Dave Ferguson's Intro

0:07
Today on the Servant Leadership Podcast, we're joined by Dave Ferguson, someone who has spent his life shifting from

0:13
being the hero of the story to becoming a hermaker. He's helped launch a movement that has planted thousands of

0:19
churches around the world, led one of the most influential churches in the country, and written books that have

0:24
shaped how leaders think about growth and multiplication. What stands out most is his commitment to investing in

0:30
others. Not just building his own platform, but helping others build theirs. In this conversation, we unpack

0:36
what it means to become a hermaker wherever you're called to lead. It's not just inspiring, it's deeply practical,

0:42
and it might just reframe the way you think about leadership. Before we jump into today's episode, I want to thank

Thrivent Ad

0:48
Thrivant for partnering with us on the Servant Leadership Podcast. Thrivant is a holistic Fortune 500 financial

0:55
services organization that provides advice, investments, insurance, banking,

1:00
and generosity programs to help people make the most of all they've been given. Each day, Thrivant helps more than 2

1:07
million clients build their financial futures and enjoy lives full of meaning and gratitude. Thrivant is also growing

1:14
and looking for talent with a heart for service. Join a team dedicated to financial excellence and service that

1:20
offers competitive compensation, flexible work options, comprehensive benefits, and opportunities for

1:27
professional growth. Learn more about Thrivven's financial services and career opportunities today at thrivant.com.

1:34
[Music] Dave, thank you for joining the Servant Leadership Podcast.

Welcome Dave Ferguson

1:40
It's good to be here. Thanks for having me, Chris. I am so excited to have you because uh I've been wanting you on the

1:46
podcast frankly for a long time. You have had an amazing journey and I've gotten to hear some of it from your

Dave's Career Journey

1:51
brother on this podcast. All lies. All lies and and just around hanging out

1:56
with him. But tell me the journey of how you got into what you're doing today.

2:02
Uh which part of it? All of it. All of it. Oh man. Start with the church, how how community

2:07
started just to get started with and we'll go from there. Yeah. I think for me my kind of version

2:13
of the story and there's multiples of there were like five of us that were a part of the original staff team but my version of kind of the story and my

2:19
experience when I was a freshman in college um I remember I was really

2:24
wrestling with this question of what are you going to trade your life for which is it's kind of a big question for

2:30
a 19-year-old but I mean I really was I was kind of like and I I just had this kind of aha and I don't remember exactly

2:35
where it came from that whether it's like you Not to be overly dramatic, but as a

2:41
martyr all one day at a time or over the course of 85 years or however long God

2:47
gives you, what do you want to trade your life for? And I think for me, I began to process

2:54
that. As I began to process, I thought, you know, man, if I could trade my life for anything,

2:59
and the way we word it now is I want to help as many people as I can find their way back to God. And and what underlies

3:05
that and I'll just I'll be brief on this is because when when people find their way back to God. I mean that's what

3:11
leads to human flourishing. I mean there's a lot of data comes from Harvard and the flourishing project that says

3:16
there's just a strong correlation and a direct correlation between faith and even being a part of a faith community

3:23
that leads to human flourishing. And so if I could be a part of doing that that

3:29
would probably be the key leverage point. So then I began to go like so, okay, what's what's the best way to help the most people find their way back to

3:35
God? And I was like, well, I I guess maybe through a church, you know, and I

3:40
kind of I kind of was pushing back on a little bit cuz my dad was a pastor and while he's a great guy and it was a

3:46
positive experience growing up, um I I did kind of resent that a lot of the people growing up thought I'd be a

3:52
pastor because he was a pastor. So I didn't, you know, that part of it. But then I think I'm just kind of wired more

3:59
like an entrepreneur. And so I began to go like, well, if I started a church, if a church is the

4:04
best way to help people find their way back to God, what if I started a church that started a church that started a church that was constantly reproducing

4:10
and scaled it? Then you could help lots of people find their way back to God. And so for me, that was really the beginning of uh

4:17
going like, okay, I guess I guess we're going to I want to I want to plant a church. and uh with the with the dream

4:24
that maybe God would use it someday to catalyze a movement. Wow. Well, and that's kind of what

Creating A Church Planting Organization - New Thing

4:30
happened, right? You you planted a church, it grew. It's an extremely large church or a mega church in Chicagoland

4:36
and uh and then at some point I would think a lot of people in your shoes have accomplished the dream and are just like

4:43
set for life, right? You're running a mega church and people love it. Uh but you stepped out of the church. So, what

4:49
was happening there that made you step out and and made you think through what could be next after that?

4:54
Well, there's probably a couple baby steps before that cuz along the way, two two different things happened. Um, one

5:01
of them was that my youth pastor came to me and said, "Hey, I want to do what you

5:06
did." And I was like, "What's that?" And he said, "I want to plant a church." And so

5:12
now it was kind of like, "Okay, are you going to put your money where your mouth is? You said this is what you wanted to do." And part of it truthfully is I like

5:18
I liked having him on my staff team. I actually hired him because I wanted to be the youth pastor for my kids. And so it was kind of a little bit of an

5:24
oh crap kind of moment. Yeah. Um and to kind of put him off, we we sent him he wanted to do it in Denver.

