CNLP 805 | The Reason Your Church Isn't Multiplying and Fresh Trends in Church Planting With Dave Ferguson

Summary

The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
Episode 805 | The Reason Your Church Isn't Multiplying and Fresh Trends in Church Planting With Dave Ferguson
Original Air Date: May 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Carey Nieuwhof sits down backstage at the Exponential Conference with Dave Ferguson—founding pastor of Community Christian Church and president/CEO of Exponential—to discuss why most churches aren’t multiplying, the latest in church planting, and the evolving landscape of what “church” even means today. The conversation dives into the challenges, fears, and opportunities around church planting, strategies for multiplication, and practical frameworks from Dave’s new book, Multiplier.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How Church Planting Has Changed (02:46–06:08)

• Shift in Who Plants Churches:

  • 20 years ago, church planting was a “next gig for youth pastors.” Now, the pipeline is broader—focused on the priesthood of all believers and not just clergy.
    • “We really are today… championing this idea of the priesthood of all believers.” (03:57, Dave Ferguson)

• Diverse Models, Not ‘One Size Fits All’:

  • Formerly, the dominant model was a large launch event with a core team and targeting 200+ people. Today, there’s recognition of the need for “all kinds of churches for all kinds of people”—from microchurches to digital, networked expressions.
    • “That was kind of also predominant, I think… now we would say… we need all kinds of churches for all kinds of people.” (04:20, Dave Ferguson)

2. The Rise and Evolution of Microchurches (06:24–12:14)

• Microchurch vs. House Church:

  • Old house churches: often birthed from frustration with traditional church (“I hate church, so I’m going to do my own thing”).
  • New microchurches: Clear missional focus, networked for support, intent on multiplication—not just discontent.
    • “The microchurches that we’re seeing now aren’t like, ‘I hate church’ … there’s very much a clear missional purpose… and they’re also doing this together.” (07:24, Dave Ferguson)

• Global Reach via Digital and Training:

  • Community Christian’s microchurches, initially developed for Chicago, spread globally due to online training. Now, 320 microchurches exist across multiple countries, impacting over 8,000 people.
    • “Long story short, we’re four years into it and now community has 320 microchurches… more than 8,000 people are part of these microchurches.” (10:26, Dave Ferguson)

3. Permission, Control, and Multiplication Mindsets (18:40–24:47)

• Barriers: Control, Ecclesiology, Permission, and Fear

  • Pastors often default to “No”: due to desire for control, fixed models, or fear of losing people, leaders, and donors.
  • Dave urges leading with “Yes,” which doesn’t have to mean funding, promoting, or controlling every new effort.
    • “I think more leaders need to lead with a yes… that’s not the way movement happens…” (20:00, Dave Ferguson)
    • “Give them permission to do a lot of things.” (22:01, Dave Ferguson)

• Fear of Loss is Real, But Limiting

  • Fear-based leadership (losing best leaders, donors) limits multiplication. Multiplying churches end up growing more than those who don't plant or release leaders.
    • “Churches with a big multiplication vision actually grow more.” (25:29, Dave Ferguson)

• Kingdom Over Scarcity

  • Giving away leaders and resources for multiplication expands influence and fulfills kingdom goals.
    • “If you continue to let go of control and not just try to hold on to everything… God gives you more and more opportunity.” (24:13, Dave Ferguson)

4. Personal and Cultural Influences on Multiplication (27:23–31:04)

• Dave credits mentorship (Bob Buford: “My fruit grows on other people’s trees”) and his mother’s encouragement for shaping a “hero-maker” culture in his leadership.
• The importance of believing in and empowering others:
  • “Before I ever kind of believed in myself… I could hear, like, [my mom’s] voice… ‘You can do this. You can do this.’” (29:55, Dave Ferguson)

5. The Four Gauges of Multiplying Leaders (35:12–44:16)

• From Luke 2:52—Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man.
• Four gauges: Relational, Physical, Mental, Spiritual.
  • “Every day… I actually put a little gauge, and I give myself a score… How am I doing relationally? … physically? … mentally? … and spiritually?” (35:40–35:54, Dave Ferguson)
• Leaders often drift in one or more gauges, leading to dysfunction or burnout.
• Relational and mental health are common weaknesses for pastors.
  • “Most pastors don’t have people they can really tell everything…” (38:58, Carey Nieuwhof)

6. Importance of Intentional Friendships and Health (41:19–47:34)

• Long-term friendships require intentionality; close relationships are essential to avoiding drift and burnout.
• Physical discipline enables longevity and vitality in ministry:
  • “God gave you a good body… meant for a lot of you to make a difference for 75 or 80 years.… Some of you are going to check out at 55 or 65… I had 10 or 15 years for you.” (46:11, Dave Ferguson)

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Multiplier Framework: The Four Practices (48:14–52:41)

1. Make Disciple-Makers

   • Define a disciple as “someone who hears from God and does what he says.”
   • Multiplication only happens through personal, intentional relationships.
     • “If you can name somebody that you’re saying ‘I’m making a disciple-maker’… then you’re doing the work.” (48:48, Dave Ferguson)

2. Establish Spiritual Communities

   • Not about the name (small group, missional community, etc.), but about authentic, shared life.

3. Mobilize New Leaders

   • Give away leadership, permission, and new assignments; become a “hero-maker.”

4. Launch Church Expressions

   • Releasing a variety of church forms to impact all kinds of people.

   • “We need all kinds of churches for all kinds of people.” (51:28, Dave Ferguson)

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Real-World Fears: Sending Out Your Best Leaders & Givers (52:41–57:07)

• Story: Dave’s youth pastor wanted to plant a church—hard emotionally and practically, but it ultimately birthed a massive generational impact.
  • “My first reaction, like you talk… ‘Oh, crap.’ Because I like this guy a lot. In fact, he’s doing a great job.… But what God was doing, that was our very first church plant… [later] we helped plant over 35,000 churches.” (54:13–54:55, Dave Ferguson)
• Financial fears (losing top givers) are real, but faith and open-handedness lead to God’s provision and greater kingdom influence.
  • “A guy who gave a seven figure gift to help us build our building decides he wants to go with them… My experience is God’s faithful.” (56:00, Dave Ferguson)

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The Five Levels of Church: Measuring Multiplication (57:27–62:33)

• Level 1: Declining

• Level 2: Plateaued

• Level 3: Growing

• Level 4: Reproducing (started a new church/campus in last 3 years)

• Level 5: Multiplying (4 generations or more)

• Only 7% of US churches are reproducing or multiplying (recent data), up from 4% a decade ago. Exponential’s vision: reach the 16% tipping point.

  • “If we get 16% or more to become reproducing or multiplying churches, that can change the spiritual landscape of the United States.” (59:54, Dave Ferguson)

• Church planting is the single greatest source of both spiritual and social capital in communities.

  • “Churches are the greatest source of spiritual capital that we have… [and] the best source of social capital we have.” (61:02/61:19, Dave Ferguson)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Microchurch Movements:

  • “Between me and you, that is a story that hasn’t been told. And I think… if [big churches] would get serious about training people that way online… it could be tens of thousands of churches.” (10:48, Dave Ferguson)

• On Giving Permission:

  • “What I hope you’ll hear in this is… there’s a dream that God has for every person and it’s your job to help fulfill that dream and not try to control it.” (55:12, Dave Ferguson)

• On Multiplication vs. Growth:

  • “Growing is good… I’m telling you multiplying is great.” (22:48, Dave Ferguson)
  • “You can do both. In fact… churches with a big multiplication vision actually grow more.” (25:29, Dave Ferguson)

• On Drifting:

  • “Drift is always accidental and unintentional. 100%.” (42:19, Carey Nieuwhof)
  • “If you just walk from here to your neighbor’s house and you drift by one degree… no one notices. But if you fly from Chicago to Orlando and drift by one degree, you’ll end up in the ocean.” (42:47–43:04, Dave Ferguson)

• On Legacy & Mentorship:

  • “My fruit grows on other people’s trees.” (27:39, Dave Ferguson quoting Bob Buford)

• On the Church’s Societal Role:

  • “If we start more churches… not only the humans flourish, but then whole communities flourish. It’s a halo effect.” (61:54, Dave Ferguson)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Church Planting’s Evolution: 02:46–06:08
• Microchurch and Global Movement: 06:24–12:14
• The Multiplier Mindset—Yes over No: 18:40–24:47
• Fear and Scarcity vs. Kingdom Mindset: 22:09–25:27
• Four Gauges for Multiplying Leaders: 35:12–44:16
• The Four Practices of Multiplication: 48:14–52:41
• Handling Loss of Key Leaders/Givers: 52:41–57:07
• Five Levels of Church & Vision for 16%: 57:27–62:33

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Tone and Takeaways

The conversation is candid, hopeful, and practical, encouraging leaders to give away permission, embrace new models, and intentionally develop their inner life alongside outward multiplication strategies. Dave Ferguson’s stories and frameworks illustrate that releasing control and multiplying leaders—even at cost—yields exponential kingdom impact.

