Hero Maker

by Dave Ferguson

  When you think of Jesus’ ministry, do you picture him speaking to the crowds—preaching the Sermon on the Mount, feeding the five thousand—or spending time to train the Twelve? One researcher says that the Gospels put three-fourths of their emphasis on the training of the Twelve. He calculates that from the time Jesus told the Twelve that he’d teach them to multiply (“I will send you out to fish for people,” Matt. 4:19) until his death, Jesus spent 73% of his time with the Twelve. That’s forty-six events with the few, compared with seventeen events with the masses.21 The ratio of time Jesus spent with the few versus time he spent with the many was almost three to one.

  The point: Jesus’ ministry emphasis, in terms of where he put the biggest amount of time, was with his twelve leadership residents! He was mentoring them so they would do greater things. This included multiplying themselves through others.

  Jesus’ ministry emphasis, in terms of where he put the biggest amount of time, was with his twelve leadership residents!

  In the years that followed, not only do we see the amazing works of the Holy Spirit through these twelve in and after the book of Acts, but according to history Jesus’ earliest followers fulfilled his prophecy that they would do greater things, by making other disciple makers around the world.

  What Greater Things Looks Like for Us

  Here in Chicagoland, we thought the greater things would be accomplished through one church that grew larger in size and even spilled over into multiple locations. We give God all the glory for the thousands who have found their way back to him through Jesus at Community Christian Church and are being mentored in the ways of Christ. But we have made an important change in the question we are asking. We are no longer asking only, “How can we grow Community Christian Church?” We are asking, “How can Community Christian Church work with other leaders and churches to multiply God’s kingdom?”

  Because of this, we’re discovering that greater things are happening on a far larger scale through our international church-planting initiative, called NewThing. At present, more than twelve hundred churches are part of this network of reproducing churches, some of which we directly started, some of which are daughter churches of those we started, and some of which are churches that affiliated with our network because of their desire to multiply other churches. We estimate that these twelve hundred churches represent more than two hundred and fifty thousand followers of Jesus. And since each of these churches has made a commitment to be reproducing and multiplying, the potential becomes exponential and far exceeds that of our one big multisite megachurch.

  And that’s only a sliver of the greater things that multiplied from Jesus’ early apprentices. Today 2.2 billion people—one-third of the world’s population—claim the name of Jesus!

  That kind of movement-making multiplication is what we’re talking about when we say we want to see the church multiplied. This is the multiplication of disciples that Jesus talks about when he calls for a multiplication of his witnesses in “all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).

  Who Are Today’s Hero Makers?

  The single biggest obstacle to movement-making impact like this is a leader who is stuck always needing to be the hero. For most, it’s tough to give up that status.

  I have never met a kid who is playing basketball in the driveway and imagines: “Five . . . four . . . Ferguson picks up his dribble . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . Ferguson passes the ball to an open teammate, and his teammate scores! They win the championship!” It almost never happens. But as Isiah Thomas told us in chapter 1, the secret is all about team. For church leaders, the secret is the kingdom of God. We cannot let the story become about me, my leadership, or even my church. It’s always about the kingdom and making heroes of others.

  Too often even our best difference-making efforts are oriented around positioning ourselves as the hero. You could easily hear the following from any well-meaning Christian leader or maybe yourself:

  • “When I heard about it, I went to the hospital, and I led Juanita in a prayer to receive Christ.”

  • “So I texted the benevolent ministries team, and I got a check and hand-delivered it myself.”

  • “It seemed that ministry was going nowhere, until God gave me an idea that has taken it to a whole new level.”

  None of these responses are evil or even wrong. In fact, many of them remind me of myself. Way too many times in ministry, I’ve jumped in with “I’ve got it!” or even “This is my sweet spot,” and it never occurred to me—until too late—that I was blocking other people from the privilege and joy of using their faith or serving in their sweet spot. I was the hero, not the hero maker.