5:31
So we sent him out to Colorado, him and his friends. Long story short, he came back with a big smile on his face and I

5:37
was like, "What's up?" And he's like, "It went really good this trip." trip and I was thinking maybe he'd wear off, but he came back and he'd raised enough

5:44
money just in that like week and a half being gone connecting with people to actually with some help from us then

5:49
plant this church. Wow. So, we got up and I got up in front of everybody our church and I said, "Listen, u they're going to go out

5:56
there, you know, these people, you love these people, and plant this church in Denver. If God's sending them, he's

6:02
probably sending some of you, too." And we had 35 people from uh Chicago that

6:07
moved from Chicago, sold their homes, transferred schools, got new jobs, left Chicago land, moved out to the Denver

6:13
area to plant that first church. And then after that, we just continually kept, you know, the next one was in

6:18
Southern California, people moved. After that was outside of Detroit, people moved. Then it was Boston, then it was

6:25
New York. And um anyway, that just kind of really and and think about maybe for

6:31
your listeners, we weren't just planting church, we were planting churches like ours who going like, "Oh, we want to plant other churches." So like all of

6:38
them had kind of this really movement kind of potential within them. And over the next oh probably 18 18

6:45
years or so u we ended up being in 69 countries and planting over 25,000 churches.

6:51
Wow. And again, I want to be care we I should say we helped plant because like the church in Chicago didn't plant it, but we might have planted the church in

6:57
Kansas City that planted this other church that then planted, you know what I mean? So, we were a part of that whole family tree that planted all those

7:02
churches. So, that was one part and that and we actually gave that a name. Eventually, we called it new thing

7:10
comes from Isaiah 43. Behold, I'm doing this new thing. because we were constantly doing new things. And then the other thing that happened almost the

Church Planting Conferences - Exponential

7:16
exact same time was there was a small church planning conference um that would

7:22
meet every year. A couple hundred people would show up. A buddy of mine out in DC had just volunteered because that's the

7:28
way it works. Someone would volunteer to be the president. You didn't really want to do it, but you'd take a turn. You know how those orgs work.

7:33
And so he just took his turn said, "Okay, I'm going to lead it this next year." He calls me and says, "Hey, I'm

7:39
going to lead this. I'll run the operations. what if you are the upfront guy and I was like okay let's do it and we

7:46
kind of took that and it went from just a couple hundred people the next year had over 700 then the year after that well over a thousand and eventually grew

7:53
to this we meet annually now in Orlando with over 5,500 people and it's not just

7:58
a conference actually organization has four different verticals underneath it called exponential

8:03
so to your question sorry that's awesome um we started the church we started this

8:10
church planning organization called New Thing and then we also helped start this this

8:16
organization that's really had primarily was is known for its conferences called exponential and um and those things all

8:24
three of them just continued by God's kindness extraordinarily kind uh it just

8:30
kept growing and um really it was only just this past April that we actually

Merging New Thing and Exponential

8:37
merged new thing in exponential so now It's new thing has actually come is going to be a part of exponential and

8:44
then I also apprenticed a new lead pastor at community and that just happened uh in May of 2025.

8:51
Wow. Handed the baton off to him where now I'm founding pastor. So really for the first time in 20 years I like have like

8:59
a real clear singular focus as the CEO of of Exponential.

9:04
Wow. That's an amazing journey. Just unbelievable. I mean, again, I feel

9:10
super super grateful to God. I feel Yeah. I mean, yeah. I don't know how

9:16
else to say it. As you think through that youth group leader that you had and even this this new uh pastor that's coming in and

Hero-Making - Finding New Leaders

9:23
taking over for you, we talk a lot about servant leadership on this podcast and just leadership in general. Uh

9:30
a lot of church transitions and church plans don't go well. Uh and I know a lot

9:36
do as well. How do you look for leadership in servant leadership in the people that you're surrounding yourself

9:42
with? Uh Chris, the I think I understand exactly what you're saying. The term

9:48
that we like to use and we use it a lot um is called uh herom.

9:53
Yeah. We want to actually be herom makers and we want other people that are in the in the the task of hero making where um and

10:02
I guess because we're kind of getting to know each other. Let me Are you Are you married? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have kids? Yep. Two kids. How old are your kids?