For those seeking to grow, reproduce, and multiply their church’s impact—and for those wrestling with “what’s next?” in church leadership—this episode offers both challenge and encouragement.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Dave Ferguson’s new book: Multiplier
• Exponential Conference and resources: exponential.org
• Art of Leadership Academy: theartofleadershipacademy.com

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Transcript

[Carrie Newhoff]

The Art of Leadership Network.

[Dave Ferguson]

I think a lot of us have been influenced by business, right? And I'm. And I got no knocks. I love all the business stuff. But here's the part about business. Business has taught us that you have a target customer. Yeah, you have this target customer. Here's the people we're going after. And why do large churches do this? And if. If the idea or the concept or whatever you're bringing in front of me doesn't fit what that person wants, what that person needs. And the answer is no, because you have to say, you know, not a note. So you can say yes to the great things. We've all heard that over and over again. That's partially too. But it's also. That's not the way movement happens.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast. I'm so glad you joined us. Whether you're watching or whether you're listening, welcome. And if you're a new listener, you get a lot of new listeners every month. Make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you're watching or listening, because then you'll get great interviews like the one I have today with Dave Ferguson. So I came to Exponential this year to try to figure out what's the latest in church planting. And Dave's going to unpack that, and he's going to challenge a lot of our, I'm going to say, idols, like the. The mixed motives that live inside of us. The, you know, if we really become a multiplying church, what happens if our best givers leave? What happens if our best leaders go and plant that other church? Well, church planting has also taken new forms. And talk about microchurch, how that's different from house churches, what's changing in the church planting space? So if you're a church planter, if you want to see your impact multiplied, this is going to be a great conversation. Dave Ferguson is the founding pastor of Community Christian, which has gone on from a handful of friends to reaching thousands of people in Chicagoland. He founded that church with his brother John and just passed it off to the next generation of leaders. He is the president and CEO of Exponential, where we're filming this live backstage. So enjoy today's conversation with Dave Ferguson. Well, I'm so glad you joined us today. Whether you are on the live feed for Exponential or whether you're listening via my podcast, we're backstage at Exponential, and I'm here with Dave Ferguson. Dave, you know, you get one of those bios that just goes on and on and on.

[Dave Ferguson]

You know, not sure Because I wrote it myself, because you were a fierce.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Right. But, you know, the heart of exponential for 25 years, church planter, pastor, somebody who's really involved in the church planting space. And I want to open with this question, which is, how have you seen church planting change over the last two decades? Because exponentials in this form has been around for about 20 years. Right.

[Dave Ferguson]

Man, there's a number of things come to mind. I think when we first started I exponential, it was kind of like the next gig for youth pastors.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Okay, and what do you mean by that?

[Dave Ferguson]

Well, I mean, so you'd be a youth pastor, and there was. There was probably 15, 20 years ago, a big emphasis on church planting. And so everybody's like, oh, then they go have what we call an icnu, Right. I have this in you conversation with their youth pastor. And so they would. And then a lot of youth pastors would flatten churches. And that became kind of the pipeline. And then after all the youth pastors were done, that's something where all of a sudden we're going like, oh, we have to develop an actual pipeline. And so that's when conversations really around leadership, residency programs, conversations around how do we begin to look at every person in the pew as a multiplier? Those things begin to develop, which is, weirdly, we really are today. Which I think is, in some ways is great. When a youth pastor Bill's like, oh, I feel a calling. Go plant a church. But I think it's even better to be in this position where we're really championing this idea of the priesthood of all believers. And I think the other thing I ship, I would say 10 to 15 or 20 years ago, most of the time we said church plant, you thought of one type, you thought of a launch, large kind of expression. You do, you know, you get together a core team, you do the marketing, you pick a nine months out, and then you launch hopefully 200 people or more of them.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Right.

[Dave Ferguson]

That was kind of also predominant, I think now we would say, and we're trying to really encourage this. We need all kinds of churches for all kinds of people. And so, I mean, right before the Exponential conference was a microchurch conference where they had record numbers of people that were showing up for that. Uh, it's not just a kind of this kind of sidebar thing that a few people are doing. It's becoming very much a reality even in the Western landscape, and I think is an important part of the future. So there's a lot of different and digital expressions of Jesh Are also. That's something we didn't know about 20 years ago. Which are clearly on the landscape. So, yeah, I think both the people that are planting churches have shifted and

[Carrie Newhoff]

the kinds of churches where platinum has shifted. Would you say it's easier to plant a church today than it was, say, 20 years ago or harder to plant a church today?

[Dave Ferguson]

I'd probably ask you a question. What kind of church do you mean? Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

What's under that question?

[Dave Ferguson]

I think if you're. If. And it also depends on the context.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Sure.

[Dave Ferguson]

So let's. I don't know. You want to go to Toronto, you want to go to Chicago, you want to go to the South?

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah, in the South. Okay. We'll start in the South. Cause that's where a lot of the large churches. Yeah.

[Dave Ferguson]

And I think if you're wanting to start. Do a lunch large kind of plant there. I think it is easier there than it is in Chicago or it is in Toronto.

[Carrie Newhoff]

For example, I was talking to some New England church planters earlier this morning, and I mean, something like 3% of the population attends church still in New England.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

It's very underserviced under church, but they're seeing a bit of momentum.

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh, they are, definitely. And part of what's happening is there's multiple expressions that are. That are using the plant churches, too,

[Chris Sharp]

because I think you're right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

There was more of a box 20 years ago than there is now.

[Dave Ferguson]

So let's. I mean, you've literally had church playing toolkits and you have some of those. But it was kind of like, oh, here's the go to.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah, and this is how you do it. And here's a model. And you gotta get 200 people or more on a Sunday morning. And that's one size fits.

[Dave Ferguson]

All right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So now you've got different expressions of churches. So let's talk about microchurches, because that's been around for a little while. What are you seeing in the microchurch? You know, you had that pre conference. It seems like in what eventual.

[Dave Ferguson]

I want to be clear, it wasn't a pre conference here. It was actually its own conference. Okay. It happened over the weekend, just prior to this, and we're very much supportive of it.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Okay, so what is happening in the microchurch movie?

[Dave Ferguson]

I think some of the things that are happening. One is. Let me get a little too debris. One is they're thinking in terms of networks and then hubs. So, like, for example, if you talk about, like, let's say Kansas, the underground, where Rob Wegner is who. Rob's also a part of our exponential team. There's more than a hundred microchurches, but they're all connected by hubs. And I think one of the things that's a little bit different now is it used to be like a microchurch was kind of like a house church. And a house church meant that I kind of hate church.

[Carrie Newhoff]

That is a lot of house church. So, yes, I hate church.

