Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird: Hero Maker

Hero Maker
Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders
(Zondervan, 2018)

WHO: Dave Ferguson, president of Exponential and lead pastor of Community Christian Church in Chicago, and his coauthor Warren Bird, primary researcher and writer for Leadership Network.

THEY SAY: “Everyone wants to be a hero, yet only a few understand the power of being a hero maker—a leader who shifts from being the hero to making others the hero in God’s unfolding story.”

THE BIG IDEA: Whether you lead 10 people or 10,000, you maximize your leadership when you become a hero maker. In doing so, you will also help shift today’s church culture to a model of reproduction and multiplication—God’s power and purpose are best revealed when we train and release others, who in turn do likewise.

THE PROGRESSION:
Part 1 issues the challenge to become a hero maker, drawing on the secret of Jesus’ leadership success—after all, the church stands today on this foundation of equipping leaders to equip leaders.
Part 2 explores the five essential practices of hero making: thinking in terms of multiplication; creating “permission,” and so releasing people into ministry; a pattern of disciple-making that leads us to perceive it as apprenticeship; changing our focus from filling seats to affirming gifts and sending people out into ministry; and kingdom building as opposed to just expanding that one local church—the authors’ simple scoreboard.
Part 3 explores the results of creating a culture of hero making in our sphere of influence and presses toward a church-multiplication mindset.

“Hero makers have discovered the secret that results multiply through others and not through themselves.”

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An Outreach Resource of the Year—Ministry Leadership Category

“This book sees our roles as leaders to be more than just building a great church or organization. We need to work together to encourage kingdom-minded leaders and movements that have the capacity to change the world.”

Evaluated by Ron Edmondson, CEO of Leadership Network who previously served for 16 years as a senior pastor. He also has over 20 years of experience in the business world.

Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird
Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird

Dave Ferguson is an award-winning author, founding and lead pastor of Chicago’s Community Christian Church, a multisite missional community considered one of the most influential churches in America. Dave is also the visionary for the international church-planting movement NewThing and president of the Exponential Conference.

Warren Bird is Vice President of Research and Equipping at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).

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