DAVE FERGUSON

Six Questions That Grow Great Leaders!

In the last three posts we have discovered that coaching is essential to every great moment; the necessity for coaching at this particular moment in the life of the American church and the crucial role a coach plays in the life of a leader. In the next few paragraphs I'll give you a coaching tool that is simple and reproducible. The following are six coaching questions that will grow great leaders. If you can remember just six words you can begin to use it with your leaders starting today. I use it with the apprentice leader of my small group. I also use it when coaching church planters and network leaders. I will give you a word to remember; then a question that goes with that word and a brief explanation behind the genius of that question.

1)   YOU - “How are you?”

Never forget that at the heart of effective coaching is a relational investment.  It may sound cliché, but it’s still true: “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”  I begin every coaching conversation by checking in and asking, “How are you doing?”  Don’t let the simplicity of this underwhelm you. Notice over the next week how many meetings you are in where no one bothers to check in and ask how you’re really doing.  So, when you coach, make sure you ask about their marriage, their kids, their physical well-being. All these things impact a leader. This question allows the coach to show that he cares first, before moving on to the tasks at hand.

2)   CELEBRATING - “What are you celebrating?”

The next coaching question gives you a great opportunity to celebrate how God is at work in the life and ministry of the person you are coaching. Some churches have weird cultures where if you talk about where you are winning, it seems like you are bragging. This question gives the people you are leading permission to talk about wins and you can celebrate together.  You get to catch them doing it right!

Asking this question also reinforces the values and vision of your church and/or ministry.  We should celebrate what we value! If we value life-change, leadership development, reproducing groups, people being baptized – celebrate it! In addition to reinforcing values and vision, moving from “How are you?” to “What are you celebrating?” keeps the tone of the coaching meeting very relational and positive.  It’s tempting to quickly focus on what’s not working or what is broken.  This question keeps the conversation focused on where the leader is feeling successful.

3)   CHALLENGES - “What challenges are you facing?”

The next coaching question is, “What challenges are you facing?” You might be thinking, “We finally got to something productive.”  Yes, the previous questions are very relational, but remember that when it comes to coaching the relationship really is the task. This third question gives your leader an opportunity to talk openly about the things that aren’t going very well in his group, team or ministry.  Obstacles and challenges need to be acknowledged and owned before they can be addressed and overcome.  As a coach, part of your role is to ensure that you provide a safe, confidential, and empowering environment for your leaders to talk openly about these challenges. 

4)   DOING - “What are you doing about it?”

Once a leader has disclosed some areas where he or she may be experiencing some challenges with their life, group, or ministry it is tempting to quickly move into “fix-it” mode and try to solve the problem for him.  No! Don’t do it! There are times when a leader will need your insight and wisdom.  However, the best way you can serve a leader is to help them tap into the wisdom and insight God has already given them to deal with the situation they are facing.  It is the coach’s role to draw those answers or solutions out of the leader.  Asking the question, “What are you doing about it?” and then listening is what your leader needs most.  Other questions like that: “What would you like to see happen?” “What would need to take place in order for change to occur?” “Who might be able to help overcome this challenge?” When the leader answers those questions it will empower him or her and increase the their confidence in their ability to address whatever challenge they needs to resolve.  You are trying to develop leaders who can solve their own problems and meet challenges. You do not want to create a dependency on you.

5)   HELP - “How can I help you?”

If you never get to the fifth question because the leader has already come up with an action plan, considers yourself an extremely effective coach. The goal is not to answer all of your leader’s questions or solve all her challenges. Remember - the goal is to help him or her discover the answers herself so that when you’re not around she will be able to deal with the challenges that come her way. But there are times when a coach needs to step in and offer whatever assistance is necessary to help a leader in need and so we ask, “How can I help you?” And once the leader you are coaching tells you how they can help, you need to come through for them.

6)   PRAY - “How can I pray for you?”

The best way to wrap up a coaching conversation is to ask the leader how you can be praying for him or her.  It is also a great opportunity for you, the coach to ask the leader to be praying for you.  This is one way a coach can help the leader know that this relationship is mutually beneficial.  After the leader has had a chance to express some areas where he or she is in need of prayer, take a few moments to pray for the leader and reassure them that you will be praying regularly. The most attentive and active coach can only occasionally be available to his leader.  However, prayer can be the sustaining environment that provides continuity and the assurance that you are keeping the leader in your thoughts in between huddles and one-on-one meetings.

