Hero Maker
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Then let’s carry it even farther. What if those witnesses also had a prayer of commissioning for you? Could they charge you, as in public “I do” moments you’ve seen in other church ceremonies like weddings, marriage renewals, or baptisms? Simply have them read the document aloud, with you responding, “I do” after each of the five statements, and then lay hands on them and conclude with prayer.
If you also want our church to pray for you, email your name to me personally at DaveFerguson@communitychristian.org (or tweet me @daveferguson). When we do our next church-wide commissioning of our own leaders, we’ll pray for you as well.
The Hero Maker’s Daily Question
Finally, to keep that commitment to the hero maker’s creed alive on a daily basis, I want you to begin each day with the leadership question I gave you in chapter 2. Begin each day recommitting yourself by answering this question:
HERO MAKER’S CREED
Our Lord and Savior Jesus made this hero-making promise to all of his followers: “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these” (John 14:12). Therefore:
1. As a hero maker, I commit to thinking with a mindset of multiplying leaders and refusing to put limits on what God can do. My model is Jesus’ vision of a movement from “Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
2. As a hero maker, I commit to seeing the leadership potential in others and not being afraid of those who may be better than me. My model is when Jesus said, “Come, follow me…and I will send you out to fish for people” (Matt. 4:19).
3. As a hero maker, I commit to sharing what I’ve learned by discipling leaders and not being satisfied until I’ve seen it multiplied to the fourth generation. My model is the diatribo way that “Jesus and His disciples went out…where He spent some time with them” (John 3:22).
4. As a hero maker, I commit to blessing leaders by sending them out and not holding on to them. My model is when Jesus said, “All authority…have been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:18-19).
5. As a hero maker, I commit to counting only what advances God’s kingdom and not just what increases my kingdom. My model is when Jesus said, “Seek first his kingdom” (Matt. 6:33).
Signed (your name, today’s date)
Witness #1 (name and date) Witness #2 (name and date)
© 2018 Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird. Permission granted to make unlimited number of copies of this page if for free distribution. See also HeroMakerBook.org for additional resources.
AM I TRYING TO BE THE HERO, OR AM I TRYING TO MAKE HEROES OUT OF OTHERS?
Include this “ask” during your daily prayer time with God, maybe personalizing it for each new day: “Lord, please show me which people to make into heroes today.” In your journal, write out and then answer this question daily. You figure it out how and when, but you need to answer this question every day going forward. The simple practice of reflecting daily on this question will change the trajectory of your leadership. It will push you away from your kingdom toward God’s kingdom. It will propel you toward movement making. More than anything, other than God himself, it will help you maximize your leadership. Recommit yourself daily by asking, “Am I trying to be the hero, or am I trying to make heroes out of others?”
Before you finish this book, there’s one more thought: Remember my good friend Pastor Oscar Muriu, a true hero maker from Nairobi? Because of the inspiration he has provided me for hero making, I have asked him to close with a few inspiring words just for you (okay, for me too). Don’t skip it.
Hero Maker Discussion Questions
OPEN
• Describe a time when you went public on something in a way that made a huge difference. Maybe it was your baptism as a youth or adult, maybe an honor pledge you signed at school, or maybe even the “I do” of a wedding ceremony or wedding proposal.
DIG
• Read Matthew 13:10–12, where Jesus talks about the secret of the kingdom of God. What is the secret he’s referencing?
• How does it apply to the secret this book seeks to make public?
REFLECT
• Imagine your life one year from today, after sticking with the challenges you accepted in this chapter. What do you suspect the greatest spiritual fruit will be?
Afterword
A Call to Action by Oscar Muriu
If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
Oscar Muriu is an inspiring example to me of hero making. Throughout the pages of this book, I have frequently mentioned Pastor Oscar because he is a world-class leader. I remember sitting around a conference table at our first NewThing global summit in Nairobi, Kenya. At the time, we had about three hundred churches that were part of NewThing, and we were talking and praying about what God wanted us to do next. That’s when Oscar spoke up and said, “Ten thousand multiplying churches!” Everyone laughed—except Oscar. He continued, “We will plant two thousand in Sub-Saharan Africa; you can do three thousand in Asia; you can do one thousand in North America . . .” and around the globe he went on, assigning God-size goals for the nine different regions of the world. Oscar summarized his challenge by saying to us all, “Let’s set a goal so big that it makes God sweat!”
That was the moment I knew I loved this guy, and it was also the moment that NewThing set its sights on seeing ten thousand multiplying churches globally.
Since that meeting, Oscar and I have been traveling the world, looking for leaders to start multiplying churches and networks. If that’s you, we’d love to hear from you! And because Oscar has been such an inspiration and an encouragement to me, I wanted to give him the last shot at inspiring you to become a hero maker.