[Dave Ferguson]

Right. And so you want to start your own thing. The microchurches that we're seeing now aren't like, I hate church, and so I'm going to do my own thing, me and a few other people here. But instead, there's very much a clear missional purpose. There's a clear group they're going after. But then also, like, what? For example, with Kensington Brown, there's hubs where these actually come together to support one another, encourage one another, alert one another, and to make it more sustainable. So who's. I think the missional focus is different than what maybe back in our day. Back in the day, that kind of soured you on the idea of a house church. That's different. They're going after a particular group of people that may not ever come to your large expression of church. And they're also a lot of times doing this together. One other thing that's fascinating, Keller actually predicted this and subscribed and prescribed it that we need microchurches, but they'll probably need to be connected to institutional churches. So you have some that, like Kingston Underground or Tampa Underground, where there's kind of these networks and hubs. But then you also like it, for example, at Community Christian, where the church that we started in Chicago prior to Covid, I'd always been fascinated with this idea of microchurches and wanted to start microchurches. So we get to Covid, and I was coaching people. I'm telling them, hey, if you ever wanted to try something, now's the time to try it, because if it doesn't work, you could blame Covid. And so, you know, we were closed at community for 51 weeks. But in the middle of that, coming out of that, we began to say, hey, what if. Let's give this a go. Let's give this a go trying these microchurches. The guy who really spearheaded was a guy named Rodrigo Cano. And so Rodrigo basically did all the training online. And it was kind of very simple. Ten weeks, we did some of our blessed practices for evangelism, some of our hero making for leadership kind of leadership development. Then we also did kind of what we call the RPMs, which are in multiplayer now for self help. And that was kind of the training. Then we give them ongoing coaching. The crazy part, well, we didn't think about because we were just thinking Chicago. But of course we're off on the train online and it turns out it's the world wide web. And we had people coming to communityonline.org, who were from all over the world. And we had people who was like, hey, can I go through this training? We're like, sure. Well, long story short, we're four years into it and now community has 320 microchurches. There's probably another 80 plus that we've also trained at our departo community. Probably only 20 of them are in Chicago, but you have, oh, I mean, a bunch in Uganda, a bunch in Cuba, a bunch in India and so. And every month through online we provide them ongoing coaching. And at last count, more than 8,000 people are part of these microchurches. And I mean baptizing hundreds and hundreds of people between me and you, that is a story that hasn't been told. And I think there's churches who have a lot bigger reach than even Community, that if they would get serious about training people that way online to start their own expression in church, I mean, we'll make our 320 in four years look like small fries. I mean you could. Some of the church out there, the friends that we have, if they would get after that kind of thing, I'm telling you, it could be tens of thousands of churches. Well, I get that result.

[Carrie Newhoff]

That's a good point. You don't even have to be a big church to have a global audience. There's somebody who latched on to you who's like, I really like that preaching or I really like that music or whatever it is.

[Dave Ferguson]

And we don't need, they don't have to do our videos. Right, Right. I mean they get, we give them content that they can use. But the basic thing, we can be upfront training and then ongoing coaching and you know, some certain kind of vision and values mission stuff.

[Carrie Newhoff]

But I think there's a lot of pastors who are just shrugging, going, yeah, I don't know what to do with that.

[Dave Ferguson]

Right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Like we had 300 people watching or 3,000 people watching on demand or live. We don't know what to do with that. And I think, you know, tell me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like one of the fundamental differences between the historic house church Movement, which I would agree with, is mostly historically disgruntled people who are like, we're all angry about something. We're just going to meet in my living room.

[Dave Ferguson]

Right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

It's not reproducing, it's not outward looking, it's ishwar or missional folks. Or missional. No, it's just like we're not going to give up. But this is as good as it gets. And what it sounds like with the microchurch movement is fundamentally in the DNA. It's about reproducing, it's about multiplying and mission about reaching people. It's mission.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yes, absolutely. And that's a huge, huge difference.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah. And with a hub and some kind of, not just accountability, but also resourcing to say, oh, you need some training, you need this, away you go. So that's one expression of church. What are other expressions of church that you're seeing?

[Dave Ferguson]

Well, I mean, and one of the things that did get accelerated during COVID and kind of, it peaked and then kind of waned and I feel like is also kind of reemerged as stuff that's online. And there's a lot of different expressions of that, I think. I mean, one of my favorite stories, and I'll actually end up telling it during the conference is I think there are unique expressions inside the people that are sitting in the pews of our church. So example, guy named Rick. Yeah, Rick's in my small group, good dude, salesman. And has this huge love for the all abilities community. Okay. So like every summer he goes to camp and spends a week with special needs kids. He loves them, they love him. He has this awesome time. And in small group he comes back. My small group. I mean he just talks about it all the time. Yep. You've got people who are just messing up. Thank you.

[Carrie Newhoff]

And it's in, it's totally just in him daylight.

[Dave Ferguson]

So he comes to an exponential because I invited him. Actually, one of our conferences in Chicago, the closing speaker, James Meeks. James gets up there and he's like, hey, if you've ever thought about planting a church, you don't need money, you just need to be available. You don't need to have a building to go to Planet Church. You just need to be available. You don't need staff, you just need to be. So he's that he's given that aid and you know, James is awesome. So I'm looking down the row and my friend Rick. Can you ask people to come forward to be commissioned? It's our closing session. And my friend Rick is going forward. I'm going, what the heck is happening?

[Carrie Newhoff]

Wait, I'm inviting you to attend, right?

[Dave Ferguson]

For inspiration or whatever. So afterwards I find Rick and I'm going, hey, Rick, what's going on? He said, well, the guy said, you just need to be available. And then he turns to me and is like,

[Carrie Newhoff]

do you think I could

[Dave Ferguson]

start a church for the all abilities community? How about, let's try it? So we run into the same training, that same microchurch training, you know, the 10 weeks of it, and offering coaching several months later. It's been more than two years ago now. In January, early January, in a local gym. At 6pm he launches a church. And because he's got such a network of friends, he had 125 people that show up. And they're all people who have someone in their family who has special needs. Because when they show up, like say a Connectus or a community, I mean, we want to love them, but it's just Kimberly, for example, if one of them just takes their shirt off in the middle of church, it kind of creates a seed and it's awkward for everybody to people around them and for them. But like at Rick's church, everybody's fine with. And sometimes sue and I go and sue calls it beautiful chaos. And I think there's that kind of missional imagination inside lots of people and how, and I mean it costs almost nothing because he's not getting paid. He, I don't, I don't think it's ever occurred to him is it going to be a paying gig?

[Carrie Newhoff]

Right.

[Dave Ferguson]

He's just delighted that someone gave him permission to actually do it. And the rest of the story, which is, I won't go into all the details, but then because he's a multiplier, he's taken some of, some of the people that are part of this community that have special needs. One of them, a guy named William, teaches every other month. Another guy named Trevor, actually, because of Rick's influence, says now he wants to start a church. They're trying to figure out what does that look like. So, I mean, it's. I think there's all kinds of possibilities like that, that we just need to give people permission and a little bit of missional imagination in Let them Go.

[Chris Sharp]

This episode is brought to you by Subsplash. So I've got Chris Sharp with me. Chris, church leaders are staring at AI right now. And it's sort of a mix of fascination and some fear. I feel that personally, is this just noise or is something fundamental Shifting for the local church.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Oh, yeah.

[Subsplash Representative]

I think it's a tremendous shift, and it's really a fascinating time. Carrie. I was at a conference just a few weeks ago in the Bay Area. AI was a major theme. And what surprised me was most pastors have been using AI in some way. They might be using chat or Claude or something like that for sermon commentary or bouncing ideas off, but almost no churches we are encountering have a strategy or a policy for how they're thinking through leveraging AI for discipleship. You know, so at subsplash, we view it. It's not a way to just automate ministry. You're not automating ministry. You're trying to accelerate it. You're not trying to replace your people or the worker or the ministry. You're trying to remove the administrative noise that keeps ministry staff stuck behind their desks instead of doing actual disciple making.

[Chris Sharp]

Well, that makes sense, because I think the common anxiety is that AI makes ministry less, quote, human. But you're saying it has a potential to help you, like us, be more human.

[Subsplash Representative]

Oh, exactly, yeah. Or at least more effective as humans. You know, so that's what we're leaning into, that idea. What if we used AI for a communications director to take your sermon and turn it into 20 different content formats in seconds? And so that's what a tool like Pulpit AI does. You know, giving humans 10 hours back of their week. Or with our Trends AI tool, what if we help your staff analyze their data quickly to better understand how people are giving or engaging in the life of their church? Something that may have taken your staff, you know, hours each week running Excel pivot tables. If you could get more out of your own content or data and use that to focus back on the discipleship journey, then you can have a tremendously increased impact as a church.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah.

[Chris Sharp]

So it's not just about saving people time. It's really about helping them be more effective as well.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Right, right.

[Subsplash Representative]

And about stewardship. We're building tools that help the church leaders lead the mission, and we can lead the technology. You know, what if we can ensure, in this tremendously complex world, making the gospel more accessible than ever, and AI is just another tool to help us get there faster.

[Carrie Newhoff]

There's three words that sort of pop into my mind as we're having this discussion, and they're kind of obstacles to what you're talking about. One is control. Yeah. A lot of pastors really enjoy control. Another would be the box. Now, this is what church is. Oh, this is what church is.

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh, like your ECCLESIOLOGY Yeah, your ecclesiology.

