Great Lakes Annual Conference 2026 - Plenary Session 2 - Dave Ferguson

That was my way of getting two applauses. So, thank you very much. I'll tell you, I am kind of curious. We got any football fans in the room?

Anybody? I mean Michigan, any Michigan people? Go Blue or even the Spartans?

Go green. Okay. A little debate there. We probably won't get as much debate from Indiana. Any Indiana football fans? That was an unbelievable run. Unbelievable. For the first time in a long time, we've had something to cheer about in Chicago. Any Bears fans? Yeah. All right. I know we are very close to Green Bay, and as a Bears fan, I hesitate to ask any Packer fans in the room.

Yes. I'll tell you what, part of the reason I asked, I was sitting back in the back of the room and I thought Scott just did a brilliant job on his talk. Brilliant job on his talk. Let's just give Scott a hand. And I kind of felt like maybe God gave me a word for you all. I do love sports, so it's not surprising that God would speak to me through sports. I felt like, you know what, you guys are almost like a football team. Not separate teams, but one team. As one team, a team has offense and defense, right? It struck me sitting back there going like there were probably a lot of years that a lot of you played defense.

Am I right? There were certain things that you felt like, well, we got to defend that. We got to defend it. It was in some ways, and I wasn't in the trenches with you, but it was kind of like there was a goal line stand and we got to defend this. What makes it challenging for you, and you're in a unique situation, is I feel like this is what God's asking of you. Some of you are ahead of me. I need you guys to play both ways. If you know anything about football, you know there are very few players that have the resiliency, the ability to actually play both ways. Usually you play defense or offense, and then you get off the field, you get a break, a rest, and then you go play offense. But I really did feel like God was just telling me that one of the things I think you need to challenge our friends here that are Global Methodists is, yeah, you did have a season where you played defense, but I can't pull you off the field right now. I need to keep you on the field for the next generation. For the next generation, for people that are far from God, what I need you to do, if you can, if you can, and it's going to be hard, that's what the coach is saying, it's going to be hard, but I need you to play offense. I need you to start thinking about how can we make disciplemakers. Before you got so distracted, it was hard to even focus on that. But also you think about how do you develop leaders? How can we begin to plant churches? Does that make sense?

Okay, I'll tell you what. Do me a favor. Turn to someone near you and find two other people and say, "Okay, let's play some offense. Let's play some offense." All right. Let's play some offense. There you go.

