Articles for tag: Exponential

April 6, 2026

Wes Woodell

exponential 2027

Exponential 2027 Global Conference (Option 2)

Exponential 2027 Global Conference is a gathering for church leaders, pastors, church planters, and ministry teams committed to multiplying disciples and reproducing churches. Built around the theme “Never Alone: Becoming Friends on Mission,” the conference will focus on friendship in mission, relational community, leadership renewal, and shared vision for multiplication. The 2027 conference will offer two identical conference options in the same week, along with main sessions, workshops, networking, and optional pre-conference intensives.

April 6, 2026

Wes Woodell

exponential 2027

Exponential 2027 Global Conference (Option 1)

Exponential 2027 Global Conference is a gathering for church leaders, pastors, church planters, and ministry teams committed to multiplying disciples and reproducing churches. Built around the theme “Never Alone: Becoming Friends on Mission,” the conference will focus on friendship in mission, relational community, leadership renewal, and shared vision for multiplication. The 2027 conference will offer two identical conference options in the same week, along with main sessions, workshops, networking, and optional pre-conference intensives.

April 19, 2024

Christian Standard

Exponential Announces Partnership with Stetzer, CPLF

Exponential has announced a new strategic partnership with Ed Stetzer to operate and steward the Church Planting Leadership Fellowship (CPLF). This collaborative effort aims to amplify the network’s impact and extend its reach within the church-planting community, according to an announcement at Exponential’s website. . . .

May 17, 2020

Michael C. Mack

The Churches of Our Movement Were Made for This

By Michael C. Mack I believe the Restoration Movement is a strong and vibrant movement with a bright future. Here are four reasons I believe that’s true. First, our movement is in good hands. Every feature writer this month is under the age of 45, and many are in their 20s and 30s. We sought younger writers to make a point. As one young writer, Josh Ross, put it, “In the kingdom of God, the movement is before us, not behind us.” While we often look back at the rich history of our movement, it’s time to look to the

September 18, 2019

Christian Standard

Exponential, Outreach Team for ‘Church Multiplication Challenge’

Exponential and Outreach magazine are partnering for “The Church Multiplication Challenge,” and an initial goal of identifying 100 reproducing churches has expanded to 1,000. “We want to see reproduction and multiplication become normative,” Exponential CEO Todd Wilson says in an article at ReproducingChurches.org. “We want to see leaders changing their scorecards as they think differently about what it means to lead successful churches and to build legacies that last.” The response thus far has been encouraging, Wilson says, especially since an attempt several years ago to identify 10 rapidly multiplying churches fell far short. (The research team couldn’t find even

April 25, 2019

Jerry Harris

The Value of Hearing from Our Past . . . and Our Future

By Jerry Harris I’ve always been an admirer of old souls in ministry. Their simple, godly lives are inspiring to me. I’ll just go ahead and say this . . . The latest book or ministry techniques typically don’t enthrall me, nor do the youngest and brightest stars of Christianity who are at the forefront of the speaking circuit. I confess to having cynical thoughts about this new breed’s sense of fashion—the tight shirts that highlight countless hours in the gym—and their huge social media followings and what seem to be nearly perfect lives. Sometimes I battle judgmental thoughts when

February 2, 2019

Kent E. Fillinger

Kent E. Fillinger

Church Multiplication Scorecard

By Kent Fillinger  A new question on our last annual church survey asked, “Using the scale created by Exponential.org, which of the following best describes your church in 2017?”              Level 1: Declining (attendance going down) Level 2: Holding Even (attendance largely unchanged) Level 3: Growing (attendance growth by 5 percent or more) Level 4: Adding/Reproducing (we directly launched another new campus or church plant) Level 5: Multiplying (a campus or church we helped to start has itself become a reproducing church) In Exponential’s e-book Becoming a Level Five Multiplying Church Field Guide, Todd Wilson, Dave Ferguson, and Alan Hirsch provided

November 8, 2018

Christian Standard

Catalyst Community: An Interview with Jessie Vaca

An Interview with Jessie Vaca about the Changing Landscape of Global Church Planting   By David Dummitt When I consider all of the great things happening in the church around the world, one that really excites me is an initiative led by NewThing called “Catalyst Community.” Simply put, Catalyst Communities bring local leaders together to pray, dream, and strategize how to work together to grow God’s kingdom right where they are. I spoke with Jessie Vaca, NewThing’s global reproducing catalyst, to learn more about how Catalyst Communities are changing the landscape of church planting around the world.   What exactly

September 15, 2017

Christian Standard

Headlines: October 2017

Students Equip Toys for Kids with Disabilities Engineering students at Milligan College aren”t content with figuring out how to make things work. They also want to do good for their local community. And so this summer these students gave away two adapted Power Wheels Jeeps to children who cannot move independently. The project was part of a program called “Go Baby Go Appalachia,” overseen by AdaptoPlay, a local nonprofit organization in Johnson City, Tenn. The Jeeps are modified to allow children to use them despite disabilities that make it difficult for them to move. Steering wheels were replaced with joysticks,

