The focus of the conference was “Questions”—asking the right people the right questions to get the right answers. Ed Young discussed crucial questions that church leaders need to ask, such as “Is your church structured for growth?” To illustrate why so many churches around the country are set on a fatal flight path, Ed called on Perry Noble, Senior Pastor of New Spring Community Church in Anderson, SC:
If you operated an airplane like you operate most churches, you’d have a pilot and his crew in the cockpit, and they know how to fly that plane, they know every instrument – that’s their job. But if it was run like most churches, these pilots, or this crew, before they needed to make an important decision, would have to come out of the cockpit and go into first class and meet with a plumber whose cousin was a pilot at one time, an electrician, a housewife, and a doctor and then after they met with those guys, they would take it back to the coach section for a “business meeting” and a vote. Then after they voted they could go implement what the coach section had told them to do. Now my question to my congregation is, “How many of you want to fly on that plane?” But you want to go to that church? That’s why so many churches are crashing and burning – because they are not properly structured.