[Carrie Newhoff]

I'm like, well, I don't know what that would look like. And it doesn't fit our model. And the third, I had three, I think might be permission. Just permission to go out. Like, you know, I think probably a lot of people watching this, listening to this, they've had conversations with Ricks in their lives or other people who are like, we want to do like a home church. Maybe they don't have the microchurch word. And they're like, well, that's just a bunch of unhappy Christians. So, no, you come to my box and you sit there on Sunday morning. And what I think is encouraging is we got to look at different models. If we want a different future, we have to look at different models.

[Dave Ferguson]

What would you say?

[Carrie Newhoff]

Because I want to get into the multiplier framework.

[Dave Ferguson]

Well, and I'd love to push it in this.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah, push into that. Push into that. Because I think these are the objections that people have.

[Dave Ferguson]

And we can hit easos. You want to control thing. I want to say something that's not completely true, but it's mostly true.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Okay.

[Dave Ferguson]

I think more leaders need to leave with a yes. Here's what's happened. I think. I think a lot of us have been influenced by business. Right? And I'm. And I got no knocks. I love all the business stuff. I mean, when, you know, when you've got different people on your podcast. I had. I have eaten that stuff up. Because. Because there is a big part about church that is business. So I'm not knocking that. But here's the part about business. Business has taught us that you have a target customer. Yeah, you have this target customers, the people we're going after. And why do large churches do this? And if the idea or the concept or whatever you're bringing in front of me doesn't fit what that person wants, what that person needs. And the answer is no, because you have to say no to no. So you can say yes to the great things. We've all heard that over and over again. That's partially too. But it's also. That's not the way movement happens. It's not the way you mobilize the priesthood of all believers. So I think I would encourage lead pastors instead. And it'll get you kind of in trouble, but at least try this to lead with a yes. And when I. And so when a Rick comes to you like, hey, could I. Yeah, let's give it a go. And, And. And here's what. Lead with a yes doesn't mean it doesn't mean you have to put it on your website. It doesn't mean you have to make flyers for it. It doesn't mean you have to advertise. It doesn't mean any of it. Doesn't mean you have to fund it. No, but if. If we'll be willing. Because I don't think that movement actually happens when you release things and you lead with a yes and you allow those things. Because the cool thing about Rick's story, too, is, I mean, like, he'll be here this week and he. He's influencing now people in other parts around the world. And if I would have gone, like, you know what, that's a good idea, but I don't know which staff person I'm going to put it under. I don't know how we're going to fund this thing.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Just be part of my small group

[Dave Ferguson]

and show him on it. And actually, truthfully, like, in our small group, like, he sat on the. He sat on the coffee table, told everybody in our small group about his I'm available prayer, and we put hands on him, our small group, and we commissioned him. It was like his ordination.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah. And

[Dave Ferguson]

I just think. I think I would love for leaders to play with the idea of lean with a yes. And I think I'm giving people permission to do a lot of things.

[Carrie Newhoff]

You know, the other word I was thinking of is fear. There's a lot of fear. Well, it's a zero sum game. So if I let Rick go because you were the lead pastor of, you know, Community Christian, if I let Ricko, that's one less person for me. That's one less donor for me. That mindset is still firmly embedded in the church.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah, yeah, I know. You tell me. See, I think as leaders, the thing we want most, second most after finding the following cheese. Yes, he is thinking of it, because

[Carrie Newhoff]

I think we do.

[Dave Ferguson]

We want to make a difference. We want to have influence. We want to make an impact. And this is where maybe we'll get into this. The growing versus multiplying. Growing is good. Yeah. We've. In that community, we grew a very large church. And that's good. I'm telling you, multiplying is great because. Okay, let's say there's several thousands of people who we're able to reach through community. When you begin to think about all the churches that we planted and through new things, and I want to say this, giving God all the credit, we had to help plant churches in 69 countries and we would keep track and so we helped train and release more than 35,000 churches. So now let's do the math. Let's say a lot of those are smaller churches. Let's say even 40 to 50, because we did a lot of work in Africa and India, besides, all across the United States. I mean, you start doing the math, and it's not. I mean, it's in the hundreds of thousands of millions of people. This is not. This There's. It's not something special about me. I mean, this is the kind of thing we could all be involved in. That's what I love about it. If you just. And like. Like Rodrigo, this guy. I mean, Rodrigo, in the last four years, he's helping start. This is like his halftime job has helped start over 400 Viper churches, 8,000 people. And see, we've got to let go of that thing. I mean, I could tell a story.

[Carrie Newhoff]

No story on that one. It's a mindset, though. And what's interesting, but it's also the

[Dave Ferguson]

thing that leaders that are listening, that's what they want most. They really do want to make an impact. They really don't make a difference. And it's. And it's kind of this counterintuitive thing that if you continue to give aggression or continue to let go of control and not just try to hold on to everything. My experience has been, wow, it's like God gives you more and more opportunity.

[Carrie Newhoff]

And the other thing that's interesting to me is it's not like you sacrificed much in Chicago. I mean, you saw a lot of people come to church. You multisite. I mean, you. You did it all that a lot of pastors would do, but there's still that kind of tight fist. There's still that fear that somehow if you. If this happens over there, I'm going to be diminished. I. I picked. I mean, I interview lots of leaders, as you know.

[Dave Ferguson]

I still picked that up. Oh, yeah. And here's the thing. I think we're stuck still, some of us, in this. Either or thinking of either we can grow something or we can multiply. Right. And the truth is you can do both. In fact, throw a few numbers at you too. Warren Burton. You know, you know, Warren. Warren's great. I mean, whatever. Warren's like, my personal war's amazing. He's like my personal chat GPT. I text them again.

[Carrie Newhoff]

I hit him up for stats, dude.

[Dave Ferguson]

And so. And he would tell you this from his last research project on church planting that churches with a big multiplication vision actually grow more. So if a Church has a vision for planting more than 10 churches. They will. Their average growth rate is 10% or more annually. If a church goes like, no, we're not going to plant a church. They're flat. So these things go hand in hand. Now the good news, I was just talking to Jim Tommerlin just yesterday and Jim told me this, he said that right now and I think this is starting to shift this. Either or either we have to grow something or we can multiply. No, you do both these things is that 49% of multisite churches have also planted churches. And I see this happening a lot. I was recently with our friends at New Spring and I mean it's a large church, multi site church, but they are getting full on, on church planting and, and when they start doing that, I mean if they got 15,000 people, you know, down there, I'm telling you, it will be hundreds of thousands of people around the world. And people need to know you, you can do both. And it's, it's as simple I think as like let's say Carrie, you're in my church. You start with that person and go, what's the dream God's given you? And you're going like, oh, I want to start a small. Okay, let me help you start small. Or you went, oh, I would love to be a campus pastor someday because I love what's happening in the community or Conexus or New Spring. I love what's happening there. Okay, let me help you be a couple fan pastor. Or you come to go like, you know what? I think I really want to start a new church. You know, I got this idea that's kind of this niche thing and I don't think it really works here. Okay, let me help you do that. It's not that difficult. And from day one we did both those things.

[Carrie Newhoff]

I was going to say, are you wired that way? Are you a. Yes of both and expansive thinker. This is not a zero sum game. Is that your natural wiring?

[Dave Ferguson]

I guess. I don't know. But what I do know is along the way I had some really key mentors. So like a guy like Bob Beaufort. We know that name and some never met him. Oh, you didn't meet.

[Carrie Newhoff]

No, never met F.O.B.

[Dave Ferguson]

wow. So Bob would always say this, this was in something he just stuck inside me is he would always say here, here's the thing. And he kind of was the idea. He was the hero maker before I ever wrote hero maker. He would say my fruit grows other people's trees. And that Became like, oh, okay. And he would also this. We're the platform. We're not the show. We're the platform, not the show. And so when you begin to have you get that kind of. That kind of coaching, that kind of mentoring, then you kind of do show up that way. And then when either Kingdom Principles or something reinforces that, because this is sound again, sorry, this is going to sound awkward. Sometimes people are like, oh, Dave, I just. I appreciate your humility, you know, that you're always cheering for other people, you know, and I hope that's true. But part of what's happened for me is as I try to help other people make their dreams come true, and I try to help them accomplish whatever it is that God has for them. I feel like God keeps giving me more influence. Does that make sense? I'm sure you know exactly that.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah. The more you give away, the more you.

[Dave Ferguson]

I mean, it feels biblical, doesn't it?

[Carrie Newhoff]

I think I've read that. At least I've read that, Dave. No, but it's such a. It's. It's a. It's a tension. I mean, some of us. I'm probably wired as a zero sum game guy.