Not long after I became the pastor of Nairobi Chapel, it began to dawn on me that there was way more God wanted me to do than I could do myself. I could get only so far. I could do only what one person can do. I kept coming back to Jesus’ statement, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matt. 9:37–38). In his statement, Jesus gives us not only a problem but also a solution: he says the problem is that there are not enough workers, but the solution is to pray that God will raise up people around us. Jesus’ strategy was to first find his leaders, invest in them, and then focus on the harvest. So I accepted that Jesus’ words were absolutely true.
One of the young leaders that God raised up at Nairobi Chapel was Muriithi Wanjau. He was in college, studying to be a biochemist, when I began investing in him. It took two years of us journeying together for him to realize that God had called him to ministry. It was then I invited him to pastor one of the campuses of Nairobi Chapel. When I saw he was ready, I released Muriithi and that campus to become a new church, called Mavuno, where he is the lead pastor.
Today Muriithi not only leads that flourishing ministry of thousands but is also following a call to plant a culture-defining church in every capital city in Africa and in the gateway capitals of the world. As he has often said to me, “Pastor Oscar, you threw me into the deep end of ministry—and it forced me to swim.”
What if Muriithi had instead continued his studies as a future biochemist, not seeing in himself that he would be a minister of God’s Word? It took a couple years, but with Muriithi, I simply confirmed what God was already doing in his life. I discovered that the size of your harvest depends on how many leaders you have. The problem is not with the harvest. The harvest is plentiful. The problem is with the harvesters.
The size of your harvest depends on how many leaders you have.
There is an old African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Today there are still many people whom God is calling, but no one confirms or encourages. Too often if no one comes along and speaks into their lives, their doubts and anxieties drown out the call of God. Too
many of us are going it alone.
When I note qualities of leadership in a younger person, I will often have a conversation over a cup of coffee. I affirm, “I see leadership in you,” and then I ask, “Could it be that God is calling you?” So often I hear something like, “I thought that, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know whom to turn to. Now that you say that you see something . . .”
I think one of the things we need to learn as leaders is the discipline of listening to the Spirit of God to discern what he’s doing in raising up leaders around us. A few will be bold and ask, “Could you please mentor me?” Others just hang around you, eager and desirous to learn from you, but are not clear on what to do. Still others need you to reach out to them. How can we expect them to build something until someone has taught them how to do it?
Let me give you two challenges.
First, will you pray for leaders and then begin to work with those whom God is raising up around you? Too often today we don’t take Jesus’ promise to send workers as a personal point of engagement. We become so busy and caught up in the work of ministry that we have no time to invest in the next generation of workers and to raise up leaders. Instead we look to the graduating class of our theological institutions and seminaries—but that’s not the solution the Lord gave. So pray and look around you to see whom God is raising up.
Second, will you get other leaders praying and looking for whom God wants to use? I regularly sit down with my own leaders and ask, “Who do we see around us whom we think God is calling? Let’s pray about these people for two months, that if God is calling, it would resonate with them.” We call that group our “hit list” because we approach hero making in a targeted fashion. We don’t want to see the voice of God become drowned out in those lives!
If you are going to be a hero maker, it starts with prayer. It continues with pouring yourself into the people whom God has put around you. Then cultivate into them the practices of hero making: multiplication thinking, permission giving, disciple multiplying, gift activating, and kingdom building.
If you do that, and if I do that, and if we all do that, the mission of Jesus will be accomplished, and God’s kingdom will come to earth!
APPENDIX 1
Chapter Summaries
If, after you have read the book, you want to find something in it quickly, use this tool.
Introduction
• Definition of hero maker
• Overview of the book
• Comparison of “common practice” and “hero-making practice”
• Jesus as a hero maker
1. Jesus’ Leadership Secret
• Basketball’s Bill Simmons and Isiah Thomas
• Jesus’ secret of “greater things”
• Paul’s secret of the body of Christ as a team function
• Comparison of hero and hero maker
• Sam Stephens and 3.5 million believers in India
• Michelle Bird’s apprenticeship team
• Hero making as a force multiplier
2. The Wrong Questions
• Asking Bill Hybels the wrong questions
• Five levels of churches defined
• Examples of Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 questions
• Leaders who decide, “There has to be more.”
• Hero maker question to ask yourself every day
3. The Right Questions
• The right questions from the business world
• Asking questions that lead to greater spiritual impact
• Comparing addition with exponential multiplication
• Examples of Level 4 and Level 5 questions
4. Leading as a Hero Maker
• Jesus’ ministry emphasis was his twelve leadership residents.