I'd love to get your feedback on this important topic. Have you tried these questions and did they work for you?  What other questions do you effectively use in your coaching?

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What Always Precedes A Great Moment?

The Three Roles of Every Great Coach

If I was to keep track of only one metric at COMMUNITY, I would want to know the number small groups/missional community apprentice leaders.  Why?  Here are four reasons:

1. If I know the number of apprentice leaders I also know the number of leaders who are effectively growing a group or community of Christ followers.
2. If I know the number apprentice leaders, I not only know the number of people our church can currently care for, but also the number of people we will be able to care for in the near future.
3. If know the number of apprentice leaders, I know the number of leaders we have in our leadership path who could eventually become coaches, campus pastors or church planters.
4. Lastly, I’m convinced that movement is critical to accomplishing the mission of Jesus (Acts 1:8) and I know that at the core of every movement is apprenticeship. So measuring apprenticeship is crucial.

But upon further reflection, the best way to make sure you have a high percentage of apprentice leaders is to make sure that you have coaches (leaders of leaders who oversee and equip leaders).  It is the coach who equips the leader to develop an apprentice.  A good coach will serve alongside the leader and apprentice leader.  The coach helps the leader recruit an apprentice to whom he can invest his or her life. It seems to always come back to coaching.  Great coaching always precedes great moments.  And a lack of coaching is the great obstacle of the church today.

Why are coaches so important? Because coaches have three important roles as they invest relationally in the lives of leaders.

COACHES EQUIP LEADERS

Great coaching is all about equipping (Eph. 4:11,12). And equipping happens best through relationships. That is why great coaches discover that a monthly 1-on-1 meeting is a must. These monthly meetings at Starbucks, early breakfast or over the phone give the coach an opportunity to listen, ask questions and equip a leader. Some of the best meetings come after the coach has observe the leaders' group/community in action and provide feedback and encouragement. Additionally, there should be regular huddles where all the leaders gather with their coach. During these huddles the leaders not only learn from the coach but are equipped by other leaders the coach has brought together.

COACHES SERVE LEADERS

Great coaches have a mindset, “I will do whatever needs to be done to develop this leader.”  That may mean coming alongside the leader and serving with them. Depending on the type of group/community, it might mean setting up and tearing down, or coordinating logistics for mission project, or helping with childcare, or you name it! Coaches will serve their leaders by praying for them consistently and regularly. Coaches will do whatever it takes!

COACHES RECRUIT LEADERS

Great coaches are people who have developed leaders so they know what the leader is looking for in an apprentice. They help the leaders identify an apprentice leader. They help the people they are coaching train an apprentice leader.  They assist the leader in releasing that apprentice to become leader. And together they celebrate when an emerging apprentice steps up to become a leader.

I’m convinced that apprenticeship is essential to movement-making and movement is how the mission of Jesus gets accomplished. But great leadership and apprenticeship may never happens without coaching.

Let me know what you think? Would you agree that great coaching is built on relationships that allow the coach to come alongside leaders and equip, serve and recruit? Would you add another role? Or emphasize different roles?  

Check back later this week and I will give you six questions that every great coach asks.

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The Jesus Mission

The Churches Single Biggest Obstacle!

The Church's Great Obstacle!

I believe the church in the United States is on the verge of what could be a great moment! Let me stress, “could be.” And I say, "could be" cause there is one huge obstacle in our way. But before I get to that, here are a few of the reasons for my raw enthusiasm about the church of tomorrow:

    Many of the very best and brightest young leaders are accepting the call to go and plant new and     reproducing churches.

    We are in a seasons where there is more church planting is happening then ever before.

    We are in a period of time where more churches (both large and small) are thinking and strategizing     about multiplication and not only growing their churches. 

    And thousands of churches are taking intentional steps to get people off the bench and into the game     of difference making mission! More and more churches are taking seriously the challenge to be on     mission.

All of that is tremendously encouraging to me. All that causes me to believe that God has great moments ahead for the church.