10:08
Seven and five. Seven and five. Boy, girl, both boys. Both boys. Okay. My hunch is, you know,

10:15
you wouldn't be leading this company. Well, kind of two companies and doing a podcast, a side hustle if you weren't a

10:21
little bit driven. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you like a graph probably like me that's up and the right. Yep. Okay. 100%. You want you want to be

10:27
successful, but my also hunch about you is as much as you want to be successful,

10:34
you would love for your kids to be even more successful. Yeah, 100%. And like for me, uh my kids are older

10:40
than yours and I have I have three. I have a daughter and then two sons and

10:46
they've all done very well in diff different things. I'm thinking of one day in particular. My youngest son

10:53
u was a uh D3 all-American in um the

10:58
steeple chase and there was actually he was a two-time all-American but the first time he won like our whole family

11:04
was there and he had this amazing race where he came from behind at the end to

11:10
actually become an all-American. It was it was so cool and you know my one son's

11:15
hugging my other son, my daughter, everybody's celebrating right and stuff. It's funny. I look at that. I think that was one of the best days of my life.

11:22
Wow. And I wasn't the one who was successful. It was it was them. Does that make

11:27
sense? Yeah. And so there there's such I mean until you really lean into it, you some people

11:34
may not understand this, but there is such joy, such fulfillment when when you

11:39
really begin to engage yourself in this idea of being a heromaker. Uh so like we

11:44
did everything we could to make that church plant, you know, out in Denver successful. We gave a sign, we made a

11:51
significant financial contribution. I got up there, like I said, I challenged people to move

11:56
and they did to go out there and I have no regrets about that. And uh and the

12:02
same thing with Ted, Ted Canerys, who's the our the lead pastor apprentice, the new lead pastor at Community. Um

12:08
actually, we just did a podcast and we kind of reference this way. I'm going like, and he's he's probably too old to

12:15
be my kid, but in some ways I feel that way about him. Yeah. That I'm going, you know what? I

12:22
Yeah, I want to be successful. I like to win, but I I really want him to be

12:28
successful, and I will do everything I can to make him successful. And

12:33
and you I think this is also true in servant leadership. you in the strangest

Servant Leadership - Multiplying Your Influence

12:38
way you actually multiply your influence by by helping other people become

12:44
successful. And some people think well no I need to focus on my thing instead of their thing. But but my experience

12:51
has been as as you as best you can as you help other people be successful. It's there's a reciprocity about that

12:58
like a boomerang effect. It comes back to you and and it and and and maybe this is the way God's economy works and it

13:04
makes you successful. And I I don't think this is just a church thing. This is a business thing. Yeah. 100%. How do you teach that to

Coaching Others To Become A "Hero Maker"

13:12
people though? Because I don't think that comes natural. Naturally, it's what's in it for me? What can I do for me? let's let's make me successful but

13:20
across the table whoever's there it's not necessarily how do I make them successful uh in a lot of cases how do

13:26
you teach that well uh I wrote a book called HeroMaker and we actually call we call it five

13:31
practices for leaders that want to multiply leaders and I can highlight some of those real quick I think one of

13:37
the things because you're right I think it's easy for us to get really preoccupied with our own thing so I kind of start with your own thing and so if I

13:42
was kind of coaching you up on this Chris I'd say okay what's the dream so many dreams

13:48
Okay. And then and follow Jesus. Well, follow Jesus. Well, but I'm if you're talking about like uh project world

13:54
impact, what's the dream? I would probably challenge you to go like, okay, I want you to take that

13:59
dream, make it simple enough you put it on the back of a napkin. But then I also what I want you to do is I want you to multiply that dream

14:07
by and I would I would pick a big big number 10,000.

14:12
Mhm. I actually had a leader early on which pushed me in this direction say hey take your dream multiply it by a

14:17
million and at that point in time my church my dream was I wanted to have a church of a thousand people which is

14:24
such a stupid dream but it was kind of like oh and I I had kind of strategized you know I maybe I could communicate

14:30
well enough to attract a thousand people or maybe I could um you know organize a

14:35
hundred small groups you know of 10 each that get to a thousand um and then so I was thinking a thousand

14:41
people that would be you you know, successful. And then he said, I want you to multiply that by a million.

14:47
And so a thousand times a million Yeah. is a billion. Yeah. And then he said, "Now I want you to

14:53
figure out how do you do that?" And it was this kind of it just kind of was like mindblowing.

14:59
It really did. I mean, like I felt like the the cavity of of my skull began to expand. Um and and what happened is I

15:07
began to realize you know what now a thousand maybe I could do it but a billion

15:14
I would have to and I'll talk in church kind of parlons church speak here because that's the lane I was in I would

15:21
have to work with a lot of other churches to do something like that. I would have to probably work with a lot of different denominations than my own.