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh, okay.

[Carrie Newhoff]

That if you win, I lose. And I've spent a lifetime fighting that, Tim. Passing out for me that, oh, gosh, it goes back. Oh, here's counseling session number 743.

[Chris Sharp]

It's a really good question.

[Carrie Newhoff]

It probably goes back to childhood, for sure. I don't know. I don't know. But I've realized that that is not true, that that's a lie, and it's the opposite of Kingdom Principles.

[Dave Ferguson]

You know what occurs to me? Four sets, kind of in light of. And we kind of almost got there where it came from for you by God's kindness again. So I grew up in a home that was, I would say, pretty functional. My mom and dad are still alive. They've been married more than 60 years. They love each other, they love God. My mom was the kind of person in particular who was like, a really good coach. You know what I'm saying?

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah.

[Dave Ferguson]

And she would. Before I ever kind of believed in myself or even maybe the Holy Spirit was inside of me. Working this way, I could hear, like, her voice, you could do this. You could do this. And I think there was something about, like, her confidence in all of us. So at a very young age, we start this church early 20s, and I think the culture from my family, believing the best, assuming the best. You can do this. I don't think it Was really like intentional on our part. I think we just didn't. We just kind of took that in the church. And so when you showed up, I was like, oh, you could do this. And I assumed the best. That makes sense. Yeah. So a lot of us probably.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Beautiful gift.

[Dave Ferguson]

What a beautiful gift. Yeah. Which again, I hope is encouraging to anybody who has the privilege of being a parent. Like, that is a huge thing to give. And I think, I feel, so. I don't really feel like the US Is. Are you nationally that wired that way? Maybe it's people like Bob Buford along with. And my bi. Your mom early on, where you take that culture and that culture all of a sudden creates this kind of like can do positive, encouraging, hero making kind of culture. So I want to talk about multiplication. Sure.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So your new book, multiplier. What do people multiply? Intentionally or unintentionally?

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh. And at the, at the core of the book, we. I. If there was only, you know, maybe one sentence I could give people from the book, it'd be you reproduce who you are and what you do.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Gosh, I, I realized that lesson a few years ago that you, you don't reproduce, produce what you think, what you believe, what you hope for, what you aspire to. That if you're kind of a jerk, you're going to reproduce jerks. That's right. If you're kind, you will probably reproduce kindness. That's right. If you're tight fisted, you have a lot of tight fisted people. Is that the principle of the book?

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh, I'm at the core. If I was willing to give you one sentence that did. Yeah. And what we do beyond that then is we kind of start with that as the premise and with that in mind, then how do you be intentional about kind of staying in the step with the spirit? And we've talked about not drifting. Yeah. And so we give kind of these four gauges for how you can check these four gauges so you're not drifting and you're staying in step with the spirit. So you're reproducing good stuff. And then once you're. That's because that's internally who you are. And then we go to what you do and we get the four practices in the multiplier. And both these internal gauges come from the life of Jesus and the four practices come from the light of Jesus. And basically what I tell people is like, and if you'll do this for 10, 15, 20 years, I'm telling you, the kind of impact Uber make is profound. It is the stuff a bouba makes.

[Chris Sharp]

This episode is brought to you by the Art of Leadership Academy. So in this episode, David and I got into something that's been sitting with me. The reason most churches never grow, let alone multiply, is that leaders default to no instead of yes. Now, I'm a proponent of that, but yes has a role as well. In my experience, working with thousands of leaders, that no default sometimes isn't about courage, it's about capacity. Maybe you're saying no because you don't have time. You don't have a plan, you don't have a team ready. You don't have a framework for what to do next. Well, that's why I built the Art of Leadership Academy all access membership. It's every course I've ever created on preaching, leading volunteers, preventing burnout, building healthy teams, growing your church, and a whole lot more. And it's all in one place. And the part that I'm most excited about, once a month, I jump on a live coaching call with you and the rest of our members, and we work through your situations together in real time. It's the closest thing I offer to sitting down across the table from you. Often people are like, hey, do you do zoom calls? It's like, no, I do them in there in the academy. So if today's conversation lit something up in you, don't let it just be an inspiration or a curiosity. Head on over to carynwhoff.com academy. The link is inside the description and join us inside the academy. That's carynwhoff.com academy. I would love to see you in there.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So let's get through the intrigue. Ages. I think the internal life, like, you know, you've been. When did you become a pastor? Were you.

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh, I mean, I started as a youth pastor when I was, I don't know, 21, so.

[Carrie Newhoff]

21. So you've been in this for decades. Yeah, in George, 25. Wow. So you've been at this for decades. And we talk on and offline. You're strong, vibrant, you love Jesus, your love has grown, you have a great marriage. I saw sue this morning. You know, all that stuff. The internal gauges are usually what takes a leader down.

[Dave Ferguson]

Absolutely it.

[Carrie Newhoff]

A hundred percent.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

It's like fast.

[Dave Ferguson]

I.

[Carrie Newhoff]

It's way too many. It's. It's absolutely crushing and heartbreaking to see. And I was talking with people about yet another failure this morning. You know, happened a few years ago, but still devastates an area and just impacts so many. So these Internal gauges. What do you pay attention to if you're going to be a multiplier? Now, what are you paying attention to? 4 gauges.

[Dave Ferguson]

And comes out of Luke, chapter 2, verse 52, Jesus grew in wisdom and stature of favor God and man.

[Carrie Newhoff]

How's my reading this morning?

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh, really? And so the four gauges are relational, physical, mental, and spiritual.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Okay.

[Dave Ferguson]

And, I mean, I can show you here. So it's like every day on my. This. This is my. My journal here. Okay. And so you can see it here.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Wow.

[Dave Ferguson]

This.

[Carrie Newhoff]

You're rating yourself.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah. So I write RPMs, and then I actually put a little gauge, and then I give myself. I actually give myself a score. I was like, keep score? Yeah, I score one to ten. How am I doing relationally?

[Carrie Newhoff]

Okay.

[Dave Ferguson]

It's a seven there. How many?

[Carrie Newhoff]

All right. I was going to read your numbers. A7. Show the camera.

[Dave Ferguson]

Sure. Well, yeah. And I mean, you're going to say anybody? Here's the other thing you need to say. On strength finders, positivity is like number two or three. Okay. So these are going to always skew like six, seven, eight.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So better than ones and twos.

[Dave Ferguson]

Well, that's because of positivity. Sometimes if it's a. Actually one or two, it'll probably be looking like a three or four, but there. Yeah. So that's what it is. Okay.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Seven, seven. Five on mental.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

And then seven on spirit.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah. Why'd you give yourself five right now? Like, on the Sabbath stuff? I suck. Okay.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Well, it is exponential. I mean, there's 5,000. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Dave Ferguson]

Okay. And I would. And that's what I would like to tell the world. That's how we took truth. The truth is I'm not great at keeping that kind of a rhythm. So the two things that I'm working on, on the mental heart is. And actually, we actually working on a. A multiplier check in with you and so that you can actually do this now. Wow.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So you can just check in every day.

[Dave Ferguson]

Every day. And so I've been doing that for the last couple weeks. And the two things I said is, one, I need to get a dream day on the calendar because I get so busy. I need to. I need to have space just to drink, because part of my job is to be in the future, in the vision. But the other thing is I need to have a conversation with sue on how we can do a better job of. And it's not her, it's me. Just in case she wants. Yes, just in case. Yeah, of Doing the Sabbath. And so even with, even with the multiplier check in, because they were bugging me about doing. I said, hey, I'm not gonna do it until after exponential. So like, okay. And they got. Now I gotta be in the calendar running note after expansion. So that's why that goes to remote right now.

[Carrie Newhoff]

No, that's honest. So I don't know that you have data or even a gut sense because you work with so many different leaders. But if most leaders are going to get into trouble, which is the low gauge, which tends to be. I have a theory, but I have no data. Like if you look at it because spiritual. I mean, I've read my Bible every, not every day, but I'm going to say 98% of the days for the last 25, 30 years. I've read my Bible, I pray every day.

[Dave Ferguson]

And if, you know, if you're a pastor type, you're probably working on sermons, you're going to still give yourself a little bit of a better score there.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah, yeah. So I don't know too many atheist pastors.

[Dave Ferguson]

Right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

A failing. You know.

[Dave Ferguson]

But I'm just curious. I wonder, I would. I'm gonna say the mental or physical gauge. What's your guess?