  One of the more frequent conversations I have with my wife, Sue, ends with her saying, “Um, that wasn’t your idea!” Oftentimes it was her idea or someone else’s idea, and I’m trying to claim it as my own. I don’t think I’m doing it with an evil intent, but there is something deep within me (and perhaps in you too) that loves being the hero. And when I’m trying to be the hero, I am not being a hero maker.

  If responses of “me the hero” represent your pattern, you will have a limited impact that never involves greater things. These responses suggest a disciple of Jesus who hasn’t matured from being a hero to being a hero maker.

  What if the opposite happened?

  • “When I heard about it, I called Maria, because Juanita lives in her neighborhood. Maria went to the hospital and wound up leading her in a prayer to follow Jesus. When Maria told the story at church, the congregation applauded, no doubt giving many others the idea and permission to ‘go and do likewise.’ ”

  • “So I texted the benevolence team and asked if they’d write and deliver a check. You wouldn’t believe the joy that Charlie and Joe reported after they hand-delivered that gift.”

  • “It seemed like that ministry was going nowhere, but I challenged the leadership team to seek God together. They came up with an idea that has taken the ministry to a whole new level. But even better, they’re gearing up for another leadership retreat, believing that God has even more for them.”

  Hero makers shift from being the hero in their church’s unfolding story to expecting others to be the hero. Hero making is something anyone can do, and when accompanied by a leadership gift, it becomes explosive as it is replicated in the lives of many.

  Meet a Hero-Making Leader from Kenya

  While I was dreaming of hitting last-second game-winning shots on a driveway in suburban Chicago, Pastor Oscar Muriu was a kid dreaming of being the hero of the Kenyan national football team and finally bringing them to international prominence. In the same way that I never made it to the NBA (not yet!), Oscar never scored a goal for the Kenyan national football team (not yet!). But Oscar is a personal hero because he is one of the best examples of a hero maker I’ve ever met, and that’s why he also gets the closing words of this book.

  Oscar was in his twenties, newly out of seminary, exploring the “What’s next?” question for him and his new wife, Bea, when he said yes to pastoring a needy church in Nairobi that had declined to only a dozen people. Yet Nairobi Chapel proved to be a perfect match for Oscar’s gifts and vision. The little congregation responded to the risks Oscar asked them to take, such as shifting from serving expatriate Brits to serving Kenyan college students and the people of Nairobi, leaving well-paying jobs to go into ministry, and more. Within the first few years, the number of people attending grew so much that even with multiple services, the sanctuary could not hold everyone. In just ten years, the church had grown tremendously.

  While leading this fast-growing church of several thousand, Oscar had a crucial decision to make, one that would determine the legacy of his leadership. He began to ask himself, “Am I going to be the hero, or am I going to make heroes out of others?”

  Oscar led the congregation in a gutsy, hero-making decision. In one Sunday, Nairobi Chapel went from being one very large church to being one church in five locations, as Oscar tu
rned over many of the people and resources to four other young pastors. He said, “I can reach more people for the kingdom and have a more lasting impact if I multiply myself through other leaders. From this point forward, I’ll be just one of five.” Oscar poured himself into mentoring the other pastors who led those new churches.

  What prompted such an unconventional, risky decision?

  Oscar explains, “When I was a young, rookie, inexperienced pastor, I was reading Psalm 71:18 one day, and I was deeply struck that David’s prayer was to declare God’s might to the next generation.” Oscar quickly reasoned, “If I’m going to be true to the heart of David, then I need to invest myself in the next generation, because they will continue to lead after I’m gone. It was then I made the decision to always have younger people that I’m pouring my life into for the sake of the mission.”

  Oscar is convinced that the decision to make heroes of others who in turn will multiply still others has resulted in many more people becoming followers of Christ. Today there are twenty-two campuses in Kenya known as Nairobi Chapel, plus eight other Nairobi Chapels in other countries! They have already planted more than one hundred churches in pursuit of their goal to establish three hundred church plants, lead one million people to Christ, and actively disciple one hundred thousand people.