But here is my great fear. What happens to the young leader with unbridled enthusiasm when they discover that church planting and living on mission is really hard? Where does he or she turn when they start to feel like they aren’t making a difference? What happens when scoreboard tells them they are losing?  What then? Do they quit?  Who is going to be there to “snap them out of the daze?”  Who is going to be there to help them “believe they can win?”

The next couple decades has all the makings of a great moment for the church in the U.S. We have put some great players into the church planting and missional movement game. The important question is how do we keep these people who are leading these missional communities and new churches motivated and equipped? How do we make sure that those churches and missional communities continue on mission and don’t get frustrated and quit when they come up against their first challenges!

Ephesians 4:11,12 gives us the answer.  This is a passage that I’m personally re-examining these days. Paul says, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

The one word that jumps out in that text is the word, “equip.” And “equip” is a word not found anywhere else in the New Testament. It literally means “the bringing of the saints to a condition of fitness so the parts of the body can work together.” Fitness?  Teamwork? When Paul talks about equipping, in laymen’s terms he is talking about coaching! If Paul was here he might say, “preparing each player to do his or her best for the team.”

You know what always precedes great moments?  Coaching!  The single biggest obstacle to greatness is equipping and coaching! So here are two challenges to make sure we see the great moment that God has ahead for his church:

    The first challenge is for any young leader – who is providing coaching in your life to make sure     you are equipped to for the challenges ahead?

    The second challenge is for veteran leaders – who are you coaching? Are you using the life     experiences (wins and losses) to equip young leaders for the great moments ahead?

The one thing that always happens prior to great moments is great coaching!  Leave me a comment and tell me one of the best coaching tips you ever received and how it equipped you? 

Check back in a couple days and I am going to give you a model for coaching that equips leaders for great moments.

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What Always Precedes A Great Moment?

Church Planting in America: Wins & Losses!

What Always Precedes A Great Moment?

Great moments seldom happen by accident. Great moments don’t always come when we expect or how we expect; but there is something that almost always precedes any great moment. The following 20-second video clip is considered by most one of the greatest moments in college basketball history. Watch this clip because it will help you discover what precedes every great moment. 

It's 1992 and a last second shot by Christian Laetner gives Duke the 104-103 win over Kentucky. I have seen that shot hundreds of times. I’m not even a Duke fan and I never get tired of watching that play. They show that play every year during March Madness as they highlight great moments in college basketball!

What we remember is the last second winning shot. Over and over again we remember that great moment. But what we don’t often think about is what preceded that great moment.  And what preceded that great moment was this - great coaching.  There was a coach who demanded hours, weeks and months of rigorous physical training and preparation. There was coach who taught them how to play the game; how to play together and how to win. There was a coach who prepared them for every possible game situation. There was a coach in the huddle, who in 60 seconds could draw up a play and remind the team that they were prepared for this!

Coach Mike Krzyzewski was Duke’s coach and he wrote about that great moment in his book, Leading With The Heart: “. . . I instinctively realized that I had to get them to snap out of the daze they were in and I had to make them believe, positively, that they could win this game.  Then I had to get them all singing out of the same hymnal.  And it all had to be done in less than one minute.”

What we don’t often think about is all the coaching that always precedes a great moment like that! We forget about the coaching.

And in my own life and ministry I know the great moments I have experienced are because of the “coaches” that have relationally invested in me. If you know anything about COMMUNITY, the church I lead you know that we are a church with 13 locations in Chicago. We have plans to start 9 more in the next 6 years and a dream of 200 locations in Chicago We want to impact thousands and thousands of people!  We also lead a church planting network called, NewThing with more than 150 reproducing churches globally. It’s awesome to be a part of it.  I’m so grateful to God for the great moments.

But what you don’t see and is easy to forget about - is all the great coaching! My dad, who planted a church in Chicago when I was 4 years old and stayed there for the next 37 years was a great coach.  On Sunday nights growing up we would sit around the table eating cheese and crackers and talk church. He’s been a great coaching!

When I moved to Naperville to start a church, by the grace of God Lyle Schaller became a friend and mentor.  If you don't know Lyle’s name, Google it. He wrote more than 50 books on church life and at one point was named “the most influential religious leader in America.”  As a young church planter he would invite me over to his house to talk about church leadership – great coaching!