[Carrie Newhoff]

Oh, I was gonna say relational or physical? Real.

[Dave Ferguson]

Well, physical.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Physical can be a thing. It depends what tribe you're at. Like you can. If you're with church planners, most of them are like working out, running hard and they're in good physical shape.

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh, you're saying, you're saying this one's the better one or the. Or the hard.

[Carrie Newhoff]

I would say the ones that are low. The barrel stayed to borrow some old language from the natural church development.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah, I remember that.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Remember that. Yeah, I would say relational.

[Dave Ferguson]

Okay.

[Carrie Newhoff]

That pastors. The data seems to show that most pastors don't have people they can really tie.

[Dave Ferguson]

Are lonely.

[Carrie Newhoff]

They're lonely. And loneliness is a choice. It doesn't have to be. And the other would be mental. The mental help. Just so discouraged. You're a positive person. Generally a positive person, but that sort of general. That would be my guess. What's your take? You think it's physical?

[Dave Ferguson]

No, no, no. It's funny because I haven't really. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about that. I wouldn't, but I would have probably as we were getting into it, I probably would have said mental or physical. Yeah. Because I think physically when you're tired and you're drained, you're. You're susceptible to depression, you're susceptible To I mean all kinds of sins relationally. Yes. So I would say that is probably. And maybe this. Cause those are the crowd I run in who are myself because I'm projecting.

[Carrie Newhoff]

You're pretty fit.

[Dave Ferguson]

No, but I'm. No, but I'm saying what I don't. What I'm. I do stay in good shape. But I also could run too hard. And if you're running too hard, you're exhausted and that exhaustion can lead into a low relational or low mental.

[Carrie Newhoff]

That's true. Physical is more than is what shape you're in. It's, it's, it's your rest, it's your nutrition.

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh that's legally important.

[Carrie Newhoff]

After I burned out that's been like I was sleep crusader. Yeah. Last night because I knew today was going to be a really busy day starting with a breakfast meeting with some of your team and then this interview. I've got an hour long breakout. I've got dinner tonight. A couple of other things. I went to bed at 9 o' clock because I'm like all right, I got to show up today. And if I was out hanging out with people till 11.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

I'm still be a worse interviewer and a worse presenter and all that stuff. Interesting. Because you know your brother's floating around here. I always. First of all there's family dynamics there.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Which is great. And like you and your brother seem to be genuine friends and you've been in the same community now for 40 years.

[Dave Ferguson]

Why is the church together? Did the whole run.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Did the whole run together. You've got long term abiding relationships where I think you can go deep. You can say anything to John, your brother. Yeah. You can say anything and he'll say anything to you.

[Dave Ferguson]

All right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

100%.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah. That's been good.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So that's been really good. You've got those kinds of friendships but a lot of pastors according to the data just don't. What have been the key to long term friendships for you?

[Dave Ferguson]

I. And again there's sometimes though there's different seasons and I've had to be more intentional about it. So like, like even recently. So John and I both moved into now founding pastoral.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Right.

[Dave Ferguson]

Which basically means I'm staying out of Ted's way. I am providing some coaching. I'm teaching like eight times a year.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Sure.

[Dave Ferguson]

And doing stuff with shirt planning. But. And so John and I don't run into each other in the always like we did. And so like I texted her, they said hey let's, let's what if And I checked in with sue first. I said, well, let's get a weekend away where we go do something.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah.

[Dave Ferguson]

And, like, neither. Like, he golfs a little bit. I don't really golf. I think golfed once in last year. I said, why don't we just go golf?

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah, why not?

[Dave Ferguson]

And he was like, so anyway, so we had a date on the calendar where it's just gonna be me and him for three days and we're going to take off. And it really is. It's trying to be intentional because I do value that relationship, and I know it's not going to accidentally happen. And I think in some ways, drift

[Carrie Newhoff]

is always accidental and unintentional. 100%. Like, you can have a great relationship with John and something changed. You're both founding now.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah. And we're dying a year later.

[Carrie Newhoff]

You're like, wait a minute.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah. I've only seen him at Christmas time, when the family gets together. Exactly.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Right.

[Dave Ferguson]

And I don't want that.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah. With my best friend, because we don't live in the same city. We do at least one trip a year. Intentional. We're just going to hang out. We text every day. But you have to be intentional about it.

[Dave Ferguson]

So you've.

[Carrie Newhoff]

You've learned that.

[Dave Ferguson]

Right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

And that's.

[Dave Ferguson]

And that is a big theme, especially in the first half of the body, is that what happens with this very word you use, dripped. What happens with a lot of leaders is you end up someplace you never intended to be because you just a little bit. And I tell this, I use the example. If you're just walking from here to your neighbor's house down the block, and you drift by one degree, I mean, you'll get to your neighbor's alley. You don't notice. They don't notice. Nobody knows. But if you fly from Chicago to Orlando and you drift by one degrade a long distance or a long time, you'll be in the ocean, you'll end up in the Atlantic Ocean. That's exactly right. You end up some. And I mean on a serious kind of note. I mean, I have a voicemail that I saved since 2018, but I play occasionally just to remind me of what can happen when we drift. Right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Well, you're in a city where you've seen a couple of the major churches lose their readers to warfare.

[Dave Ferguson]

Right. Chicago and I was in a small group out of a Spirit of Paul's Walk. We would get together four or five times a year past the largest churches, and I mean, if we tried to reassemble that group, I mean, there'd be several chairs and Ted be empty. And, and I, I don't know how to exact. And I want to parse exactly Right. But I think, I think drift is a way you can explain it because I think some of those folks ended up someplace they, they never intended to be.

[Subsplash Representative]

Right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

That wasn't the, it wasn't the plan. We're going to plant this thing and then I'm going to have an affair.

[Dave Ferguson]

Right. Nobody ever comes to you and goes that I'm going to be a leader. So you've never had a leader come to you? Like, you know what? Hey, here's my dream. 15 years from now, I hope I'm 50 pounds overweight, I'm divorced and compromising my moral convictions. Exactly. But you said like yesterday or whatever, you're talking about yet another. And I think. And that's where like this thing here. I'm not going to say it's foolproof. No. But. And this sounds like an infomercial, but it's true for me. If you'll spend four minutes, like one minute every. On each of these gauges every day just going like, how do I do it? At least you're aware it's a self awareness going, okay, hey, look, I'm starting to drift a little bit mentally because, you know, who am I kidding about? I teach on Sabbath, but I'm not doing great on it. Right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

And, and a day becomes a week, becomes a month becomes a season.

[Dave Ferguson]

Bruce said you're in the Atlantic Ocean. Yeah. Someplace you never be physical, though.

[Carrie Newhoff]

You, you're always running. If you, you know, you're a podcast listener too, which is really cool. Uh, I'm amazed at how many people listen to the podcast. But when we connect, you'll be like, I was on a run and I heard this interview.

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh, yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

I think I realize once every couple

[Dave Ferguson]

of months I'm like, oh, that was awesome, Harry.

[Carrie Newhoff]

That's just great. But you're ready. I mean, still. And you've kept that up. What has kept you physically disciplined? And what is the benefit to that?

[Dave Ferguson]

I feel like when, if you're physically in decent shape or you, because you show up as a whole person and it gives you, you know, this. I fetch anything. Because you went through a Russell.

[Carrie Newhoff]

I did. I was sick a year ago.

[Dave Ferguson]

Right. And I bet you kind of. And you kind of show up and you're kind of, you're going like, ah, man. I just. You don't show up. The same kind of confidence.

[Carrie Newhoff]

No.

[Dave Ferguson]

I'll Even some As simple as this. So, like, Saturday, I was replaced. I wear one contact by one blue. Okay, that's great.

[Carrie Newhoff]

And random facts on outdated.

[Dave Ferguson]

What contact? Well, I was replacing the contact, and I kind of poked myself in the eye. And so, like, during the meeting Saturday and Sunday, it was kind of red. They couldn't see as well. And you could. Just the way you show up, you kind of like, you know, or someone says, oh, you've. Are you tired? You're. You know, and. And so you are a whole person. And I think that's a really important part of who you are, and it allows you to. I think in some ways, I challenge leaders with this. I say, God gave you a good body, and he probably meant for a lot of you to make a difference for 75 or 80 years. Some of you are going to check on a 55 or 65. That's it. And God's going to go like, hey, you're a little early. What is your welcome? But I have 10 or 15 years for you.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Well, the hard part is you can cheat in your 20s and 30s. Yeah. Like when I'm. I don't know whether you have this with your grown kids, but you're vacationing, you're watching when they're eating. It's like, if only. Oh, I can't get away with it anymore.

