Newspring Leadership Conference 2010 Part 1: Perry Noble

Yesterday I had the absolute pleasure of attending Newspring Church’s very first Leadership Conference. There was an abundance of inspiring speakers that were anointed, challenging, encouraging and engaging. These speakers shared openly about struggles they have encountered in their respective ministries and spoke truth and wisdom into the lives of other church and ministry leaders that were in attendance. I know personally God used these godly men to speak vision and challenge into my life and ministry (alongside my husband) and we return from this conference looking at certain areas with a different mindset. It is my hope that by sharing some highlights from each speaker (one blogpost at a time) those of you who did not get to go will also be encouraged and challenged by what God gave them to say.

Speaker 1: Perry Noble

Perry is the Senior Pastor of Newspring Church and my husband and I have been able to learn from him on countless occasions through visiting the church and reading his blog etc. Perry is an engaging speaker with a passion to communicate to thousands  what God has laid on his heart.

HIGHLIGHTS:

“God must first do something great in you before He will do something great through you.”

“If you’re not willing to be uncomfortable, you will eventually be unfaithful.”

“If you’re always accessible to people, you can’t be accessible to God.”

“To do great things, you need to submit to God in the small.”

Luke 10v17-20: The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

The Final Destination

Why is it so hard to go back to church after we haven’t been for a while? Why is it so difficult to pray (unless maybe in a state of panic) when we haven’t prayed in months, maybe years? Why is it so difficult to repent and fully give our lives back to God after a time of sinning and sometimes chaos? I know it’s difficult – I’ve been there! That feeling of pride, guilt, maybe even shame is not from Jesus and prevents us from having the fullness of joy that deep down we know comes from a relationship with God. Yes, perhaps we’re feeling convicted about what we’re doing or have done but God will not make us feel guilty or shameful. He will not put our emotions or conscience in a place where we don’t feel like we can go back to Him and back to church (by the way, if your church is making you feel guilty or shameful and not teaching God’s grace…find another church). We see in Matthew 21:28-32 that Jesus’ heart is one of compassion and forgiveness. Jesus blesses and more importantly accepts us even after a time of backsliding and sin, as long as we genuinely repent and believe. In fact, Jesus implies too that the ‘fake Christians’ (in this case, the Pharisees) will enter the kingdom of heaven last – if at all! You see, Jesus doesn’t care what we’ve done. Jesus doesn’t care if we’re “tax collectors” or “prostitutes”; He sees the heart. He looks at our hearts after we’ve said “I will not” yet eventually choose to follow Him. It’s better to have been on a journey as long as the final destination is Jesus and repentance than to walk in prideful circles with a stubborn heart.