In the last few years, Bob Buford who founded Leadership Network has been a mentor. Bob always reminds me, “Dave, your fruit grows on other peoples trees!” That is great coaching!

The one thing that always precedes great moments is coaching. So with that in mind let me challenge in two ways: 

First, are the people in your church and your organization being coached?  Who is challenging and investing in your volunteers and staff? Are they getting the necessary preparation in order for them to experience great moments?

Second, are you being coached? Who is asking you the tough questions?  Who is challenging you to be all that you can be?  Who is preparing you for the great moments ahead in your own leadership?

Before there are great moments, there is always great coaching!

Come back here over the next few days and I will continue this conversation on coaching with some thoughts on what Ephesians 4:11&12 has to say about coaching. Before you take off, leave me a comment and tell me about one of those great coaches in your life and how they coached you.

Exploding Old Scoreboards

Growing up in Chicago, I remember a couple famous scoreboards.  There was a scoreboard at the old Comiskey Park where my White Sox played when I was a kid – I loved it!  Every time someone hit a home run the scoreboard would explode with fireworks.  There is also the scoreboard at Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs.  It’s one of two remaining scoreboards that are still hand-turned.  It was installed in 1937 and is still waiting for its first World Series win! 

Another scoreboard I remember is the one on the sanctuary wall of the little rural church my Grandpa and Grandma attended in Farber, Missouri.  That scoreboard, like all the other scoreboards, was there to tell us if the home team was winning.  Winning, according to that church scoreboard, came down to a couple key measurements: Attendance this week versus last week; and Offering this Sunday versus last Sunday.  As long as both were increasing, then the church was winning.

Here’s my observation: Most churches are still using a scoreboard similar to the one used in my grandparents’ church.  Now, I doubt your church is still using the wooden “register of offering and attendance,” but maybe it lives on a program passed out on the weekends, or is plotted out on an Excel spreadsheet, or is accessible on the church website.  What most churches are measuring is still the same: How many nickels and how many noses—offering and attendance.  In Comiskey Park fashion, we need to explode the old scoreboard!  Why?

There are at least two problems with the current scoreboard:

1. It is entirely possible for a church’s attendance to be growing, while the kingdom of God is shrinking! 

Right now, there are more people attending church on any given weekend in the United States than ever before! We could conclude that U.S. church attendance is growing and therefore we must be winning, right?  Wrong!  While there are more people attending church than ever before, a smaller percentage of the total population in every state in the country is attending church than ever before!  If we are content with that, we will never accomplish the mission of Jesus.

2. It is entirely possible for a church’s attendance to be growing, but the impact of the church is shrinking. 

The second problem is that, even if church attendance numbers were increasing faster than our country is growing, that stat completely ignores other vital statistics in which God is interested.  I believe God is interested in a neighborhood’s crime rate, the percentage of people living below poverty level, the high school graduation rate, home ownership and more!  Church attendance says nothing about the social metrics of our communities.  And church attendance says nothing qualitative about the lives of the people in our churches. A growing church attendance does not promise that people are growing spiritually.  An attendance graph that is up and to the right does not guarantee that people are faithful in following Jesus and displaying the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.

Missiologist Ed Stetzer put it this way: “We must start counting more than baptisms, butts and bucks!”  I absolutely agree, and I’m ready to light the stick of dynamite under the scoreboard of any church that only measures attendance and offering.  We can do better than that and we must!

Excerpt from the recently released Keeping Score: How To Know If Your Church Is Winning, a FREE ebook by Dave Ferguson

INTERVIEW: LA Church Planter, Kevin Haah

This week, Exponential is on a blog tour featuring several of the leaders speaking at the upcoming Exponential West conference (Oct. 7-10)—where we’ll be talking about the vital need for planting and growing multi-ethnic churches that can make disciples who reach an ever-changing multicultural world. NewThing will be in full force at Exponential West, (Matt Larson, my brother, Jon Ferguson, and I will be leading the Pre-Conference Intensive “Reproducing at All Levels” and NewThing leaders will be teaching a number of workshops. If you haven’t already registered for the conference or on the fence thinking about it, I encourage you to make the time. There’s really no other conference experience like it. There’s still time to register. Sign up today before Sept. 30 when the price goes up.