15:27
I would I couldn't I couldn't do this. I would have to I mean find not just

15:33
dozens but thousands of other church leaders who had similar dreams or give them that kind of dream of

15:38
multiplication over and over and over again to get to a billion. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so one of the things I tell people

15:43
when in the herm process the good place to start is you need to have a dream so big that that you're makes you dependent

15:51
on God. And and you what and what you need Chris is you need to have a dream that's so big you know you can't pull it

15:57
off by yourself. Mhm. Does that make sense? Yeah. Cuz if you know you can't pull it off by yourself, then all of a sudden, I mean,

16:03
you kind of enter the room just looking around at people going like, "Okay, who here can I invest in to make this big

16:10
dream happen?" Mhm. And that that's um

16:16
that that's kind of that that's that's the first of of five of five practices. Um

16:22
I mean, I could share another story if you want. I mean, I got all kinds of stuff on this. I it's such a good

The Concept Of Multiplication

16:28
thought and and I remember we talked with Liz Wisman about multipliers on the podcast at one point and and reading a

16:34
lot of your stuff too. This concept of multiplication keeps coming up, right? And and I think so often people are so

16:40
narrow-minded that uh or just maybe not opportunistic enough. Maybe not it's not narrow-minded, but it's not looking for

16:47
the opportunities looking around the table to think through how could we multiply what we're doing. Um, I laugh

16:52
because our vision here at PWI is to impact hundreds of millions of people. Yeah. So now I'm thinking times that by a million or by a thousand, whatever.

16:59
And maybe you already have a big dream because if you do, you're already you're already at a place you're where you're going like, okay, this is not just going

17:05
to happen to Chris Leser. There's a whole bunch of people that I got to invest my life in. And it may even and it may not even happen until

17:12
after I'm gone. Right. Yeah. But but I think in doing so it kind of forces you into this role of I

17:18
would say not trying to be the hero but of making heroes of others. Yeah. Which I think is very very closely or

17:25
maybe almost synonymous with servant leadership. Well and now this multiplication concept with what you're doing with exponential

Vision For Exponential - Innovation Curve

17:31
has become unbelievable working with all these pastors with the different verticals under exponential. How do you

17:37
see this multiplying now that you're going to be spending more time in it? And like what is that vision? What's it

17:43
look like? Yeah. Part of our vision. Are are you familiar with the innovation curve? Yeah. Okay. So, the innovation curve for your

17:48
listeners who maybe not, just go ahead and Google it real quick. A guy named Ever Rogers first introduced it and um

17:54
tipping point, Malcolm Gladwell kind of popularized it. But on the innovation curve, it kind of shows how change

18:00
actually happens. And the way change happens is you usually have about 2 and a half% that are innovators and then you have about

18:07
oh 13 and 1.5% that are the early adopters. So about 16%. And if you want to see change actually happen, you

18:14
really need to go after those 16%. Now, and I know I'm talking to a marketing guy, so you probably you can speak to

18:20
this better than me, but a lot of us end up kind of going right in the middle of the bell curve because that's the

18:26
easiest cell. But if you want to see change, you need to get that first 16%. So at

18:32
Exponential, our vision is we want to see 16% of all churches in the United States become reproducing churches

18:40
because if we can get 16% of the 360,000 churches in the United States, that's 60,000 churches become reproducing, it

18:47
does two things. Um, one, back to my original, you know, when I was a freshman in college, it helps more

18:53
people find their way back to God, which I think is the key leverage point for change. And I think there's also strong

18:59
evidence that it also leads to human flourishing, which is I think what what our country really needs.

19:06
So we're in the process now of kind of rolling that whole thing out and going like and actually we we do research on

19:12
that. Um it first hit us about 10 years ago as we began to kind of tiptoe into

19:17
this and what we discovered is that about 4% of all churches in the United States are what we call reproducing this

19:23
multiplier, this hero making kind of uh mindset. Um, in the last 10 years, we've

19:28
been able to see the needle move from four to five to six to now 7%. And, um,

19:35
part of our dream is we'd love to see that actually go from 7 to 16 in the ne in the next 10 years.

19:40
Wow. In terms of the the offerings, how do you come up with what the offerings are now with exponential when you're

19:47
impacting some of the decisions you make are impacting not just thousands of pastors, but hundreds of thousands of

19:53
millions of people that are going to be ending up in these churches? How do you how do you process all of that?

19:59
Well, I think we we have more of a disposition to steal a line from, you know, Home Depot, I think it was, that

20:05
you can do it and we can help. Yeah. We don't have any illusions that exponential is going to do this 16%.

20:12
It's churches that come alongside that we're able to come alongside. They look and I'll I'll reference the Bible and

20:19
they see Acts 18 and it says, "Hey, here here's the strategy. last thing Jesus says before he leaves planet earth. He

20:24
says, "We're going to start in Jerusalem, then we're gonna go to Judea, then Samaria, the ends of the earth." And so,

20:30
one of the last, maybe the very last thing that Jesus said was like, "Hey guys, don't forget what I'm talking

20:36
about here is a movement, okay, that helps people find their way back to God and leads to human flourishing. That's

20:41
what my kingdom is all about. That's what that's what we're going to do." And so, we don't actually do the stuff. We

20:47
do everything we can again hero making to make those churches that want to do this successful. Now at our conference

20:54
we probably the largest church planning conference in the world. I mean yeah we're constantly vision casting. We're

20:59
constantly telling stories but we can't make them want to but once they want to all right yeah we

21:05
will do everything we can to make you successful. Wow. In this process there's been tons of learnings and your goal is to get it

Getting Into Writing Books

21:11
out to as many people as possible right and you've you've written a lot of books and been involved in a lot of books.