June 13, 2017

Jerry Harris

What to Expect from CHRISTIAN STANDARD

By Jerry Harris Why is the survival of CHRISTIAN STANDARD so important and what does it offer that other magazines don”t?  Other magazines like Relevant, Outreach, and Christianity Today offer lots of good commentary and resourcing for churches and leaders in general, but they represent no actual tribe. CHRISTIAN STANDARD is critical to the Restoration Movement because it serves a vital role unique to us. We are comprised of about 5,300 churches, all autonomous, without any denominational support to hold us together. It”s one of our greatest strengths, but without something connecting us regularly, we can lose much of the potential of

March 23, 2017

Christian Standard

Focusing on Discipleship

By Jennifer Johnson You may know Exponential as the premier conference for church planting, but you may not know that a similar event exists for leaders focused on discipleship””and that some of the same people are behind both. Todd Wilson, founder and director of Exponential, and Bobby Harrington, lead pastor at Harpeth Christian Church in Franklin, TN, launched the National Disciple Making Forum in 2014 at Saddleback Church in Southern California as a way for disciple-making leaders around the country to learn, pray, worship, and grow together. “I wasn”t sure if I wanted to take this on, honestly,” Harrington says.

October 20, 2016

Michael C. Mack

What Operating System Is Your Church Using?

By Michael C. Mack Chris Lagerlof is the executive catalyst at Mission Orange County (www.missionoc.org). In a Q&A with Exponential (www.exponential.org), “a growing community of leaders committed to accelerating the multiplication of healthy, reproducing faith communities,” Lagerlof talked about the biggest aha”™s he had while reading Becoming a Level 5 Multiplying Church by Todd Wilson and Dave Ferguson. He says he was moved by Chapter 1, “Rethinking Our Operating System.” He was especially struck by Wilson”™s words: Pause and reflect on the potential unintended consequences [of the prevailing operating systems, especially in megachurches]. We are called to make biblical disciples

March 3, 2016

Michael C. Mack

Are You a Level 5 Multiplying Church?

By Michael C. Mack A number of behaviors (and corresponding behavioral types) affect a church”s capability for multiplying. In Becoming a Level Five Multiplying Church, Exponential director Todd Wilson and Community Christian Church lead pastor Dave Ferguson define five specific levels of multiplying churches, with Level 5 being the most aggressive. “Regardless of church size, growth rate (positive or negative) or behavioral type,” the authors say, “all churches will exhibit behaviors from all five levels; however, we can begin to define a primary level and create profiles for each of the five behavioral types.” Surprisingly, most large churches are Level

July 28, 2015

Christian Standard

Todd Wilson’s Thought Leaders

We asked 35 Christian leaders, “Who is the influencer with the biggest impact on your life and ministry?” Most of these leaders listed several influential thinkers, writers, innovators, and leaders more of us should get to know. This response is from Todd Wilson, director of Exponential. ________ Multiplication, new philanthropy, personal calling: Bob Buford, cofounder, the Leadership Network Multiplication: Dave Ferguson, founding and lead pastor, Community Christian Church, Naperville, Illinois Discipleship: Dr. Robert Coleman, Distinguished Senior Professor of Discipleship and Evangelism at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary Multiplication: Ralph Moore, founding and senior pastor, Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaii Missional: Alan Hirsch,

March 14, 2014

Christian Standard

Which Do You Perceive as the Bigger Danger? . . .

By Darrel Rowland Which do you perceive as the bigger danger: Christian churches and churches of Christ being overly exclusive and thus missing out on opportunities for real service and growth available by greater interaction with other Christian groups, . . . or brotherhood churches losing their scriptural distinctive, especially on baptism and weekly observance of the Lord”s Supper, by interacting with other Christian groups? Bob Russell, Retired minister, Louisville, Kentucky Twenty-five years ago I would have answered that the greater danger was that we were too exclusive””we isolated ourselves too much. Today I think the greater danger is we

March 13, 2014

Christian Standard

The Christians Only Challenge

By Darrel Rowland Most of us love this old Restoration Movement slogan: “We are not the only Christians, but Christians only.” But Christian leaders from across the country contacted by CHRISTIAN STANDARD all wrestle with big-picture questions about what overarching principles flow from the adage. Most generally agree with Bob Russell, retired senior minister of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, about what to do when invited to attend or speak at an event outside the immediate fellowship. “I will go anywhere as long as I”m not restricted in what I can say or my presence doesn”t leave the impression

May 30, 2013

Christian Standard

Where Missional Is Moving

By Matt Smay Missionaries””they were the devout adventurers who traveled the world helping people from other cultures learn about God. As a boy I admired their pictures posted on the bulletin board of our church lobby, and followed the strings that connected their faces to pins on a map that identified their mission fields. I was impressed. I grew up in church. It was a small, traditional, suburban congregation in Southern California started in the 1940s that ministered to a sprawling city. Like many in the postwar industrial boom, my paternal grandparents relocated with their four young kids from middle

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