  I made a decision at that point to always have younger people that I’m pouring my life into for the sake of the mission.

  —OSCAR MURIU

  Oscar explains the church’s strategic plan: “We must multiply ourselves at every level. At the individual level, we will be intentional about multiplying leaders, staff, and disciples. At the ministry level, we will seek to reproduce all of our groups and teams on a regular basis. At the church level, we want to begin a church-planting movement locally, nationally, and internationally.”

  For several years now, Nairobi Chapel has had one hundred leaders annually who move through their three-track leadership resident program and then go out and plant a wide variety of new churches. Some are large, looking and feeling much like Nairobi Chapel. Some are planted overseas, the first one in London. Some are in the economically depressed slums of Nairobi.

  Oscar has the leadership gifts and ability to become a solo leader with a tremendous personal following and the spotlight clearly focused on him. Instead he chose to make heroes of others and invest the time to mentor and coach, and the payoff has been experiencing the greater things Jesus promised, things far greater than even Oscar’s unique talents could have achieved alone.

  Moms, MOPS, and Hero Making

  You can do any type of ministry and be a hero maker. Pat Runyon is a mom and a hero maker. At her home in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Pat and seven other older women with a big heart for the families in their community had a meeting in which they prayed and began to dream about what they might do to help the next generation of young mothers. Those petitions and holy aspirations gave birth to a movement of more than four thousand groups in thirty countries, known as MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International.

  Pat recalls, “We honestly didn’t know what we were doing.” The ladies loved meeting together and began by inviting young moms with their babies into their homes for coffee, support, prayer, and Bible study. “It was the Holy Spirit that led us to partner with churches.”

  As the groups continued to multiply, the eight founding women kept records of all of them on notepads stored in a shoebox in Pat’s garage. After ten years of remarkable growth, the founders knew MOPS had outgrown them, so they recruited and hired Elisa Morgan as their CEO. They released power and authority to her, doing everything possible to make her a success. Why? That is what hero makers do.

  “Elisa is a very strong leader,” says Sherry Surratt, who eventually succeeded Elisa. “She hired a staff, cast vision that women have tremendous leadership potential, and built an absolutely brilliant leadership development system that grew to involve more than twenty-five thousand female volunteers. It’s a system of easy entrance, easy training, and where so many young women first step into leadership.” From MOPS’s beginning until today, Elisa and the whole MOPS culture have embodied the joy of making someone else the hero.

  Five Hero-Making Practices

  Hero makers create a platform and then invite other people to stand on it. Great idea, but how do you do it?

  The five chapters of the next section are dedicated to making sure you clearly understand how to become a hero maker and to giving you simple tools to help you do it immediately. I have no interest in writing a book that gets read but doesn’t get applied in real life. (I also created a website, HeroMakerBook.com, to help you with practical application.) So I have gone to great effort to make sure that the five hero-making practices in the next section are well explained, reproducible, and very usable.

  FIGURE 4.1

  As you look at Figure 4.1, note that while hero makers are continually implementing all five of these practices in their leadership, the practices are used sequentially in the development of an individual apprentice. If you are new to hero making and are mentoring someone for the first time, you will want to start with multiplication thinking, then go to permission giving, and then disciple multiplying, gift activating, and kingdom building.

  There is a logic in the way these practices are ordered that will allow you to do the work of hero making. Let’s consider each one separately.

  1. Multiplication thinking. This is a shift in thinking, and if you want a quick slogan for this practice, it’s “Think it!” You move from thinking that the best way to maximize ministry is through your own efforts to understanding that it is through developing the leadership of others. We see this in the life of Jesus in Acts 1:8. When Jesus casts a vision for taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, he tells his followers, “You will be my witnesses” to explain that he is going to do it through them. Jesus didn’t think the mission was going to happen just though him during his time on this earth; he thought it would happen through others who would equip others who would equip still others. Jesus practiced multiplication thinking. To help you easily implement this practice, I will give you a simple tool called a “dream napkin” and challenge you to multiply your impact by 100x. This simple exercise will push you and those you are mentoring into multiplication thinking and into realizing that the only way you can maximize ministry is through developing others.