I'll tell you, here's what I want to do. Do me a favor, before you get ready to go back on the field and play offense after playing defense for so long, do me a big favor. Just take a deep breath. Okay? All right. Here we go. One more time. Take a deep breath. Here's what I want to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about the next five, ten years. In some cases, and some of you that are a little younger, I'm going to talk to you about the next 20, 30. There's some of you in this room even the next 40 years. What I want to talk to you about, I think it's not wasted on a Methodist because you guys get both the holiness part of it and also the multiplication part of it. I want to talk to you about how you can be a healthy leader. It really does speak to the holiness part of this. But I also want to talk to you about how you can make a lasting impact. Both those things. Now, when you came in, you noticed you got a napkin. Everybody hold up your napkin. Okay? You know, didn't you feel a little jealous? Like Scott had a napkin dream. Why shouldn't we all have a napkin dream? Right? So, I'll tell you, you got a napkin and here's what I want you to do with this napkin. Two things, and I'll get to it in a little bit, but one thing I want you to find some time while you're here to get away with just you and God. And I want you on the back of that napkin say, "Okay, God, I'm playing offense. What's the dream? What's the dream for my ministry? What's the dream for my church? What's the dream for my city or my territory, my area? What dream do you have for me? How do you want me to steward things?" Does that make sense? I want you to literally write it down. What's the dream? I would love to have you do that. Get some time away with God. Remember this: if you read HeroMaker about a dream, you need to have a dream that's so big it makes you dependent on God. A dream so big you can't pull it off on your own, right? You can't do it on your own. A dream so big that makes you dependent on God. So that's on one side. What I want to do during this session on the other side is I want to give you a very simple tool, a reproducible tool simple enough you can put on the back of a napkin that you can understand it. And then if you're at a Panera, at a coffee shop, at a kitchen table with someone else, you can share it with them. So on one side of the napkin is your dream, and the other side is your strategy. One side is your dream and what I'm going to give you today is really kind of the strategy: how to be a healthy leader that makes a lasting impact. For about 8 years I was a part of a small group, and I don't think I thought about it back then, but looking back now it was no ordinary small group. It was actually a group of some of the most influential religious leaders, probably in the world. It was a group of pastors from the largest churches in Chicagoland, about 12 of us, and I had the privilege of being invited into that group. We would meet maybe four or five times a year. We'd start in the morning, have lunch together, and go into the afternoon. During that time we'd talk about life, leadership, and church. As a younger leader I would always show up with a notepad of questions. When I would leave at the end of the afternoon, I had a whole long list of answers and ideas. If I named the people in that group, you would know many of them. I have a hunch there's some of you in this room that would know all of them. It was a remarkable group, but it's a group that no longer meets. If I were to attempt to reassemble that group today, I would say about half those seats would be empty. Half those seats would be vacated. Some vacated their seats because of inappropriate relationships. Some vacated those seats because of financial impropriety. Other seats would be unfilled because the church grew, they created a toxic culture that just basically served them. Myself with a whole bunch of people across the country, even around the world, we looked at that and asked the question, how could that happen? In particular, how could that happen to them? I spent a lot of time over the last several years just thinking about that. The only thing I can come back to is what I call they drifted. They drifted. When I say they drifted, it's like they ended up someplace they never intended to be. Here's why I say that: because I get to work with a lot of young leaders. I have never ever in my whole life had a conversation with a young church planter who said, "My intention is that 15 years from now, I want to be 50 pounds overweight, divorce my wife, and compromise all my core convictions." Never had that conversation. But we hear about it happening almost every month. What happens is we drift. We slowly, subtly, one day at a time, week at a time, month at a time, we drift and we end up someplace we never intended to be. Here's why drifting is such a problem. If you drift by one degree, and the distance between trying to go from your house to your neighbor's house down the block, you drift by one degree, you still end up at your neighbor's house. You don't notice, your neighbor doesn't notice, nobody notices because it's such a short distance. But some of you don't know this. Tomorrow my wife and I are going to Italy. She wonders why I'm in Wisconsin right now, why aren't you home packing? But let's say I fly from Chicago to Italy. If I fly from Chicago to Italy and I drift by one degree, a long distance like that, I end up in Slovenia or in the Adriatic Sea, somewhere I never intended to be. This thing called drifting is not something that happens to someone else. It's happening right now to us. Let me show you what's going on right now. Relationally, 65% of church leaders feel lonely or isolated. That's a huge problem, for pastors, but for everybody. We could do a whole talk on this. That's why next year at Exponential, if you've been a part of our Exponential gatherings, our big idea next year is going to be the end of leading alone. The end of leading alone.

It's also an issue physically. We don't talk about this, but nearly half of church leaders meet the clinical definition of obesity. Mentally, 53% of church leaders have seriously considered leaving the pastoral ministry recently. Spiritually, since 2020, church leaders are actually praying less and spending less time in scripture. There's a lot of ways to explain this, but I think one of the ways we can explain this is we drifted. We're drifting. If we continue to drift, we're going to end up someplace we never intended to be. Part of the reason I'm starting at this point because I don't want that to happen to any of you. I don't want it to happen to me. Do me a favor. Turn to the person next to you and just say, "You know what? I don't want this to happen to you." Right? I don't want this to happen to you.

