Jud Wilhite, the senior pastor of Central Christian Church in Las Vegas, stopped in at NewSpring this afternoon. For those of you unfamiliar with Jud’s story, he took over at Central when Gene Appel left to join the leadership team at Willow Creek. Jud inherited a 40-year-old ministry and followed an incredible transition that occurred under Appel’s leadership. In the last few year’s, though, Central has continued to grow under Jud’s leadership jumping from around 7,000 people to over 12,000 people in attendance each weekend.

Jud hung out with our leadership team this afternoon while we met for our weekly senior management team meeting. It was encouraging to hear the stories from Central including the success of their first multi-site campus in Summerlin, Nevada. That campus launched just a year ago and already has 2,000 people attending each weekend. In fact, 60 to 70 percent of the folks that attend the Summerlin campus have never attended a service at their original Henderson campus. Central is obviously reaching a completely new audience with their second campus. I’m hopeful we’ll see the same results with the Greenville campus we are planning to launch in 2008.

During the time we spent with Jud, he also shared these leadership nuggets. He encouraged us to…

Plan for the “one life.” He said we need to always keep in mind the one friend or family member we are praying for to receive Christ into their life. Consider that “one life” as you’re preparing a weekend service or any other ministry outreach to confirm that your teaching and experience speak to that person.

Structure around “growth engines.” For Central, their growth engines are the weekend services, family ministry, campus ministries, groups and leadership development. Their entire ministry is structured around those key areas, and they have one identified leader over each of those areas.

Focus your ministry. Jud indicated for their church it means simplifying their ministry programming to focus on weekends, groups and serving. That’s it. They’ve tried to eliminate anything else that might compete with these primary ways that people take their next steps toward Christ.

I’m going to see Jud, again, out at the National Outreach Convention. He’s teaching a workshop called “Stripped: Creating a Culture of Uncensored Grace at Your Church.” I’m grateful for the time and encouragement he gave our team this afternoon. And, it confirmed again, I still have a lot to learn from other leaders.

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