Hero Maker

by Dave Ferguson

  4% ? 10%

  These numbers weigh heavy on my heart, and I want to share something with you that is very personal but needs to be public. Figure 10.2 is a graphic based on a page out of my journal where I write out my prayers and reflect on how God is leading me. Almost every day in my journal in the lower right section, I write down “4% ? 10%.”

  FIGURE 10.2

  As I’ve said (you must have memorized this stat by now), only 4% of all U.S. Protestant churches are reproducing or multiplying. I strongly suspect these churches have hero-making leaders!

  After I write 4% in my daily prayer journal, I write 10%. Why? I believe that in the coming decade, it will be possible to move the needle from 4% to 10% and see more churches become hero-making churches. If we get to 10%, I believe, we’ll reach a tipping point for changing the church and reaching millions of lost and hurting people in the United States. For every 1% increase in reproducing churches, thousands of eternities will be changed. We have everything we need to see the percentage of Level 4 and 5 churches go from 4% to 6% to 8% to 10%!

  So every day, I write this little equation in the lower right-hand corner of my journal as a prayer: “God, let us see the number of churches that are 4’s and 5’s (reproducing and multiplying churches) in the U.S. move from 4% to 10%.”

  A Hero-Making Challenge

  So how do we leverage this opportunity?

  I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about what I’m going to say next. It makes sense to me that if only 4% of all churches are hero-making churches, it’s probably also true that only 4% of all Christ followers are hero makers. Let me explain. I’ve had the privilege of working with thousands of churches and tens of thousands of church leaders over the past twenty-five years. One consistent observation I’ve made is that churches that reproduce and multiply macro (new sites and new churches) also reproduce and multiply micro (new disciples and new leaders). So the converse of that also makes sense to me: if a church doesn’t reproduce and multiply macro, it is most likely made up of people and leaders who are not reproducing and multiplying micro.

  So now for the challenge.

  You now understand what it takes to be a hero maker.

  You also have simple tools you can use today in your hero-making efforts.

  But will you do it? I implore you: don’t let this be another book that is interesting to read or gives you content to share on social media, but you never apply it or live it out! Integrate the five hero-making practices into your leadership. Use the simple tools routinely. I can’t urge you strongly enough. Please, please, please, become a hero maker! The kingdom of God and the mission of Jesus are depending on you and me. The eternities of thousands of people rely on your commitment and daily resolve to become a hero maker who multiplies disciples.

  Please, please, please, become a hero maker! The kingdom of God and the mission of Jesus are depending on you and me.

  If you will accept this hero-making challenge, God will use us together to move the needle from 4% to 10% to create a tipping point in the impact and influence of the Jesus mission in the United States.

  In his bestselling book The Tipping Point, author and businessman Malcolm Gladwell says something that will help us take on this hero-making challenge: “To create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.”49 The following are three hero-making challenges. If you accept them, you’ll be starting a small movement that can be part of creating one contagious global movement. Read each of these carefully. Then take them to heart. I do, and I’m committing myself to each of them. Will you?

  Hero-making challenge 1: motives. “My only motive is advancing God’s kingdom, not my kingdom.”

  The first challenge we all have to deal with is our motives. We have to ask ourselves the deep and probing question, “Is my motivation about God’s kingdom or my kingdom?” Pause for a second and reread that question. Before you answer, let it sink into your mind—and your heart.

  Every one of us wants to be successful. But hero makers give up their own success for the success of others and the advancement of God’s kingdom. That might mean your group never grows very large. It could result in your ministry never getting the affirmation you think it deserves. Others may get the attention while you do all the work. Hero makers must strive to have the same motives as Jesus, “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:6–8).

  One of the best examples of hero making I know is my brother Jon Ferguson. We started Community Christian Church together. We also launched NewThing as a team. We have also coauthored several books. He has been an equal partner in everything we have accomplished by God’s grace. However, sometimes people will refer to him as “the pastor’s brother” or give me credit for the stuff he has accomplished. Still, his motives are always the same—advancing God’s kingdom, not Jon’s kingdom.

  Jon and other hero makers know that their influence is multiplied and the mission is advanced by seeking the kingdom of God first and letting go of the need to be the hero. Their single, primary motivation is God’s kingdom!

  Hero-making challenge 2: methodology. “My missional method is multiplication, not addition.”

  Hero makers are always thinking about multiplying their efforts. They are never satisfied with just doing. Nor are they content with just adding to their group, ministry, or church. Hero makers are obsessed with making everything they do reproducible and scalable. They have one eye on making a difference and the other eye on whom they can mentor to multiply what they are doing.

  One of the most remarkable hero makers I’ve ever been around was also someone you’d least expect. First, he wasn’t an adult; he was a student. Second, he didn’t have a charismatic and charming personality; he was kind of nerdy. Finally, he didn’t grow up in the church; he was new to faith. But he loved people! And when he started a small group, he did two things well: he loved the people in that group, and he made sure he had an apprentice who would learn to do the same. Over a handful of years, I saw him multiply and develop ten new leaders and reach more than one hundred people. Why? He was a hero maker! And a hero maker’s methodology is not about creating a crowd but about multiplying a movement.