21:16
What's that process been like and how did you get into writing? Oh, into writing. Well, one of the

21:23
people that was a hero maker for me uh was a guy named Bob Buford. I don't know if that rings a bell or not.

21:28
Half time. Yeah. Okay. So, I was actually on the board of Halime and Leadership Network for a while. And um this here's a here's

21:36
a here's a practice for if you want to be a hero maker, which Bob did. Um Bob would have like a 3x5 card or a wallet

21:44
card he keep in his front pocket or maybe back in his wallet and it would have like 10 or 12 names on it and those

21:49
are the people that he was intentionally investing in both relationally and financially.

21:55
So again, it wasn't about his him being the hero and even his halftime. If you've read the book, his book halftime,

22:01
which is worth the read, probably sold more than half million copies. Um it was when his only son died that he said, "I

22:07
need to make this move from success to significance." And really, it's from being the hero to

22:13
being a hero maker is what happened. And um so Bob was one of those guys for

22:19
me. I'll throw one more thing at you because I there's so much about his legacy that's I think really important. He had this saying and if you and if you

22:26
resonate with the idea of being a servant leader or you resonate with the idea of being a hermaking kind of leader, he used to always say this, my

22:32
fruit grows on other people's trees. And I mean, I just that stuck with my fruit grows in other people's trees. I

22:39
love that. And so as uh as community started growing and we started planting

22:44
other churches, it was actually his organization and some of the people in his organization leadership network that

22:49
came to myself and my brother John and Eric Braramlet and asked us to write our

22:55
first book and they kind of uh co-branded it with with Zanderan and uh it was that invitation that really uh

23:02
that got us into it and then after that I mean several have followed after that is they they did pretty well.

23:07
Wow. you know, that thought of and it just hit me as you're talking about obviously success to significance and

Moving From Hero To Hero-Maker

23:14
I've heard that a lot a lot after uh being involved with halftime stuff and

23:20
just I'm a little younger than I think their target demographic, but at the same time I love love the thoughts

23:25
that concept of hero to her maker really applies to everybody. Absolutely. You know, and that is a a chosen decision.

23:35
How do you decide when to become a hero maker? Because it doesn't seem like there's any time too soon to do that,

23:43
you know? It's like yesterday is the best time. No, I mean in some ways too, I mean to

23:50
use maybe an obvious, maybe not so obvious example, I think Jesus,

23:55
okay, he catalyzed a global movement now of more, you know, how many billions of

24:02
people that call themselves Christians. So, how did he do this? Well, you go

24:07
back to there's a book in the Bible called John, the fourth gospel. It's kind of a biography about him. John

24:13
chapter 14, verse 12. And he says this crazy thing to his his closest

24:19
disciples. And remember, he's only got 12. There's 12 of them. And he says this. He said, "The things you've seen

24:24
me do, you're going to do even greater things than these." And I mean, don't forget, I

24:32
mean, Jesus did some pretty significant things. But he was like basically saying, "No, listen. It's my job. I'm

24:38
going to make sure that you're doing greater things. You're going to take this good news to more places than I ever will. You're going to be the ones

24:44
that going to write the bestselling book, the Bible, not me." You know, he on and on. You're going to be the ones that are going to catalyze this movement

24:50
that given enough time in the next 2,000 years is really it is going to go from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth. and basically spent three

24:56
years being a heromaker and then telling them out loud, no, yeah, there's great things happen, but

25:02
when my spirit comes inside you, you're going to do even greater greater things. And that's that's the mindset of a hero

25:08
maker. And it and I think anybody who decides to follow Jesus, that's what you

25:14
also you take you take that on as well. And I think that can that can be as something it could be in your home as a

25:21
parent. That's I mean essentially that's kind of what you do and and when parenting goes bad it's when you're not

25:28
right. Yeah. Um I think when you have a b when you when you start your business it's a

25:33
brilliant way to it's a brilliant way to lead your business because I mean anybody and you can probably testify this anybody who's been

25:39
successful in business knows like yeah the customer is important but probably even more important is that

25:44
my staff because if I take care of my staff my staff will take care of the customer. Mhm. And again, it's hero making and you want

25:50
to do everything you can. And some of them in on your sta on your staff too, you know what? They got a business inside them. And when they come to you

25:56
and say, "You know what, man?" And they're a little scared, you know, oh, I think I think I want to go start my own

26:01
thing. I mean, you do it appropriately, but you go like, "Yeah, and you let me know. You let me know how I can help

26:07
you." And I'll tell I guarantee I guarantee it'll come back to you. It'll come back

26:12
to you. Yeah. That's I I love where you're going with this. And I can immediately so many

First Steps To Become A Hero-Maker

26:18
things are coming to mind where I've actually seen this happen both in my life and others. And I think the people that uh that I've been most attracted to

26:27
uh to hang out with are hermakers. When I think about it in that language, what do you think the first steps are to

26:34
becoming a hermaker? Because a lot of people who might be listening might be thinking, boy, I want to be a change maker, but I'm not in a position of

26:40
influence or I'm not I'm not in a leadership position or I'm I'm just stuck here where I am. what's a step

26:46
they can take? Well, I think a lot more people are leaders than we realize because I do

26:51
think what you just hinted at. I think the simple definition of leadership is influence. And you and you probably do.