So here's what we're going to do. In the spirit of both holiness and multiplication, of both being healthy and making an impact, I want to spend the rest of our time talking to you about how do you avoid drift and how do you be a healthy leader that makes a lasting impact. Here on this napkin, you're going to draw, I'm going to give you a tool that you can put on the back of this napkin because one side's your dream, the other side's going to be the strategy. Here's the strategy. This is the tool. I want it to be simple enough that you can write this down so you know it, but then you can also share it with somebody else. That would just make my day that someday you email me or text me, "Hey, I want you to know not only am I doing this, but I'm sharing it with somebody else who's also doing this." So, here we go. Let's start with the first circle. This circle right here, you know what this circle is? Go ahead and draw a circle on your napkin. That circle's you. That circle's you. Now, what I want to do next is go ahead and put an X in the middle of that circle. That X is St. Andrew's cross, that stands for Christ in you. Christ in you. In fact, Romans 8:9 tells us, the spirit of God dwells in you. Let's try it again. First Corinthians says, "Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit that lives in you." So do me a favor. Put your hand on your heart. There you go. Now I want you to put it close enough to your heart that you can feel that thump, thump, thump. You feel that? What that is, that's not just something that keeps you alive. What you're feeling there placed by God is difference-making potential. I'm telling you, difference-making potential. Now some of you are going like, "Well, I guess they have the mid-afternoon motivational speaker here." No, this is not mid-afternoon motivational speaking. Here's what I want you to get. How many of you have said yes to following Jesus? Come on. Right. We're pretty excited about that. When you say yes to following Jesus, his spirit comes to life inside you. Can I get an amen? Is his spirit alive inside you? So guess what? Put your hand back on your chest. Inside you is the spirit of Jesus. If Jesus is in you, come on, put your hand on your chest. If Jesus is inside you, then everything that's needed to change a life is inside you. Amen. Everything that's needed to change a family is in here. Do you believe that inside you is everything that's needed to change a city? What about change the world? Everything that's needed to change the world exists in you. If that's true, I'm telling you that thump, thump, thump, there's difference-making potential inside you. It's in you. Turn to somebody near you and just say, "Hey, it's in you." That's right. Now, here's the key question. Will you make yourself available to the spirit that lives inside of you? Because what you really are if Jesus is inside you, you're not only a Christ follower, but you are a multiplier. A multiplier is a healthy disciple-making leader that champions reproduction. I just want to start there that there is huge difference-making potential inside all of you. Also, don't forget inside all the people in your churches. They don't realize it yet, but it's in there. It's in you. But having said that, don't let that scare you. Because guess what? We're still going to screw things up. We're still going to occasionally drift and have to realign. We're not going to get it all right. But you can still make a lasting impact. Let me give you an example. One of my first ministry jobs, I was a youth pastor. The church had the budget for me to have an intern. I was 21, a senior in college. So I asked my buddy Larry, who's a junior, if he'll be my intern. I thought we'd have a good time. I would always tell Larry, "Hey Larry, I am mentoring the next generation." One day I take Larry to the hospital to visit a young adult who had gastric bypass surgery. On the way to the hospital, I'm explaining to Larry, here's what you do during a hospital call. I said, "Here's three things to remember. Number one, be encouraging. Number two, pray. Number three, don't stay too long." So simple. So I walk in to visit this young adult. I confidently introduce us. I make some small talk. Then my mouth says what my brain should have stopped. I looked at that patient and said, "You know, making this decision to go forward with the surgery, that took a lot of guts." Seriously, true story. My friend Larry, the intern, he's looking at the floor, trying not to lose it. The patient's staring at me like, "That's the best you got?" And I'm thinking to myself, "How do I disappear?" So I tell you that story because we're going to give it our best effort. We're going to make mistakes. It's going to be messy. All that stuff's going to happen. But the good news is, even through all of our imperfections, what he simply wants is, will you just make yourself available? Because my spirit's going to prompt you to do things. My spirit knows how to make a difference. He knows how. Will you just make yourself available? That's where we're headed. I want to show you how to spend the next 20 or 25 years of your life to make a lasting impact. Some of you in here, you got 40 or 50. Some of you look like you got five. So I split the difference. I'm kidding. That was bad. I take that back. Being a multiplier. Let's start with the inside. It looks like a steering wheel because there are different gauges like a car dashboard. A car dashboard has a gas gauge, an oil gauge, a temperature gauge. If any of those gauges overheat or show up on empty, you ignore it at your own risk. We start on the inside because if you're unhealthy on the inside, you're going to multiply unhealth on the outside. We got to watch these gauges to make sure you don't drift. A multiplier routinely checks four gauges. You might go like, "Did you just make this up?" No, this comes straight from Luke 2:52. This was Jesus' own leadership development model. He grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God, and with man. Those are mental, physical, relational, and spiritual. Let's spend a little time talking about each of these four gauges.