• What “greater things” looks like for Community Christian Church
• Oscar Muriu from Kenya and the next generation
• MOPS as example of hero making
• Overview of the five hero-making practices
• Difference between hero and hero maker
5. Multiplication Thinking (Practice 1)
• For every hero, there is a hero maker.
• Twelve steps of a hero’s journey
• Hero makers live and teach multiplication thinking.
• How Jesus taught a multiplication mindset
• How multiplication thinking changes the questions
• Example of women’s small groups at Community Christian Church
• Examples from dream napkins
• Profile: Ralph Moore, Hope Chapel, Hawaii, as hero maker
• Simple tool: Dream napkin
6. Permission Giving (Practice 2)
• Derwin Gray, football, and Transformation Church
• Jesus sharing his authority
• Sean Sears being told, “No thanks, Dude, we’re all set”
• Fears that keep us from giving permission
• Six levels of permission giving
• Simple tool: An I-C-N-U conversation
• Derrick Parks in Wilmington, Delaware
• Profile: Jerry Sweat and Joby Martin, Jacksonville, Florida, as hero makers
7. Disciple Multiplying (Practice 3)
• Jesus, John 3, and diatribo
• Apprenticeship and disciple multiplying
• Apprenticeship in the story of Community Christian Church
• Mary, Dr. Bill, and other disciple multipliers as volunteers
• Worship arts and apprentice multiplication
• Mentoring artists at Bayside Church
• Developing interns
• Profile: Mario Vega, Elim Christian Mission, El Salvador, as hero maker
• Apostle Paul’s command to multiply disciples
• Simple tool: Five steps of apprenticeship
8. Gift Activating (Practice 4)
• Duane and Sauda Porter’s dream of a different Chicago
• Jesus held a commissioning for his apprentices.
• Nairobi Chapel and the commissioning of thirty-one church planters
• How gift activation can go wrong
• How gifts are activated
• Obe Arellano’s gift activation and commissioning
• Brian Sanders and Tampa Underground’s microchurches
• Simple tool: Commissioning
• Profile: Joe Wilson, Eastern Europe, as hero maker
• Commissioning Ryan Kwon at Exponential
9. Kingdom Building (Practice 5)
• Basketball scoreboards don’t lie.
• Jesus’ standards for kingdom winning
• Kingdom scoreboard ideas from Scripture and from Reggie McNeal
• Moneyball and ideas for scorecards and scoreboards
• Community Christian’s dual scoreboard
• Profile: Ajai Lall, Central India Christian Mission, as hero maker
• Simple tool: Simple scoreboard
• Ways to count and measure apprentices
• How to track multiplication versus addition
10. The Influence of Hero Making
• Looking for a spiritual inflection point
• Why only about 4% of all U.S. Protestant churches have ever reproduced
• Today’s shift from “grow big” to “grow and multiply”
• Moving the needle from 4% to 10% to create a tipping point
• Motives, methodology, measurement
11. The Tensions of Hero Making
• Tension of proximity: here or there?
• Examples of Level 3, 4, and 5 dreams
• Tension of priority: growing or sending?
• Tension of funding: facilities or church planting?
• Example of a legacy church’s investment in hero making
12. A Culture of Hero Making
• Seven-step process for creating a hero-making culture
• Institutionalize it by a le
adership path.
• Institutionalize it by leadership community.
• Institutionalize it by leadership residents.
• Seven culture-creating steps develop hero makers
• Seven culture-creating steps attract hero makers
• Any strong culture has values, narrative, and behaviors.
13. A Secret to Be Shared
• Brian Bolt’s journey to hero maker almost cost him his life.
• How Jesus shared the secret
• Hero Maker’s creed
• Hero Maker’s daily question
Afterword: A Call to Action by Oscar Muriu
• Oscar’s story at Nairobi Chapel, including Muriithi Wanjau
• Pray for leaders and then begin to work with those whom God is raising up around you.
• Get other leaders praying and looking for whom God wants to use.
APPENDIX 2
Tweet the Book
Hero Making in 280 Characters or Less
• Hero makers have discovered the secret that results multiply through others and not through themselves. @daveferguson in #heromaker
• I want to help you become a hero maker so you can help others be hero makers too. @daveferguson #heromaker
• A #heromaker discovers that dying to self & living for God’s kingdom thru others is the secret of multiplied results and greater impact.
• Jesus told his followers that he was investing his life in them so they would do greater things than he would. #heromaker
• The “secret” is simple: think about the kingdom of God more than about yourself or even your church. @daveferguson in #heromaker
• When I begin to seek God’s kingdom more than my kingdom, his power and purposes are revealed to us and through us, says @daveferguson
• It’s not about your personal stat line. It’s not just about growing your church. It’s about the kingdom. @daveferguson in #heromaker