26:56
You influence your kids, you influence your neighbors, you influence people, you know, where you work. So, don't

27:02
downplay don't downplay that. But again, if we go back to kind of the five practices, I think the first the first practice is what I call multiplication

27:08
thinking. And you have to have this big dream. I think the big dream for your life really does it pushes you outside

27:15
yourself on a consistent basis. I'll share a second one. I think the second one is what I call permission giving. And permission giving is when um

Permission Giving

27:23
and maybe think about your business, Chris. There's somebody that in your business

27:28
and you go, man, this this person's a rock star and you know what? They're going to help us over this next season, but they

27:35
probably even have so much potential, they ought to be doing their own thing. Does that make sense? Yeah. And and so this and with each of

27:41
the practices we have so the practice is permission giving in the book we also give a tool and the tool that we give

27:47
them we give I like to give people really simple tools you can implement like that day like so like you literally

27:53
can walk out this door and have this do this and we call this the four most important letters of uh of the in of the leader

I.C.N.U Conversations

28:00
alphabet I see in you and so you have what we call an IC and

28:07
you conversation where you I mean You intentionally go, listen, you know, and this person maybe they're

28:13
10 years younger than you, and you're going, you know what? I've seen what you've I've seen what you've done. I'm telling you, dude, you are an

28:19
entrepreneur. You stick around here for the next four years. I will teach you everything I can, and you start figuring

28:25
out what you want to do, but I'm telling you, you got a business inside you, and you will crush it, and I'm going to do

28:31
everything I can to make you successful. So, that and that's permission giving.

28:36
And um that I think and I think it's and again it's kind of counterintuitive because

28:43
you want no they're going to leave my company. Guess what? He's going to leave your company anyway. Okay? And so why not do everything you

28:50
can to make like your kids. You're going to do everything you can to make them successful because guess what? Then they're going to turn around too and

28:56
guess what? They will they will probably if you make them successful, you know, every time he runs into some runs into

29:01
somebody who needs marketing, he's going to be driving them to you guys, right? you're you're you're and it's and it's

29:07
kind of legacy building. So, I think that second one of permission giving and using that tool, that really simple tool of permission giving, which is having

29:13
what I call I see in you conversations. I'm going to put you on the spot. I know you're interviewing me, but I'm going to

29:19
interview you for a second. Okay. Oh, boy. I want you to think back.

29:24
Is there anybody in your life that comes to mind who had that I see in you conversation

29:31
that actually kind of maybe they saw something in you you didn't see in yourself? Um they gave you permission to

29:38
do something that maybe you wouldn't have had the courage to do on your own. Is there anybody that comes to mind? I mean the first person is my dad. Uh

29:46
but I can think of dozens of people off the top of my head. Okay. Is there a particular different

29:51
season of life? Was there a particular story that when you said my dad was there something in particular thinking that he said to you or was a moment?

29:58
Um there's many way. Yeah definitely way of being. It's many

30:04
moments you know everything from playing sports in the basement and talking about hey this could be something that you

30:10
like. I see that you're great at this or I see this in you like in that terminology. Uh yeah all kinds of stuff.

30:16
Yeah. I I think I think your listeners will play that back. They'll go like, "You know what? Hold it. Some of the

30:24
most significant influencers in my life, I never labeled it that way before, but they really were. They were herommakers

30:30
and they had these ICNU conversations with me." Yeah. Yeah. I can think through multiple

30:36
conversations with some of the most influential people in my lives where there was a moment where they said

30:41
almost those exact words, "I see this in you." Yeah. And and in my mind, I've just thought they're great encouraers, like

30:47
amazing encouragers, which they were and are, but now it's like, oh, they're heromakers, you know, that that kind of

30:53
helps me reframe to and I think the other thing I I would encourage your listeners, too, is be

Be Intentional

30:58
intentional about it. This is this and don't be flippant about it. So, don't say it if it's not true. But what if we

31:04
go like, you know, no, I'm not going to let a day or or at least a week pass that I'm not going to have an an

31:10
intentional IC and you conversation with somebody cuz that is so and and it and

31:16
you know in the position you're in and as it continues to grow as it's kind of weird as your influence grows, you have

31:22
like a disproportional kind of influence on other people.

31:27
Does that make sense? Yeah. Like you were going like, "Oh, you've written a bunch of books." Mhm. It's kind of weird when you write a

31:33
book. It's kind of like all of a sudden you you don't really deserve it, but you get more influence. Does that make sense? Then probably you should.