That's good. You guys are still drawing this. You get this little model down, this little tool, and you do this and share with other people. I'm telling you, you can make a huge impact. It starts with a relational gauge because who you surround yourself with shapes who you become. At 25, your friends are the single biggest predictor of your future direction. At 45, your friends are the single biggest predictor of your future success. At 65, your friends are the biggest predictor of you finishing well. Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." You got to ask that question: who is sharpening you? So pay close attention to the relational gauge. Next is the physical gauge. I think this is one Christians often ignore, but this is a spiritual issue. Back to 1 Corinthians 6:19, "Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit?" I've had the opportunity to run three different marathons. Not fast. But I learned a very important lesson in running 26.2 miles. You cannot complete a marathon simply on determination, prayer, and an inspirational Spotify list. You got to fuel your body. There are things that God wants to do through so many of you, and you got to be a good steward of this body. If you're here with your spouse, turn to your spouse and say, "You got a good body." Go ahead. You can say that. It feels kind of good, doesn't it? I think God gave you a good body. In some cases, he meant for you to do like an 85, 90-year run, and you're going to check out at 50 or 65. You're going to get to heaven and he's going to be gracious, welcome you, but then look at his watch and go, "Hey, you're a little early. What happened?" Some people don't complete the ministry marathon not because they don't love Jesus, but because they weren't good stewards of this body. I was talking to a friend the other day who lost some weight the old-fashioned way. I asked him how it affected his leadership. He said, "I just feel different when I walk into the room. I feel more confident." We're whole people. Take care of this body. Check your physical gauge: sleep, exercise, rest. Then there's the mental gauge. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." I thought Scott did such a great job with that first talk. He named trauma. You've been through that. Ministry is a mental battlefield. It creates stress, anxiety. It's hard not to give in to people pleasing. We've got to pay attention. It might be renewing our mind through soaking in scripture, practicing gratitude. One thing I do in my journal every day is name three things I'm thankful for. For some, it might be counseling or therapy. Just turn it off for an hour. Check your mental gauge. Finally, there's our spiritual gauge. This is like the engine because without it, nothing else matters. John 15:5 says, "I'm the vine, you're the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing." The Bible says your spiritual life will be nothing, your impact will be nothing. When you put all these together, it reminds me of an illustration from the early 1900s. Two explorers, Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott, set out to be the first to reach the South Pole. They faced the same brutal conditions. Scott's strategy was inconsistent: on good days push to exhaustion, on bad days hunker down. Amundsen had a different approach: every single day they would go 20 miles, no matter what. Guess who made it first? Amundsen did. 20 miles a day. He made it and returned safely. Scott and his team perished. The lesson: we got to let the spirit of Jesus lead us with steady, consistent, faithful habits of checking these gauges. Let me get as practical as I can. One of the things I do, I challenge you to take four minutes a day to check these four gauges. Just write RPMs in your journal and ask, "Am I empty or full?" If I feel like I'm drifting, what step do I need to take? Do it prayerfully. Four minutes a day will keep you from ending up someplace you never intended to be. You can be a healthy leader. This lines up with the holiness practices from your heritage. We start on the inside because you're going to reproduce who you are. But you're also going to reproduce what you do. I'm not looking just for healthy leaders. We're getting on offense now to make a lasting impact. How does that happen? Let's finish up the outside of this tool. Practice number one: make disciplemakers. Jesus didn't say go preach sermons or lead Bible studies. He said go make disciples who make disciples. A simple understanding of a disciple: someone who hears from God and does what he says. Don't just lead a Bible study; disciple someone to lead a Bible study. Multiplication happens when disciples become disciple makers. Addition says, "I'll do the thing." Multiplication says, "I'll disciple one and teach them to disciple another." How do you know if you're a disciple maker?