Today, church planter and planting coach Kevin Haah visits my blog. Kevin is the leader of 5-year-old New City Church LA and the LA Church Planting Movement, which is working with Stadia to a church each of the 119 Los Angeles neighborhoods. I’m encouraged when I see other networks around the country planting churches to reach people far from God, but especially in the West. In this guest interview, Kevin talks about planting New City Church and what’s happening as a result of churches coming together through the LA Church Planting Movement. I’m learning so much from these planters in the West. I think you will, too. 

Kevin, tell us about your call to plant a church.

For a long time, I felt a sense of God's call into pastoral ministry but didn’t really have a corresponding desire to heed that call. After college, when I was trying to decide whether I should go to law school or seminary, my parents who were faithful yet financially minded Christians, pitched this to me: “If you enter into ministry and change your mind later, that will not glorify God; but, if you pursue law and decide later to enter into ministry, that will glorify God. So, if you aren’t sure, why don’t you go to law school?” The logic resonated with me, and so, I chose law school.

After law school, my life consisted of big firms, trying to make partner, and generating business. It was about eight years into practicing law that my parents made a tearful confession. They said that God convicted them that they had wrongly discouraged me from going into ministry, and that they had been repenting. My mom said, “If you still have a sense of call into ministry, we want to fully encourage you to pursue it.”

Of course, I had taken full responsibility for my own decisions, but their encouragement made a big impact on me. Two more years passed, and I made partner at my firm. But I felt a renewed sense of calling into full-time pastoral ministry. God gave me a deep and abiding passion for the lost. After about eight months of prayer and discernment, my wife Grace and I decided that I should leave law and pursue full-time ministry.

How did you decide to plant a church in downtown Los Angeles?

I was working at a Korean church when I got a phone call from an anonymous caller who ultimately asked me, “What are you doing to reach out to all of the new residents of downtown LA?” We had a
polite conversation. But, for some reason, this question started to resonate in my soul. I began asking myself the same question. Until then, I had never seriously considered what was going on in downtown L.A. I started to Yahoo clip (Google was not as big then) all articles related to downtown L.A. development, and discovered that there was a major boom going on.

 Soon afterwards, at a dinner (with about 40 people in the room), I was talking and suddenly stopped and asked the group, “What if we planted a multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic church in downtown that reaches out to both the Skid Row residents and the new loft dwellers?” Absolute silence. “Yeah, but that would never work…”  I said, quickly trying to recover. Everyone, including me, laughed and went on. I shoved the idea to the back of my head, but it never left.

From time to time when I shared the idea, I started to tear up. That’s when Grace and I decided that maybe God was trying to tell us something, so we started to pray about it. Fast-forward a few years. There was a senior pastor transition where I was serving. After the new senior pastor was installed, I felt that it was time to explore the possibility of church planting in downtown.

Did you have any idea how to plant a church?

No idea! I had never been a part of a church plant or even seen a church plant happen. When someone forwarded me an email about the Exponential conference n Orlando, Grace and I felt like we should go and learn. When we went, we discovered a whole world of church planters. We learned about the importance of assessment, coaching, launch teams, training and a lot of the best practices of church planting. I started devouring information and books about church planting.

Five years later, New City Church LA has grown into a vibrant, multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic church with no dominant ethnic group. About one-third come from the Skid Row recovery community, one-third from downtown lofts, and one third from outside of downtown. 


Looking back, what first steps would you say were integral to getting New City Church LA and LA Church Planting Movement to where they are today?

Assessment. Several books I read argued that one of the most common reasons for church plant failure was that the planter was not qualified, but no one had assessed him or her beforehand. Grace and I wanted to make sure we had what it took to be multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic church planters? It was a rigorous process of evaluation. At the end, we were given the highest recommendation to be lead planters and encouraged to pursue our vision of planting a multiethnic, multi-socioeconomic church in downtown L.A. Grace and I began to openly envision a church in downtown. I remember after our assessment that both of us had tears streaming down our cheeks as we prayed and saw a church coming together.