  A hero maker’s methodology is not about creating a crowd but about multiplying a movement.

  Hero-making challenge 3: measurement. “My measure of success is to send people, not create a crowd.”

  As I write this, Community Christian Church is in the process of launching another location. We have a goal to send more than three hundred people to help start this new location. We have seven months till we start, and already almost two hundred people have volunteered to go and serve, including twenty-two small group leaders.

  How is that happening? It works only because we have campus pastors and staff from other locations who value sending more than creating a bigger crowd at the site they lead. These three-hundred-plus people will come from four of our locations that have leaders whose measure of success is to send people, not merely create a crowd.

  Jesus brought together a ragtag bunch of followers and invested three years in mentoring them in the ways of hero making. The purpose of those three years together was not just to grow deep in understanding, nor was it to gather a mass of people. The purpose of the apprenticeship was to prepare Jesus’ followers to be sent out in pairs to catalyze a movement of multiplication that would reach the lost, the least, and the lonely. If Jesus’ measure of success was to create a loyal crowd, he failed miserably. Let’s learn a lesson from our Savior and maximize our impact by making our primary measurement not crowd creation but people sending.

  If each of us will accept these three hero-making challenges and make small movements ourselves, we can see missi
onal multiplication movement in our lifetime! We will see the needle inch forward from 4% to 6% to 8% to 10% if we declare,

  • “My only motive is advancing God’s kingdom, not my kingdom.”

  • “My missional method is multiplication, not addition.”

  • “My measure of success is to send people, not create a crowd.”

  You may think, But I’m only one person; what difference can I make? The truth is, on your own it is hard to make much of a dent. But together our efforts are multiplied, and together we can make a world of difference! A shift from 4% of churches that reproduce or multiply to 10% means that millions more people will know the love and forgiveness of God through Jesus here on earth and then spend eternity with us in heaven. Worth it?

  I’m not ending here, because there are some pitfalls that you need to know about. More specific, there are three tensions you need to manage along the way. That’s what the next chapter is about.

  Hero Maker Discussion Questions

  OPEN

  • Describe a time in your life (personal or ministry) that was an inflection point, where everything changed.

  • Describe a time in your leadership when you tried to lead a team, group, or congregation through a change. What worked? What didn’t?

  • Did you feel anything from your past resurface as you read this chapter’s challenge of helping move the needle from 4% to 10%?

  DIG

  • Read Acts 6:1–7. What challenges do you think the leaders of the early church felt in trying to lead a multiplying church while caring for the Greek widows?

  • This chapter in Acts talks about the challenge of motives, methods, and measurements for a hero maker. How do each of those issues show up in Acts 6?

  REFLECT

  • Which of the three challenges is easiest for you to accept, and which is the hardest? Why?

  • If you accept the challenge of this chapter, what’s the greatest personal cost that you will likely pay?

  CHAPTER 11

  The Tensions of Hero Making

  Big Idea: Hero makers courageously live in the tension of doing ministry both here and there, of growing and sending, and of funding facilities and also multiplying new churches.

  The tensest moment in any relay race is the passing of the baton. Spectators at a track meet hold their breath until one runner reaches out and successfully hands off the baton to the next while still racing at full speed. It doesn’t matter how fast you run if you don’t cleanly execute the handoff. This lesson was learned and relearned at the Olympics by USA’s women’s 4x100 relay team.

  In the 2000 Sydney Olympic games, the USA women’s 4x100 team should have won. They had the fastest individual runners and the fastest team. But they were sloppy coming into the second exchange of the baton and ended up in third place behind the Bahamas and Jamaica.

  In the 2004 games in Athens, Team USA once again had the four fastest individual runners and the fastest overall team. But as Marian Jones went to hand off to Lauryn Williams, she slowed down because of fatigue, and by the time she had passed the baton, they were outside the exchange zone. The women’s 4x100 team was disqualified.

  USA was favored again in 2008 at Beijing Olympics, but on the third exchange, Torri Edwards attempted the handoff to Lauryn Williams and dropped the baton.

  For three consecutive Olympic races, Team USA should have won, but they lost even though their individual and team times were faster than all others. It was a trifecta of reminders that it’s not about the speed of the individual runner if the baton is not successfully passed.

  Then came the 2012 Olympic games in London. USA’s women’s 4x100 executed each of the baton exchanges flawlessly and in the process broke a twenty-year record!

  Hero makers understand the lesson here. It’s not about how great we are or how great our ministries become. It’s about raising up more and more leaders, pouring into those who are coming alongside us and after us, and successfully passing the baton over and over again.