Who said that? Right there. Let's give him a hand. That is exactly right. You know you have disciples if you can name them and they would also name you. We like to go, "Oh, I'm making disciple makers." But would they also name you? If that's happening, you're doing the stuff. There are three or four people right now I would say are mine, and I think they would say the same about me. Does that make sense? Once you've identified them, here's the second practice: do the stuff Jesus did. "Come follow me, I'll make you fishers of men." Then establish a spiritual community—a small group, a missional community, an LTG. I don't care what you call it. Relationships are always the catalyst for spiritual growth. The greatest impact you'll make will probably not be from a stage, but in your living room, at your dinner table, or at a coffee shop where you gather people and turn them into disciple makers. Jesus' mission is best advanced in circles, not rows. Isn't that what Jesus did? He said, "Hey, come follow me," and had a small group of 12. Let's make ourselves available to the Jesus inside us who wants us to do the same. I think all of us can all do this. If you got a kitchen table and you're able to love, you can do this. If you got a coffee shop and you're interested in helping people grow closer to God, you can do this. Now here's the third thing: mobilize new leaders. The best leaders don't hoard their leadership; they reproduce and hand it off continually. Jesus did that. He sent them out by twos. Some of you have read HeroMaker. The four most important letters in a leader's alphabet are "I see in you." You look at someone and say, "Here's what I see in you." Say that to somebody. God has put you in roles of influence. When you have that "I see in you" conversation, do it with young people, and don't forget the women. All of a sudden, something impossible becomes possible.

Some of you are in this room because somebody saw something in you that you didn't see in yourself. We got to do that. Every week, have an "I see in you" conversation. So you make disciple makers, put them in a small group, and as you see them growing, you say, "Hey, I see this in you," and give them permission to do something they didn't know they could do. Bless them and send them out. I like to keep score. My fruit grows in other people's trees. A couple weeks ago, I was in Long Beach, California, and I ran into Matt Larson. Matt did a leadership residency at my church over a decade ago. We invested in him, made him a disciple maker, put him in a spiritual community, and sent him out to plant a church in Ventura. Over the last decade, they've helped plant 15 churches. Is that awesome? My fruit grows in other people's trees. I may be taking a day off in Chicago, but Matt's planting churches in Southern California. You don't have to work more, you multiply more. That's how you make a bigger impact. It's counterintuitive: do the Jesus mission the Jesus way. The fourth thing: some of those people you're making disciple makers will launch church expressions. Some of them have that in them. Give them permission and encouragement. I should have checked with the bishop on this, hope it's not heresy. When I think about a church, I have a very simple ecclesiology: a community of people on mission together where Jesus is Lord. You can pack a lot under Jesus is Lord. Starting new church expressions isn't quite as hard as we've made it sound because we need all kinds of churches for all kinds of people. Let me tell you about my friend Rick. Rick's a salesman, not a pastor or missionary, never been to seminary. He has a huge heart for kids with special needs. He's someone I'm making into a disciple maker. Every summer, Rick would go off to camp and be with these kids. He would come back and couldn't stop talking about it. He was in my small group, a spiritual community. A couple years ago at an Exponential conference in Chicago, the closing speaker gave a simple challenge: "If you've ever thought about planting a church, you don't need a building, seminary, or funds. You just need to make yourself available." I had invited Rick to the conference. I saw him come forward. I asked him what was going on. He said, "The guy said if you're available, I'm available. Do you think I could start a church for the special needs community?" We put him through our microchurch training, a few months later at a local gym on Sunday night at 6:00, he had 125 people show up. He started an all-abilities church. That's awesome. They always do a "Yay God" moment. People who come there can't come to a lot of our churches because their kids might act out. But here, everybody can. My wife calls it beautiful chaos. William preaches every other month; he's being apprenticed. Rick gets a bunch of people from his church to volunteer at our conference. Trevor follows Rick around because he wants to be like him. This last year, Trevor came forward and said, "I want to plant a church just like Rick." Rick got a call from Benjamin's Hope in Grand Rapids, and they're talking about starting a network. One of our teenagers, Graham, used to volunteer and preach at the all-abilities church. He's now in Nairobi, Kenya, helping start an all-abilities church there. None of those people are paid or seminary trained. Nobody bought a building. Maybe launching church expressions is easier than we think. We need all kinds of churches for all kinds of people. Rick wasn't ordained or seminary trained. He was simply available. Don't forget, put your hand on your heart: it was in him. Extraordinary God, radical availability. It's in you. I hope you'll take that tool. On one side your dream, on the other side your strategy. Share it with other people. Give them a napkin and say, "What's your dream?" Because I got a strategy, the Jesus strategy. It'll work for anything. It'll help you be a healthy leader that makes a lasting impact. Let's pray. Father God, thank you for what you're doing through this group of Global Methodists. Give them an unusual amount of resilience, perseverance, spirit-empowered energy to play both ways. Help them play offense, make disciple makers, mobilize new leaders, establish new church expressions. In Jesus name. Amen.