  2. Permission giving. This is a shift in seeing, and if you want a quick slogan for this practice, it’s “See it!” You will take the focus off your leadership and begin to see the leadership potential in the people all around you. Since you see the people around you as leaders in development, you will begin to lead with a yes and give them permission to fully engage in the mission. We see this in the life of Jesus when he says to a group of ragtag working-class fellows, “Come, follow me” (Matt. 4:19) They never expected a rabbi to see them worth teaching and leading. But Jesus saw in them a group that could change the world. To help you easily implement this practice, I will give you a simple tool called an “ICNU conversation.” This simple tool will show you how you can help others see potential in themselves they never saw before, and in so doing, you will give them permission to reach their full God-given potential.

  3. Disciple multiplying. This is a shift in sharing, and if you want a quick slogan for this practice, it’s “Share it!” You will begin to not only share what you know to help others follow Jesus but also share your life and invest in the development of leaders who do the same for other leaders. We see this in the life of Jesus as he spent three years primarily with twelve people (John 3:22). To help you easily implement this practice, I will give you a simple tool called the “five steps of apprenticeship.” This tool has the power to multiply movements of disciple makers. The only reason it does not is because people have not fully used it.

  4. Gift activating. This is a shift in blessing, and if you want a quick slogan for this practice, it’s “Bless it!” You will not just ask God to bless the gifts he ha
s given you but ask him to bless the leaders you have developed as you send them out at the end of their apprenticeship. The most obvious example of this is in Matthew 28:16–20; Jesus is turning over the leadership of the movement to his closest followers, and he tells them, in effect, “I have all authority and will use it through you as you go!” To help you pass along the blessing, I will give you a simple tool called “commissioning” (explained in chapter 8). This ancient practice of laying your hands on someone and asking God to bless them as you send them out is a powerful way to activate a leadership gift.

  5. Kingdom building. This is a shift in counting, and if you want a quick slogan for this practice, it’s “Count it!” You are no longer only concerned with who is showing up at your thing; you count who is doing God’s thing! Jesus told his followers in simple terms, “Seek first the kingdom of God” (Matt. 6:33 ESV). They heeded this admonition, and all that mattered was what God was keeping track of as the Jesus mission was being advanced around the world. So that you can make this shift in counting, I will give you a simple tool I call a “hero maker’s scoreboard.” Lots of statistics are important and beneficial, but this simple scoreboard will have churches track only a few vital metrics and ask leaders to track only two key measurements. This scoreboard is designed to help you count what builds the kingdom.

  With these five practices, God will use you to change the world. Each practice depends on your willingness to continually ask, “Am I trying to be the hero, or am I trying to make heroes of others?”

  Don’t Confuse Hero with Hero Maker

  By this point, do you see the huge difference between a hero and a hero maker?

  Please hear what I am about to say, and let it sink deep into your mind and linger in your heart. It’s time to quit trying to be the hero. You can do better. Much better. Instead you can be a hero maker.

  When my coauthor, Warren Bird, became a Christ follower, he bought the same big, thick Bible his pastor was using. Through daily reading and listening to great teaching, he marked it up for his first ten years of discipleship, before switching to another Bible. By that ten-year mark, practically every page had Warren’s own notes, plus the publisher’s printed column jammed with cross-references. Warren recently looked in that Bible on the page containing 2 Timothy 2:2 (Paul’s instruction to train others, who train others, who train others, who train others). Warren had inked lots of notes on that page, but none referring to this verse. Nor did the publisher’s highly praised “chain link” of marginal references mention multiplication. Warren flipped over to other leader-multiplication verses that I’ve highlighted in this book, with roughly the same finding: no mention of multiple generations of apprenticeship.