Also, core group development. The recruitment of the first 20 people was an amazing journey of God’s providence and guidance, right from the beginning. They were about as diverse as our church is now. Although I had specifically intended to recruit a core team that represented the diversity of downtown L.A., I frankly wondered how it was going to happen. But God had divine appointments in mind and that plan began to unfold. For example, I remember bumping into a Latino friend I had not seen for a long time, and felt led to share the vision with him and invite him. He said he had felt that God was going to lead him to something but had not figured out what it was. He told me later that he couldn’t sleep that night because he was so excited about the vision.

As people joined, we met together on Sunday evenings getting to know each other, talking about the whys and the how’s of church planting. We also spent this time coming up with a name, vision/mission statement, and core values of the church.

How did you start to meet the community?

During the core group development process and continuing into the first year of the church, our core team members spent many hours in downtown just talking to whomever we could, asking if they would participate in a survey. We learned so much by just hanging out and listening to people. It was amazing how willing some people were to give their opinions on what they thought of church, why they didn’t go to church, and what kind of church they might be interesting in going to.

We also spent a significant amount of time prayer-walking through downtown, taking the time to notice every building, every business, every corner, and every person. I was very familiar with Skid Row, but I wanted to make sure I got to know the loft dwellers as well. We met with existing pastors and community leaders and asked them for their wisdom. We went to neighborhood council meetings to get a feel for the neighborhood issues. We devoured the downtown demographic studies Our goal was to be a neighborhood church for downtown.

So the LA Church Planting Movement vision of planting a church in every LA neighborhood is an extension of what New City Church LA has done?

From the beginning, the vision of New City was to start a church planting movement in Los Angeles. Our vision was not to be a megachurch for the entire city. We wanted to be a church for downtown Los Angeles. We want to be a neighborhood church, to love, reach, serve and make an impact on the neighborhood. But, our vision is for the entire city.

Los Angeles is composed of 119 distinct neighborhoods, ranging from about 10,000 to over 200,000 people in each of these neighborhoods. More people live in Los Angeles than in 43 states of America. If you count the neighborhoods in the cities near Los Angeles, it’s more than 200 neighborhoods. Most people don’t say they are from LA unless they are outside of LA. Instead, they identify with a certain neighborhood: Downtown, Koreatown, Silver Lake, Westlake, Boyle Heights, etc. Many of these urban neighborhoods have churches with great buildings but also with a significant decline in membership. When the neighborhood demographics shifted, the churches didn’t change along with them. So, we see many churches with fewer than 50 elderly people who are of a different ethnic group than the neighborhood the building is in.

Also, there are churches that have a certain demographic focus—Korean, Armenian, Ethiopian, Latino, Black, etc. They are often not focused on being a church for the neighborhood, but are just located in that neighborhood, and if they do reach out, they reach out to their segment throughout the city. All of these churches may be necessary, but there are very few churches that bring people together that serve the neighborhood they are located in. That’s our vision—to plant more churches that are gospel-centered, bringing the various people in their neighborhood together, and not only sharing the gospel but also being the gospel to that community by serving the community. We are convinced that Los Angeles needs more gospel-centered churches to reach the many people living in so many different neighborhoods here in our city. Our vision is to plant a gospel-centered, grace-based church in each of the 119 neighborhoods in Los Angeles where spiritually convinced and unconvinced people will experience the transforming power of Jesus Christ. For every church we plant in Los Angeles, we will plant one with the global poor via out partnership with Compassion International. 

How is the LA Church Planting Movement working toward this vision?

To accomplish this goal, we are currently partnering with Stadia, which has a 94% success rate with the churches they coach. Stadia has committed to put in $60,000 per every church plant with LA CPM. God has blessed this vision. So far, we have put together over 18 churches of various different denominations (Presbyterian, Foursquare, Congregational, non-denominational, etc.) that are committed to the vision and are willing to fund the church plants.

It has been awesome to see how God has brought churches of all denominations together to start a church planting movement here in Los Angeles. I love being a part of it! Tom Hughes, lead pastor of Christian Assembly LA, is a co-catalyst with LA Church Planting Movement. He’s been so integral. Churches like Christian Assembly that are committed to seeing Los Angeles become the greatest city for Christ are coming together because they know that no one local congregation can grow large enough to reach Los Angeles alone. We believe something powerful can happen when local churches begin to unite for a cause greater than themselves.