Thanks.

This place is nice, isn't it? Gorgeous.

Italy.

Good question. A bunch of different things come to mind. One is, the way you frame the question is like multiplication isn't just for... I think multiplication is for every Christ follower, not just for a church. When we decided to say yes to following Jesus, implicit in that is I'm going to make you fishers of men. If that's the case, it makes sense that every one of us who follows him will do the same. For some, it may mean making disciple makers at home, in our small group, with our fifth-grade boys. Some may have bigger capacity in reproducing leaders and planting churches. There are different size giftings. But I think this isn't my vision. This is Jesus. I was talking to somebody yesterday, and it hit me all over again. What we're really talking about is we have a whole world that needs peace. We have a generation right now where secularism is having a faith crisis. If you've read The Anxious Generation, over the last 10-14 years, with the rise of social media, there's been a rise in anxiety and depression in young people. They bought secularism, followed their heart, and didn't find what they were looking for. They found anxiety and depression. Then they look outward and see their friends are the same. Now they're starting to look upward. 83% of Gen Z and Gen A still believe in God, but they're not going to church. We have the opportunity. If we reach out and make disciples, show them they're only going to find it in Jesus, we have the opportunity to deliver peace, community, hope, redemption to the next generation. I don't own this vision. This is Jesus' vision. We have a great opportunity to transform what's happening in culture and in individual people.

Two parts to that question. One is about the gauges and correlation. The idea of being stuck I don't necessarily equate with plateauing. My immediate family has plateaued. Five of us for some time. But I haven't told many people this: my daughter is going to have a baby. I'm going to be a grandfather. Multiplication is happening. The Ferguson kingdom is growing. I do think you ought to pay attention to whether your church is growing, but that's not the ultimate measure. The ultimate measure is what's happening with the kingdom. Are we on mission? If you're on mission, you'll grow and multiply. We get stuck in a dichotomy of growing a church versus multiplying new churches. No, we're on mission. When we're on mission, we're multiplying disciples. That helps your church grow, but eventually you'll plant other churches, send out missionaries, start non-profits. Both those things happen. Why only 20%? I don't think enough of our churches have a multiplication culture.

Absolutely.

