitment to excellence are very evident. I was consciously looking for things to critique (that's in my nature) but struggled to even be cynical about their success. These folks gave our money back when the conference was over!

Their senior pastor, Perry Noble, is a very effective live speaker; I had seen him on video a few times before and wasn't bowled over, but the live Perry is a different story. The guy has an authentic, gripping personality that really pops from the stage. You can sense that he's totally invested in the truth of God's word and truly wants you to believe it too. And he's funny.

I was impressed by everyone I talked to, especially Tony Morgan who led our communications breakout session. Tony wears a unique title, Chief Strategic Officer, and in just a few minutes with him, it's clear he knows what works in ChurchWorld and is effective and graceful in moving his ideas forward. Sandy, Michael, Sydney, Lee, Ken and others were very nice to us and represented the church flawlessly.

On a side note, Anderson also has a very nice Goodwill store. Strangely, it didn't smell like dusty mildew mixed with wet cardboard. (I thought that odor was corporate policy.)