Discover Hope for Your Church at Purpose Driven Conference 2016

Once a month, I take an extended period in my prayer time to pray specifically, by name, for the next generation of pastors. Over my 40+ years in ministry, I’ve watched too many great guys burn out, flame out, and drop out before they’ve made it to the finish line. Rapid church growth doesn’t impress me anymore. Rockets burn out fast. Sustained growth decade after decade is what impresses me.

So I pray for your personal life and character. I pray for your family, and I pray you’ll stay focused on God’s five purposes for your life and church. I pray you’ll maintain a humble, teachable spirit, so you never stop learning and increase in effectiveness every year. I pray you’ll have the skills to break through every one of the predictable plateaus growing churches face, and you’ll know what to do when you get discouraged. Your ministry matters to the Kingdom, and it matters to me. We need you to make it to the finish line.

Then, the other day, God said, “I don’t want you to just pray for these guys. I want you to share with them all the lessons in ministry that I taught you the hard way. It will save them a lot of time and pain.”

So, at the end of next month (June 28–30), I want to invite you to come spend 72 hours with me. It will be three days of intensive learning from my 36 years at Saddleback. I’ll be doing all the teaching, downloading 36 years of learnings from Saddleback. In that time, we’ve baptized more new believers (43,018), put more people into small group Bible studies (over 38,000 meet weekly in 8,420 small groups), and sent out more members on mission (26,846 members have served in 196 countries) than any American church.

I know this invitation doesn’t give you a lot of time, but God didn’t tell me to do it until a few days ago. I’m just being obedient. If you can come, please register quickly at PD.CHURCH because it will fill up fast. Saddleback members are going to subsidize this event, so it will only cost you $99 for the three days.

I thank God for your ministry, and I want to help you finish well.