Any church can create a multiplication culture. Seven people, 70, 700, or 7,000. Let me give you a definition for culture and a simple model for how you create it. The best definition for culture is spontaneous repeated patterns of behavior. When things spontaneously happen over and over, that's a culture of that. For example, there was a guy named Doug. He used to come to our Saturday night service, sit in the back, and leave in the middle of my talk. Later I found out he left to make a phone call for a tee time. Fast forward: Sue and I go to a block party, we see Doug and Mary. Sue invites them to our small group. They start coming. I always try to have an apprentice in my small group. At the end of six weeks, I asked Doug to be my apprentice leader. He was a big bald guy; I could see sweat popping up. He said okay. We met at Starbucks every Tuesday at 4:00 for about 14 months. He got ready to lead. How do you know when a leader is ready? When they think they're ready and you think they're ready. Doug thought he was ready, I thought he was ready. I turned the group over to him and started a new group. A couple weeks later, I stopped at Starbucks and saw Doug with his new apprentice leader, Todd. Doug didn't have much church background; he just thought that's how all churches do it. I call Doug unconsciously competent. He got socialized into it because we have a culture where every leader should have an apprentice. He heard me talk about it, and he naturally did it. Spontaneous repeated patterns of behavior. That's the definition. Three components for culture: values, narrative, and behaviors. Values are the conviction of your mind and passion of your heart. Biblical values: 2 Timothy 2:2, four generations of reproduction; Acts 1:8. Narrative has two parts: story and language. I just told you the story about Doug. Story makes something conceptual seem possible. Language: strong cultures have unique language. Scott introduced the language of HeroMaker. If he said a book on how to disciple leaders, you might say you already know it. But he said a book on how to be a hero maker. You say, "That sounds interesting." Whoever owns the language owns the paradigm, and whoever owns the paradigm owns the future. Another example: Chick-fil-A. When you say thank you, they say "my pleasure." My son Caleb worked there for a summer. Afterward, we went and he served us. I said thank you, he said "my pleasure." I asked if they train you to say that. He said no, you're just around it so much you start saying it. It's in the culture. Apprenticeship is great language because it implies knowing and doing. You have values, then narrative: story and language. The third part is behaviors. The four practices of multiplication from Jesus: make disciple makers, establish spiritual communities, mobilize new leaders, and launch church expressions. Here's where we screw up: church leaders hold the values and tell the stories, but we don't do the stuff. We accidentally create a culture that says you only have to hold the values and talk about them, but not actually do them. As leaders, you are culture creators. If you hold the values, tell stories, introduce new language, and then do the stuff, you reproduce who you are and what you do. That's how you create a multiplying culture.

Yeah. I think back to why more churches aren't growing and multiplying. I think it has to do with that. We're content with holding the values and telling the stories, but we don't actually do the stuff.

Can I say something to the group real quick? I get a chance to work with most denominations. You all are in a really special, unique, important point of history. That's why I gave you about moving from defense to offense, playing both sides of the field. I know for a lot of you it's a struggle. If it's any encouragement, I'm telling you what you're doing, if you'll follow the leadership you have here and restore your movemental form, it sets a precedent for other denominations. If the Global Methodists can do it, maybe we can too. I'm cheering you guys on.

Let's reintroduce the 16%. At Exponential, we've been challenged to see 16% of all churches in the United States become reproducing or multiplying. Why 16%? The diffusion of innovation curve: when you get 16% of any group that buys into it, the innovators and early adopters influence the whole. If 16% say multiplication is normative, they'll influence the other 84%, and it'll become normative across the board. You could walk into any church and disciples are making disciples, leaders developing leaders, churches being planted. It becomes like my friend Doug: unconsciously competent. Why is that so transformative? Two things. First, churches are the greatest source of social capital. Robert Putnam in American Grace concluded that people of faith volunteer more, become more generous, and become better neighbors. Second, spiritual capital. New churches see three to four times as many conversions as churches 10 years or older. Lifeway found that 42% of people who show up at a new church were unchurched or dechurched. If you're serious about people finding and following Jesus, new churches are the way to go. If the Global Methodists get after that and you're seeing 4%, 8%, 12%, 16%, 20% and more, you contribute to a tidal wave of social and spiritual capital. You become the innovators and early adopters. Soon other denominations will look at you and say, "That's how you do it." You'll help make multiplication normative. I sincerely think you're in a position to play that role. In some ways it doesn't seem fair because you just survived, but that's why I say if you can move from defense to offense, everybody's looking at you and it can make a big difference.

Can I also say, on behalf of the bishop, Cara, and Scott, could we express our love for them and their leadership? Thank you very much.

Amen. Thanks very much. That was very kind.