Exponential: How You and Your Friends Can Start a Missional Church Movement (Exponential Series)

A tried-and-true classic in dynamic ministry growth, church building, and discipleship momentum.

From professional church-planters Dave and Jon Ferguson comes the anchor book in the Exponential Series—envisioning new and practical methods of building churches, communities, and organizations on the cornerstone of Christ.

Many of today's Christians consider the missional challenge of Jesus—feed the hungry, comfort the lonely, bring people to God's Word—as inspirational but not something achievable. Or they've heard the challenge of Jesus and are frustrated with how little they've done. Jesus gave his followers this mission because he wants them to hear it, be inspired, and then actually do it. And it is possible.

Exponential lays out a concise and effective reproducing strategy, giving practical steps and case studies as you follow the growth of a church movement through four mains stages:

1. The initial navigation of ministry image, set-up, and gradual growth.
2. The gathering of a community around a cause and the conversations that take place at this point.
3. The reproduction of communities into multisite growth and wider impact.
4. The infrastructure and networking of large missional movements and how to stay focused on the bedrock of the Gospel.

Weaved throughout this book is the amazing story of Community Christian Church, which was started by five friends who used these reproducing strategies to grow one of the most influential churches in the U.S. and develop a network of reproducing churches.

Exponential is designed to help Christian leaders, groups, teams, churches, and networks experience rapid and spiritually healthy growth.

Dave Ferguson is an award-winning author of Hero Maker & B.L.E.S.S.; the CEO of Exponential and founding pastor of Chicago’s COMMUNITY, a multi-expression church considered one of the most influential in America.

Jon Ferguson is the cofounding pastor of Community Christian Church - a multi-site church in the Chicago Metro Area. He serves as teaching pastor and leads the Strategic Team of staff champions for adult, student, children’s, and creative arts ministries across all CCC locations. Jon is the cofounder and movement architect of NewThing, whose mission is "to be a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches." He also serves on the boards of the Exponential Network and Stadia East and is an adjunct professor at Wheaton College Graduate School in the Evangelism and Leadership Department. Jon previously coauthored The Big Idea with Dave.