The first breakout session that I attended at the Unleashed conference was for senior pastors only. It was a Q & A with Perry.

The highlights from this session…

• As the church grows your immediate circle of fellowship will get smaller. There is no way that you can be intimately connected with every person in the church. The role of the Senior pastor is to make sure that everyone is cared for, but not to try to care, personally, for each one. For Perry, most of his time is spent with his management team and his family.

• New Spring church is closed on Friday too! I remember when we made the decision to close the church on Friday, it was not a super popular idea… but when do staff get a weekend? It was nice to hear that another church is doing the same thing! People have asked me, “What if there’s an emergency?” I ask, “What if there’s an emergency in the middle of the night?” We are not a 24 hour office. We have an emergency phone number on the answering machine for those situations.

• Perry said, “I own the vision of this church and cast it in a strong and encouraging way.”

• I asked him what role his blog played in his ministry. He said the blog allows him to cast vision for the church and to share what he’s learning with other pastors. He also said that while not everyone in the church reads his blog, the ones that do share what they’ve read with those who don’t. On a personal note, the same thing is happening at Northgate… those who do read this blog are sharing it what they’ve read with others in the hallways, etc.! Thank you for spreading the word!

• At New Spring they have defined “evangelism” as “bringing someone to church.” They base this on John 1 where Andrew brought Peter to Jesus, and Philip brought Nathaniel to Jesus. Interesting.

• Perry’s take on criticism…
  • It hurts.
  • “I don’t handle it well because I’m so invested in the vision of this church. When people criticize the vision of this church and then say ‘Don’t take it personally,’ it’s like saying, ‘Your kid’s ugly, but don’t take it personally.’”
  • “The bigger your church gets the more criticism it will get.”
  • There is a difference between criticism that focuses on me and criticism that focuses on the church. I totally agree with this! I can handle when people criticize me, but I can’t handle when people criticize the church. It’s the difference between telling me that I’m ugly and telling me that Sherri is ugly. If you tell me that I’m ugly it may hurt me, but if you tell me that Sherri’s ugly it may hurt you!
  • Perry and the New Spring staff have put structures in place that protect him from unhealthy doses of unnecessary criticism.

Good stuff from a great leader.

A lot of people are criticizing Perry and may not like his methodology, but let me say two things:

1) He does not violate any biblical teaching

2) What he’s doing is working. Hundreds of people are coming to know Jesus.

Way to go Perry and New Spring church! Thank you for putting it out there and sharing what you’re learning!