The past few days have been a lesson in just how small I really am. For those of you who know, we had the privilege to take 17 people to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta. If you’ve never been, you have to go. This is my fourth time attending the conference and I have to admit just when I think they can’t get any more creative they go and do it again. This year was no different. However, for me, this year was very different. Up until this point I have been viewing this conference through the eyes of a student pastor. This year I consumed it through the eyes of a church planter and lead pastor.
I believe I can go on record saying that there were no “throw-away” sessions this year. I was challenge from ever single angle and speaker. As I reflect on the conference there were a few moments that stand out to me. The biggest of all the moments happened during a lunch that Chad and I were invited to attend.
Let me just preface what I’m about to say with this statement, “I do not hang out with Donald Miller and his pastor Rick Mickinly on a regular basis.” I had to say that. I didn’t want anyone thinking that I’m always out hobnobbing with the bigwigs. Back to my story. As we walked into this small conference room with roughly twenty five people we found our selves two vacant seats at a table and quietly sat down. Somewhere around the time that I was waiting for the signal that it was okay for us to go get our food, it began to dawn on me that I was sitting next to the worship leader of Newspring Church and next to him was a pastor named Mark Batterson of National Community Church in DC.
As Chad and I were standing in line for our food, which was amazing I might add, I leaned over to him and said, “Chad, we are very small fish in a very big pond right now.”
This may not be a big deal to anyone else but a few months back my man Strick put me on to this Pastor named Perry Noble from Anderson, SC. Well to make a long story short this church has absolutley exploded in the small town of Anderson. They have gone from 4,000 people in Feb. to over 8,000 people a few weeks ago. The crazy thing about the whole story is that Daryl and I are supposed to have lunch with this guy in November and now I am sitting next to Lee who happens to be their worship leader. This guy was completely humble. He said that there church began praying a few weeks ago for their friends who didn’t know Christ and they believed that God was going to make a huge difference in their community. And He has!
It’s not everyday that you happen to be sitting next to a guy whose blog you read but have never met. That was the case with Mark Batterson. He is a pastor near my old stomping ground in Washington, DC. Mark is a very innovative and creative pastor with a passion to plant churches at the mouth of subway stations in the city. He has also released a few books which I intend to pick up real soon. The coolest part was that Mark actually took some time to talk with Chad and I for about twenty minutes as we walked back to the conference. I was impressed with how personable he was. It was an honor to meet him.
I told you I would share some of the things that really stood out to me and so here is one of them:
While at lunch Rick McKinley said, “Often times in church we are counting the number of people that are there and God is counting the number of people who are not there.”
Please don’t misunderstand what I am about to say. I do not want a big church just to have a big church. I don’t believe that big is better and small is not. Here is the reason I want to pastor a large church. Because in our community there are over 100,000 people who do not have a relationship with Christ which means that right now they are on course to spend eternity seperated form God in Hell. Don’t tell me that doesn’t bother you. Another reason is because Jesus is all about seeking that which was lost. Lost Coin. Lost Sheep. Lost Son. I don’t want to become a lethargic church that gives up its’ mission to seek out lost people and just resigns to become inward naval gazers who flip off the world. I want to pastor a large church because I believe the harvest is just that big. I believe God wants everyone in this community to know Him as their Savior and I believe God wants to use Lifepoint to accomplish that mission.