  The Tensest Moments in Hero Making

  To accept the challenge of passing the baton and being a hero maker is not the end; it’s really just the beginning. If enough of us accept this challenge, then we will begin to band together as hero-making leaders and hero-making churches. That will be important, because we need each other’s help. Leaders and churches who put God’s kingdom first and prioritize multiplying and sending also have to be prepared to deal with a unique set of tensions. We don’t necessarily work to resolve these tensions; instead we learn to live with them, acknowledging their presence and how they can stifle our commitment and efforts to multiply.

  Let me explain three of the tensions common to every hero-making leader and church.

  1. The Tension of Proximity: Do We Focus on Here or Do We Go There?

  Hero-making churches focus on both here and there, not just ministry in their own immediate community.

  If you’re serious about hero making, you’re also serious about leading and becoming a church that is all about reproducing and multiplying. Compelled by the vision of Acts 1:8 to go from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and to the ends of the earth, your church may start here, but it knows that it also needs to go there, there, and over there too! We create a proximity tension to focus on what we’re doing here and have a vision for something over there.

  When I speak at conferences or conduct workshops, I often pass out dream napkins (introduced in chapter 5). I tell people to write out on the back of the napkin the dream they have for their church, like I had you do.

  I love it when I receive a tweet (@daveferguson) or get tagged on Instagram (fergusondave) or Facebook by a participant sharing with me his or her dream napkin. (Send me yours!) When I look at a dream napkin, I can tell within seconds if the creator is dreaming of a Level 3, 4, or 5 church. How?

  • If the dream napkin has one symbol for one church in one city, I know the best it will ever be is a Level 3 church.

  • If the dream napkin looks like something with a few spokes coming off the center, symbolizing a reproducing church, I recognize the potential of a Level 4 church.

  • If the dream napkin resembles an atomic explosion multiplying both near and far, that tells me they are dreaming of a Level 5 church.

  FIGURE 11.1

  One of the many things I love about Mission Church in Roselle, Illinois, is their desire to live in the tension of both here and there. Jon Peacock and Tommy Bowman started this church dreaming of what they call the Ten. The Ten refers to their dream to start ten new churches in the ten communities closest to Roselle.

  I’d rather see one small church that is starting ten churches than a church of one thousand that’s not starting any churches. Why? The latter has capped its impact at one thousand people, but the former has exponential potential because each of those ten churches is a reproducing and multiplying church!

  If you were to ask James Griffin of CrossPoint City Church and Jason Gerdes of Revolution Church about their dream napkins, they would tell you about the fifty new churches they’re starting in and around the city of Atlanta. Both of these hero makers have decided to put God’s kingdom ahead of their own kingdom by forming a NewThing network with nine other churches working together to plant new reproducing churches. That network is not for the benefit of their local church (here) but for the sole purpose of starting new churches (there).

  I’d rather see one small church that is starting ten churches than a church of one thousand that is not starting any churches.

  If you’re part of planting a new church, then start from the very first day with a dream of being a Level 5 multiplying church. Write it out on a napkin. Pray over it. Share the dream with others. Never give up on that dream.

  If you’re a part of an existing church, do what you can to facilitate a re-dreaming process. I’ve seen established churches begin to dream again. When Kevin Pike became the lead pastor at Ridge Point Church in Holland, Michigan, he took over a Level 3 church that had grown
very large. Kevin knew that he wanted to use the resources and influence of Ridge Point to see it become a Level 4 or 5 church. He joined NewThing, in which every church fills out an annual MRP (“my reproducing plan”), and so Ridge Point made a commitment to not just being here but also planting new churches there. Kevin brought in new staff members, such as Bob Carlton, who had expertise in hero making and put into place a leadership residency program. After sensing the buy-in from the congregation, they have now set a goal to plant 235 new churches in twenty-five years! They are living in the tension of here and there.

  All this dreaming is very motivating, but getting it done is hard work. I can guarantee you it will create a tension. You will have to lead, manage, and grow this church here while at the same time sending people and resources to the new churches you dreamed of over there. It’s not easy, but it is so worth it!

  2. The Tension of Priority: Do We Prioritize Growing or Sending?

  Hero-making churches are both growing and sending; they prioritize sending capacity, not seating capacity.

  This next tension is where you shift from having a dream on a napkin to deciding what is really important. This is the tension of priority; you’ll be forced to ask and answer hard, telling questions.

  • “Am I looking for volunteers and leaders to fill a slot in a program, or am I looking to commission Christ followers and leaders for the Jesus mission?”

  • “Do I develop leaders for growing this church or for starting new churches?”

  • “Is my priority growing my attendance or sending people out for kingdom work?”

  Please make sure you hear this: There is nothing bad about growing! Let me be clear—healthy growth is good! Very good! But ask yourself, “Why do we want our church to grow? Are we growing to increase our seating capacity, or are we growing to increase our sending capacity?”

  If you decide to be a hero-making church that both grows and sends, you will experience tension. I remember being asked by one of the largest churches in the country to do a consultation on how to reproduce. They wanted to start reproducing new sites and go from Level 3 to Level 4. This church was a beautiful example to other churches of how to do things right and with excellence. I gave them a complete presentation and explained the challenges and tensions I saw ahead for them.