[Dave Ferguson]

There was. There was in the. So, like, when we first planted the church, I'm probably in my late 20s, early 30s. They had the story on what leaders eat for breakfast in the oval newspaper. And everybody else was kind of like, you know, something healthy. Something healthy. And they got to me, and it was Dunkin Donuts. I felt like Homer Simpson, you know, donut, donut. But I mean, you're right. And you get away with it for

[Carrie Newhoff]

a little while and still run 10K.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Okay. Well, let's.

[Dave Ferguson]

Those are the.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Those are the gauges. And I think that's been really critical. And, you know, I would say, Dave, it's really nice. And there are examples is it's easy to become cynical. It's easy to look out and go, everyone's having an affair. Everybody's failing, everyone's gonna flame out. Like, you know, you've done decades of leadership, Your tank is still full, You've gotta refill it daily. It's still full. And you're running with momentum into the future, which I think is admirable. And there are literally thousands of pastors doing that in their 50s, 60s, and beyond.

[Dave Ferguson]

So that's awesome. What are the other four organs, the

[Carrie Newhoff]

four practices that you look for with a multiplier. Because I think deep down, you know, you've already set the case. Yeah. Most of us, if we're building our little castle, not so much thinking about the kingdom. It's like, well, if you want to be a multiplying leader, what are the four practices? Yeah.

[Dave Ferguson]

And these, again, like the four gauges. Go for the life. Choose four practices. Number one is you make disciple majors.

[Carrie Newhoff]

What does that mean?

[Dave Ferguson]

I think. Well, one is. I would define a disciple as someone who hears from God and does what he says.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Okay.

[Dave Ferguson]

I like that definition. It's. I mean, yeah. Simple, reproducible, understandable. So, and I think here's the best way for you to decide if you're actually doing that. If you can name somebody that you're saying, I'm making a disciple maker, as they would name you, if it goes both ways, then you're doing the work. Does that make sense? And so this is personal.

[Carrie Newhoff]

This isn't. Oh, I preach great sermons.

[Dave Ferguson]

No, no. And I, and I, again, I, I, you know, I talk in front of people a lot. But I am absolutely convinced that the multiplier, the difference the multiplier is going to make. And most, it's going to be around kitchen tables, it's going to be at Starbucks, at Panera's, it's going to be, you know, in living rooms. Those relationships are the catalyst for future growth. The big, big platforms and stage. That's. That's helpful, but it's not, it's not like relationship. And this is what Jesus did. He went out and say, okay, here's 12. And then the second practice is he put them into a spiritual community. And so the second practice we talk about is establish a spiritual community. And I intentionally use generic language because some people want to call them small groups. Some call them missional communities, some call them LTGs, whatever you. I don't care what you want to call them, but you pull together into a community. Because again, relationships are the.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So does this mean that you're part of a small group at your church? Or this is a different intentional small group? I don't care. Oh, you don't care.

[Dave Ferguson]

No.

[Carrie Newhoff]

But you're in community.

[Dave Ferguson]

You're in community. You're doing life with other people that. Yeah, with these other people that are. You're just making into disciple makers.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah, yeah. All right.

[Dave Ferguson]

So that's practice number, and then two. That's practice. No, practice number one is make disciple makers. Okay. And practice two is you establish spiritual communities. Jesus says Come follow me. I'm gonna make you the disciples. And he puts them in the. They're in this group. They're doing life together. And the third one is, you mobilize new leaders. You look around your missional community, you look around your small group, maybe in some cases even your staff team. You go like, okay, who's ready for a new assignment? And how do I give them back to what we talked before? Give them permission, let go of control. Ask them, what's the dream? How can I help? You know, be a hero maker? How do you mobilize those new leaders? Like, Jesus sent them out two by two after they've been in a community for a while. Mike, Rick, who's in my small group. Yeah. You know, Rick's going like, hey, could I start something that a special needs? Yeah, it's all around the kid, around the, you know, the coffee table. In our small group, you commission them and you go like, okay, you go get them. It's. This is really what we've tried to do, a multiplier. And I think it's simple to understand who are you making disciples? Put them in the spiritual community, mobilize. But to keep doing it over and over, it takes some rigor and discipline, and it does.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Is intentionality, and it's not hard to understand. And then what's the fun?

[Dave Ferguson]

And the fourth one is then you launch Church Expressions. Because some of those folks. Okay, some of those folks have that capacity. And where there is a dream for a different kind of. I say launch Church Expressions. Again, giving permission. We need all kinds of churches for all kinds of people. And so back to the example of Rick. Hey, he had this dream. Yeah, let's give it a go, and you give him permission.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So you've done this over and over again. I think one of the fears, talking

[Dave Ferguson]

about the fear that a lot of leaders watching this, listening to this would

[Carrie Newhoff]

have, would be like, do I really have to let my best leaders go? And I imagine you've commissioned staff over the years, some staff that you worked really hard to develop and hire, and now you're sending them away either across town or to a different part of the country or overseas. A lot of leaders really struggle with that. What advice do you give them if they're like, oh, really, I got a. Do you know how hard I fought for this executive pastor? Do you know what a great job she's doing, he's doing? And now I got to give them away. And I got to give away. Wait, I'm looking at the group that Wants to launch this thing. We got 10 tithers in there.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Like, oh, that's a real. That's a reality.

[Dave Ferguson]

So. Yeah.

[Chris Sharp]

What do you say to that?

[Dave Ferguson]

So when we started in community, the dream was to be a reproducing church. Okay. The truth was we were nine years before we were kind of church. Okay, that's a. That's too long. She. What took. What had to happen is our youth pastor came to me and said, hey. And again, it was on paper. And that's the dream. We're reproducing church. But we hadn't. We, you know, leaders and other things, but not church.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah. I mean, in those early years, you're fighting for survival. Yeah.

[Dave Ferguson]

But that's also an excuse because, I mean, I mean, you don't have to send hundreds of thousands of dollars. You could just give one person permission. Okay. Let's be real. So he comes to me, he's like, hey, I want to do what you did. I was like, what'd I do? He said, plan a church. And my first reaction, like, you talk. Oh, crap. Because I like this guy a lot. In fact, he's doing a great job. Well, not only that, but my kids were getting. Going to be teenagers soon. And so I was like, I wanted this kid, this guy could be the youth pastor for my kids. So long story short, I'm like, what are you thinking? He's thinking like Ben Berso. He's thinking, I tell him, hey, why don't you go out there, check it out and then come back and we'll talk. I'm thinking, it's going to wear off, Right? Well, he comes back, big smile on his face. I'm like, what's going on? He's like, oh, man, it went awesome. Like, how awesome? In like eight days, he raised enough money to plant this church. And it was a launched large model, so it was significant daughters. So it was clear God was in on this. I got to the place where, okay, if I don't get behind this, I'm going to. It's going to feel like I'm getting to God's way. So we got in front of all of our people and I said, hey, told them the story, the God thing that happened. And I said, if they're going to Colorado to plant a church, so we're in Chicago, some of you need to go with them. And we had 35 people who made decisions to leave Chicago, sold their homes or transfer school, move there, help plant that church. Now here's the thing. Back to your question. In that moment, I was like, I'm losing the youth pastor. How am I going to find the youth pastor? I'm going to be youth pastor five kids. But what God was doing, and this is what I hope you'll hear in this.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Okay.

[Dave Ferguson]

What God was doing, that was our very first church plant. And again, I told you, we got to work in 69 countries and help plant over 35,000 churches. What God was doing is he was birth of a movement. And what I was doing, I was trying to hold onto the staff first. That makes sense. And that's what's happening over and over again. I'm telling you, you will find another youth pastor and you just need to release him and give him permission. There's a dream that God has for every person and it's your job to help fulfill that dream and not try to control it.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So when you're planting all of that, let's go to what a lot of pastors are most worried about.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

We talked about the people aspect.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

But a lot of them. Will you get them off? Might. We'll be like. And I'm worried financially, like, we're barely getting by right now. And, you know, if you got 35 people going to Denver and even, you know, let's say two of your best givers.

[Dave Ferguson]

Oh, yeah.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Are in that group and they go,

[Dave Ferguson]

yeah, what do you see? What, what's your advice again? I think you kind of have to trust God. So you're John Tacock.