31:39
And then if you've written several, then you know, and if someone has an ICU conversation, they it's more it's

31:44
weightier. And so I would encourage as your influence grows, as your leadership

31:50
grows, use that collateral in these ICNU conversations because it'll it'll it'll

31:56
impact people um and be really meaningful to them. All right. So it's I

Disciple/Apprentice Multiplying

32:01
mean and I know we could go down this route now I really want to you've talked through the first two the multiplication you've talked through through the

32:07
permission what follows that well I'll kind of be brief because I know we're getting close to time so step

32:13
number three is what we call disciple multiplying um or I also could call it apprentice multiplying and essentially so if the

32:20
first one is you got this big dream realize I can't do it by myself multiplication thinking secondly is permission giving you're having these

32:25
ICU conversation let's say you have it with one of your employees then the apprentice multiplying part is you

32:31
literally bring them alongside you and you go and we actually in the book we have a simple tool we have what we

32:37
call the five steps of apprenticeship and it's a real it's a real simple process and um

32:44
again I'll point to Jesus in in in the same book that we referenced before John 3 22 Jesus there's this phrase that says

32:52
he spent some time with them that 12 that started a movement okay he spent some time with them and it

32:59
actually comes from a Greek word which is datribo which means to rub off and

33:04
basically just saying yeah Jesus just rubbed off on them and so I would say

33:09
like if you had that conversation with somebody in your company and you did see that in them then you're going okay now I want to be intentional intentional

33:15
about apprenticing them over the next however long you decide. So, for example, like you asked about Ted, who's

33:21
the new lead pastor. We had an 18-month apprenticeship. There was an 18-month apprentichip where I was the lead

33:27
pastor. He was the lead pastor apprentice, and we literally went through those kind of same five steps.

Gift Activation

33:33
Um, the fourth practice is what we call gift activation. And sometimes what

33:38
happens is you develop this person in your company and you want them to be your right-hand p man. you want them to

33:45
or your right-hand woman, your right-hand person forever or even a co- at some point. If you really see it in

33:51
them, you really have to fully activate their gifts. And in a lot of cases, that means

33:58
letting them go and let them do whatever it is that God meant for them to do. And you not only do that, but you bless

34:04
them. You does that make sense? For sure. And this is I'm particularly passionate about this. This happens a lot in the church world where, oh, you could be my

34:10
associate pastor, you know, that kind of thing. And you're like, you know, for the next 40 years when inside that

34:16
person, they could start their own church. They would start other churches, start other church. You know what I mean? There's there's so much more potential, but because they were afraid,

34:23
okay, they didn't fully activate their gifts. And what you really see again with Jesus

34:29
and even in what's called the great commission, he says, "All authority was given to me." And he says, "Now I give

34:36
it to you." And he says, "Go." And he literally commissions them to go. And then the the fifth one is what I

Kingdom/Legacy Building

34:42
call I call it this is kind of I I talk to a lot of church leaders is kingdom building. Okay, kingdom building. Um

34:49
maybe you maybe you could reference as legacy building. So instead of counting how many people are a part of my thing,

34:55
it's how many people did I send out to do God's thing. Does that make sense? So in the church space instead of the most

35:01
important number and you referenced, you know, a community Christian church is a mega church. Yeah.

35:06
Statistically that's true. that I'm not as wowed by that. Yeah. I mean, the thing I take the most joy in

35:13
is how many churches we helped start, how many leaders we've helped be successful doing their thing. And I think that's where you change the

35:18
scorecard. And you need to change the scorecard because goes all the way back to this big dream, right? The

35:25
multiplication thinking you had. Um, and so, um, for a youth pastor, I'll

35:31
stick in that lane in church. for a youth pastor instead of counting um you know how many how many youth how many

35:36
kids are coming to my student ministry it might be know how many am I actually challenging to go out and do ministry

35:43
whether it's in the business world or in the not for-p profofit or the church world does that make sense yeah for sure I part of this as I as I

35:51
think through it and I wonder if people feel the same way this moving from hero to hero hero maker is starting to make a

35:57
lot of sense on on the flip side now it's boy especially in your role

Choosing People To Invest In

36:02
thousands of people in your church community, thousands of pastors that are looking to you for guidance, uh

36:08
potentially millions of people impacted. How do you choose who how do you choose those 10 people that Bob Eupford had on

36:14
the card? How do you identify here's where I should invest my time? Because everyone wants a piece of your time, I'm

36:20
sure. Yeah. Um I'm probably not quite as popular as you might think.

36:26
Um having having said that, I'd say two things. One is

36:32
um and I think I got this from Bob Goff and he would talk about this. There's lots of visions out there and only some

36:39
are accessible. So I really do I try to be as very accessible like u I got another book

Encourage Many ... Invest In A Few

36:47
coming out uh this this next year and I think within the in the first chapter I put my phone number in there.

36:52
Wow. If if people resonate with what like this kind of conversation I want to do whatever I can that's possible to help

36:58
them. So um encourage many and then invest in a few. And so the invest in a

37:05
few. So for example again with this transition it's a fairly new transition for me to just focus on exponential. I

37:10
am starting like my own like 10 or 12 list. I had a conversation um last week

37:18
with with a guy who told me he said um my dream because I asked him the same question like he was I he said my dream

37:24
is I would before it's all said and done I'd like to help plant 10,000 churches. I was like really and I like this guy.