How many churches do you hope to plant each year?

Early this year, we saw the launch of two new churches as well as two with the global poor. And we recently saw a third neighborhood church launch—all three with money raised by the LA Church Planting Movement. We are on our way to raising the money needed to plant the fourth and fifth churches. Our goal is to plant two to three churches per year for the first couple of years, and to plant four to five churches every year thereafter. 

We believe the power of the gospel can actually bring people together. What if we became a movement that brings people together in a way people have not seen before. We often cite Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (John 17:20-21): "I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one - as you are in my, Father and I am in you.  And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me." 

For a list of Kevin’s workshops at Exponential West, check out the conference mobile site here.

Exponential - All Main Sessions In Spanish

Exponential recently announced that all 10 Main Sessions of the upcoming Exponential West conference in Los Angeles (Oct. 7-10) will feature live Spanish translations!

 

Spanish-speaking attendees can listen to messages from Rick Warren, Choco De Jesus, Larry Osborne, Michael Frost, Efrem Smith, Miles McPherson, Jim Putman and 20 and more leaders in Exponential's most diverse speaker lineup to date via live translation. 

This announcement is another demonstration of Exponential's intentional commitment to reflecting the ever-growing diversity of church leaders. More than 40 percent of the main stage speakers at Exponential West and more than 33 percent of speakers overall (including Main Sessions and 100 workshops) are female, non-white or international. 

"We recognize that the church leader demographic in the Southern California area is as diverse as anywhere in the country," explains Exponential Director Todd Wilson, "so we have absolutely made it a priority to put together a speaker lineup that reflects the diversity of the leaders we'll be serving at Exponential West 2013."

Mark DeYmaz, a leading voice in the emerging multi-ethnic church movement and author of the award-winning book Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church, adds: "With intentionality, Exponential is demonstrating a sincere commitment to engage ministry leaders from all walks of life, and to equip pastors and church planters for future ministry in a changing world. I'm thrilled with Exponential's commitment to platform diverse voices."

Exponential West is also offering a Multi-ethnic Church sub-track and a City-Based Movements sub-track--a total of 10 workshops addressing multi-ethnic church planting, growth and development, and urban ministry. 

There's still time to register for Exponential West and take advantage of this opportunity. But time is running out to save! One Sept. 30, the registration price increases. If you haven't already registered, I encourage you to come. There's really not another conference experience like it. If you have registered, I look forward to seeing you there and connecting!

Exponential Blog Tour Starts This Week!

Focusing on multi-ethnic and city-centric church planting, Exponential West speakers Mark DeYmaz, Derwin Gray, Chris Lagerlof, Ray Chang, Kevin Haah and Eric Marsh will be stopping by several blogs this week for interviews. From Monday, Sept. 16, through Friday, Sept. 20, these planters and practitioners will offer their unique insights and experience on what it takes to plant and grow churches that reflect a changing world. Check out the schedule below, click on the links to read more about these leaders and make plans to follow their tour:

Monday, Sept. 16 - ToddRhoades.com

Mark DeYmaz, pastor of The Central Mosaic Church of Arkansas and co-founder of Mosaix Global Network, author of Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church and Leading a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church.

Tuesday, Sept. 17 - DJChuang.com

Ray Chang, planter of two multi-ethnic churches, leader with the Ambassador Network and the Evangelical Free Church of America.

Wednesday, Sept. - 18 ARC

Chris Lagerlof, executive catalyst for Mission Orange County working with Orange County church leaders to mobilize and multiply churches to collaborate within their cities.

Thursday, Sept. 19 - TonyMorganLive.com

Derwin Gray, founding and lead pastor of Transformation Church and a leading voice on multi-ethnic, multi-generational, missional ministry.

Friday, Sept. 20 - DaveFerguson.org

Kevin Haah, planter and lead pastor of New City Church of LA, an inclusive gospel-centered multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic church, leader of LA Church Planting Movement.

Friday, Sept. 20 NewThing Network

Eric Marsh, leader of PlantLB, a multi-church, multi-denominational, multi-ethnic attempt to plant churches that look like what Long Beach is becoming, and a leader with Hope Long Beach, a ministry of Grace Long Beach that exists to extend mercy and justice in Long Beach.