[Carrie Newhoff]

No, I don't.

[Dave Ferguson]

Great show. In the Chicago suburbs. John had worked at Willow, came to leadership residency with us, and we told him like we did over to, hey, you know what? Whoever you want to take with you, you know, take with you. And it turns out that a guy who gave a seven figure gift to help us build our building decides he wants to go with them. Yeah. Same reaction I had about debut pastor. It's like, oh, no, you're slaying deep.

[Carrie Newhoff]

I like the moment when I say,

[Dave Ferguson]

hey, take whoever you want. I know. And I. That's how them. Great. That sounds awesome. But then it happens and you know what I mean? And they've done a great work. But God, I don't know. My experience is God's faithful and I think he's trying to continually grow our faith in these things.

[Chris Sharp]

We all know that.

[Dave Ferguson]

I know. But it's God. It was so hard to do it. Right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

It's so hard to do it to put. Pry those hands open.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah. And at times during communities and ongoingly we continue where. Yeah. Finances are tight. But that's also. I. I would also tell you those are some of the times where God's. I feel like God's growing me the most too.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So we have about five minutes left

[Dave Ferguson]

and we'll do this. Your choice.

[Carrie Newhoff]

We can talk about your latest move, stepping out of the leap pastor wall.

[Dave Ferguson]

Or we could talk about.

[Carrie Newhoff]

I was having a breakfast with Raj on your leadership team this morning. Okay. We were talking about that stat. It's a couple years.

[Dave Ferguson]

Raj is our chief of staff.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Chief of staff. Great. And we were talking about, you know, declining churches, plateaued churches, growing churches, reproducing churches and multiplying churches. And so we could go into those

[Dave Ferguson]

five categories or your trans. Etches the five level. Oh, we gotta go five level.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Oh, we gotta go five levels. Cause this is bigger of academy talk succession. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Dave Ferguson]

Because it seems.

[Carrie Newhoff]

And that's going.

[Dave Ferguson]

It's going. Ted Canaris is crushing it. X hold that out there.

[Carrie Newhoff]

But again, that's a secure leader.

[Dave Ferguson]

Who can say that a lot of the times. True, though guess what?

[Carrie Newhoff]

We're the biggest problem to our successors because we go in and we start meddling or criticizing them and saying, well,

[Chris Sharp]

he's doing a good job by.

[Dave Ferguson]

But if you have the mindset like Bob taught me of my fruit growing other people's trees like his, it be successful, makes me successful. There's a shift in how you think.

[Carrie Newhoff]

All right. That's all you need to know about success. So now onto the the five levels of church. So you've got a lot. There's 350,000 churches, give or take a few in America right now.

[Dave Ferguson]

You got that right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

A lot of them are dying. A lot of them are plateaued. Do you want to break down the percentage a little bit? Raj did a breakfast and I found it fascinating. We ended up at the same math with different process.

[Dave Ferguson]

Yeah. So I mean, what do you have? What. So you got level one which are declining. Yeah. Level two that are plateauing. Level three that are growing. And then level four reproducing. Those are churches that were started a new church in the last three years.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Is that church plants or campuses?

[Dave Ferguson]

It could be either one. Either one and then multiply. Okay. Is those that are up to four generations to beyond.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Okay.

[Dave Ferguson]

Really movement making kind of church.

[Carrie Newhoff]

So they're like their churches are planting churches or better planting churches.

[Dave Ferguson]

All right. Acts 1:8, choose. Yeah. You be the Sumerians. The Earth section to be 2. 2.

[Carrie Newhoff]

4 generations said what percentage are multiplied? Great question.

[Dave Ferguson]

Can we back up just a little Bit let's go. So let's just take those two categories, reproducing and multiplying. Level four and level five. Ten years ago it was at 4%. Then more recently is now at 7%. And when I say recently that's probably whatever two years ago. Dan. So we're at 7%. So it kind of stayed the same during COVID And this is where what exponential we're all about. This is what we wake up thinking about every day. And we would love to get everybody else on board with this is we call it the 16% mission. We want to see 16% of all churches become level four, level five reproduce your multiply.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Why I just say that's an odd number.

[Dave Ferguson]

Okay, here's why it's not an odd number in this reason Everett Rogers is diffusion of innovation. It's going to take it back to you. Now you remember that the diffusion innovation curves. 16% is the tipping point. 16% is the tipping point for changing anything. If you get. I can reverse actually early exponential conference sitting with Tim Keller because he had to come speak and Tim would talk about if I could get a certain percentage of New York to be believers. I think that could be a. I

[Carrie Newhoff]

have that conversation with him too.

[Dave Ferguson]

There you go. Tippy for point. You're changing all New York City. And he said he was right.

[Carrie Newhoff]

1% of New York attended an evangelical church when he got there in 89.

[Dave Ferguson]

And, and, and he was pushing that. And so that's what we're pushing across the country. Okay. So we think if we get 16% or more to become repurchasing or multiplying churches that can change the spiritual landscape of the United States. The reason we believe that is twofold. One is churches. Okay. Reindeer churches are the greatest source of spiritual capital that we have. And by that I mean they're the best evangelistic tool we have. Keller says that it's inarguable.

[Carrie Newhoff]

You can't argue against every. Everybody knows, everyone knows this is true.

[Dave Ferguson]

And that's why we need to get after. So if you're serious about people finding following Jesus brand new church in the best way. But here's the other thing that I think doesn't get played enough. Is that also I think the best source of social capital we have in the United States.

[Carrie Newhoff]

But what do you mean by that?

[Dave Ferguson]

By social capital of people who are generous, people who are willing to volunteer for the things that create you and flourishing because you do do so much stuff with blue. I mean, yeah, I'm going to be preaching the Choir here, but allow me. Harvard's longitudinal stay came away with all these different indicators of human flourishing. Then the one that stood out above all the others were those people who are engaged with a faith community. If you're engaged with a faith community, that is the key thing that leads to human flourishing. And if that's the case, then if we start more churches, and again, we got to have healthy.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Yeah, I talked about that.

[Dave Ferguson]

But healthy churches, Valentine's Day, our live stream has limits, right? We have two minutes. So if we start more churches, those churches create more opportunities for people to be engaged with faith communities. And so not only if the humans flourish, but then whole communities flourish. I mean, tricky. It's a halo effect. Church is just great organizations for helping start brand new things that mobilize volunteers that are great for the community. And so if we can get to that 16% more spiritual capital, more social capital, I think it transforms what's happening in the United States.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Well, this has been a helpful conversation. And you know what? Getting at those non godly forces of fear and control and worry, I think is such a gift. Dave, the new book is called Multiplier. It's out right now. Every day's launch day. Today's the launch day that we recorded this. So if you're watching the live stream, it's available anywhere you get books. Is there a preferred site you want people to buy from or particular offer? And if you're watching on my leadership podcast or listening, you can get anywhere you buy books. Dave, I'm so encouraged. You know, what I love is, you know, we're at a similar stage of life. There's so much gas in your take. There's so much joy in your eyes. There's so much intensity to your mission. And that was a goal of mine when I started out as a young leader and to see the changing face of church planting and what we get to do in this generation and how we get to build into that. Super encouraging. So thank you so much, John.

[Dave Ferguson]

Thank you for being here and thank you for this opportunity.

[Carrie Newhoff]

Well, make sure you get Dave's new book, Multipliers. It's available everywhere. We also got show notes for you. The easiest place to find them is in my Art of Leadership Academy. You can join over 20,000 leaders who have gathered there over the last year. It's free to sign up. Just go to theartofleadershipacademy.com and we'll get you in there. Today we have some webinars. We do a lot of conversations and you'll find some really good people to talk with, including a lot of church planters and people, people who are into multiplying their impact by planting new churches. So you're going to find that inside the academy. Also, if you haven't yet hit follow or subscribe, do so because you will get some great interviews. You won't miss conversations that I'm going to have with Rich Velotis. He's coming up on the podcast. I interviewed him here at Exponential, so you're not going to want to want to miss that. I've also got Eric Reese from the Lean Startup and we have a lot of other leaders coming up on the podcast, so you won't miss that. Thank you so much for watching. Hey, I hope you make it out on the conference circuit and when you do, make sure you drop by and say hello before or after I speak or I'm doing one of these things backstage. I love to meet listeners and hope wherever this episode finds you that you had a great day and this made it a little bit better. I hope our conversation today helped you identify and break a growth barrier that you're facing.

[Dave Ferguson]

Sam.