37:30
He's a funny guy, good guy. He said yeah 10,000. And he began to explain how he thought maybe he could do it. And I just

37:36
told myself anything I can do to help. So literally he doesn't even know this unless he listens to this podcast. So I

37:42
added his name to my list. Wow. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, I think you encourage many, but then you

37:48
invest in a few. Wow, that is so good. It one of the things that I love is that um this

Making It Simple and Practical

37:55
concept of hero to her maker also is giving people the tools to build other

38:00
hero makers, right? You've given people so many tools, not just in the HeroMaker book, uh but also in other books like

38:06
Bless and just other things you've done. What I love about what you and John and others are doing is it's so practical.

38:12
Uh, and really it's it takes really complex concepts into something that is

38:18
simple that even somebody like me can actually like do it. Like I can walk out of this room and and have an I see in

38:24
you conversation. Absolutely. And it's like oh and I hope people listening really take that away um the same way I

38:31
will. And and one of the things we do we we really do try to to drive it down to

38:36
that like okay how do you actually implement this in every day? And it's funny because sometimes they get so

38:43
simple like they, you know, people like, "Oh, I see in you. How cheesy can you be?" Well, turns out, you know, that

38:50
people, most people are, I mean, they're just, they're trying to stay married. They're trying to pay the bills. They're

38:56
trying to you there's a lot of things they're trying to do. But if you can put the cookies on the, you know, on the what do they call on the bottom shelf

39:01
where they can get access to them, it just I think that that's how you get a lot of traction. And and I personally think it

39:08
takes an extra layer of really thinking about some some highlevel ideas to

39:14
actually bring it down to going like no here's actually how you actually do it. So thank you for noticing that. Yeah, this is so good. I want to finish

Ten Rapid-Fire Questions

39:20
this with 10 rapidfire questions. Uh oh, 10 where you just say the first thing that

39:25
comes to mind. There's no wrong answer, but we'll compare it to John's.

39:31
Uh who's the first person you think of when I say servant leadership? First person came to mind was my mom.

39:38
John said the same thing. That's so funny. Well, must be true. All right. Uh, favorite author or book.

39:46
Favorite author or book? Uh, I mean, on the topic we had today, there's a guy named Alan Hirs who wrote a book called

39:52
Forgotten Ways. All right. Five words that most describe you. um futuristic

40:01
uh optimistic uh resultsoriented

40:06
um I was a hyphen. Yeah, that works. Um

40:12
passionate and white socks fan.

40:17
I love four of them. I know John didn't have that one. Yeah, I'm a Tigers fan, too. So

40:22
Oh, well, we are no threat. We are no threat. You're so bad. Not right now, at least. No.

40:29
Favorite food? Favorite food? I do like a lot of um I had a great filt just this week.

40:35
All right. What's something you like to do in your free time? Um I like to run. All right. What's a surprising fact

40:41
about you? A surprising fact about me is that I

40:46
drove an ice cream truck um when I was in high school as a summer job.

40:51
That's awesome. Favorite place you've been? Oo, two I'm going to name two

40:56
places. Um, I was just recently in Lake Ko, Italy, which was phenomenal. And that's it's right up there with another

41:03
place called Queenstown, New Zealand. Both beautiful lakes, surrounded by mountains. Awesome.

41:09
Where's somewhere you want to go that you haven't been? Um, I I've not been to China.

41:15
Okay. Yeah. Uh, what's the best advice you've ever gotten? Uh, the best advice.

41:21
Um, I I just I just you know Carrie Newuhof.

41:26
Yeah. So Carrie has a podcast too and I actually just got to interview him. Um, he was in town and this I don't know

41:32
it's the best but it's really good advice and he said because I asked him the same kind of question and he said

41:37
work on your character more than your competency. I literally was just talking about this with Steve Carter as well. That's some

41:44
of his stuff. So I love that. And finally, why do you think a podcast on servant leadership is important? Leaders

Importance Of A Podcast On Servant Leadership

41:50
are the people who change at at the smallest level

41:57
families, companies, communities, on a bigger level, change the world,

42:03
change the country. And if you can get leaders to have the mindset of being a servant, my term, heromaker.

42:12
Yeah. That has then you have the possibility for I mean all kinds of transformation

42:17
for great great good. Wow. This has been so good. I'm so thankful that you came. I'm glad our

Closing

42:24
audience is going to get to hear from you. I know people are going to be trying to think through how did they not stay the hero in the story, but how do

42:30
they become hero makers? And uh just so encouraging. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you for listening to this episode of the

42:37
Servant Leadership Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please give it a thumbs up and leave a comment below.

42:44
Don't forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell to never miss an update. Be sure to check out the

42:50
servantleershippodcast.org for more updates and additional bonus content. [Music]