This past Thursday, I had the privilege of attending the NewSpring Leadership Conference (NLC) at NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. For those of you unfamiliar with the city of Anderson, it is located on I-85 just across the Georgia/South Carolina border and is the home of Clemson University.
Whenever I visit Anderson, I usually stay at one of about five hotels located on exit 19. This time I stayed at the Country Inn. Hotels are usually uneventful but something extraordinary was happening in the hotel’s parking lot. Â
Before I get to my parking lot experience, let me tell you about NewSpring Church.  With seven campuses and two more launching in the near future, NewSpring, led by Senior Pastor Perry Noble, now runs over 15,000 in weekly attendance. It is one of America’s largest and fastest growing churches. They also have some of the greatest volunteers I have ever seen. Specifically, they have THE  greatest parking ministry I have come across. This leads me back to my hotel stay.
I arrived at the Country Inn about 7:00 PM. It was a long day and I was pretty tired. But waiting outside the hotel were about a dozen people wearing NewSpring t-shirts! They were there to welcome people arriving for the conference. Did you get that? They were welcoming people…AT THE HOTEL! Unbelievable! That was over-the-top service by a local church.
NewSpring has a t-shirt that says, “I Love My Church”. Whenever I see those shirts I immediately think, “Yes you do.” And because they so deeply love their church, those who visit it, and most importantly, Jesus, we love their church as well.
To the staff and volunteers of NewSpring Church, thank you for making the NLC such a wonderful experience. And a special thank you goes to those wonderful volunteers who welcomed us to the Country Inn!
Pastors and church leaders, what is one thing you can take away from this story and apply at your church next week?
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