Book Review: Exponential by Dave and Jon Ferguson

I have been reading a lot about church expansion and planting, and in particular, the missional church movement. The first book I read in that regard was Organic Church by Neil Cole. It was a great book, and set the stage for me quite well to read Exponential.

Exponential is not as much of a church planting book as it is a church growth, expansion and multiplication book. It talks a little about the grassroots movement, and focuses the majority of its attention on creating a movement with in your church. I think that is good writing, because not too many people will start a church, but many people could help their church cultivate an exponential church growth movement.

The whole premise of the book is basically reproduction. Churches as a whole have not reproduced themselves so much, but as the authors point out, reproduction is the sign of health.

The first thing I took away from this book was the idea of what they call an apprentice. It is basically the idea of one-on-one mentoring. They chose the word “apprentice because, “the word apprentice says that you are not only a learner but also are willing and ready to take action that will demand a greater leadership responsibility in order to further the movement of Jesus. Apprentices don’t just learn; they do what they have been taught and inspire others to lead themselves.”

So, everyone in the church, and particularly in leadership should have an apprentice, someone who they are grooming to do what they do. It seems to me that it is a quite effective way to train people up to do tasks that need to be reproduced within a church. It is also what Jesus did with the disciples. He selected them, gave them the vision, trained them, and then sent them. That is essentially the apprenticeship process.

The second thing that stuck out to me was the section on attracting artists and reproducing them. This is essential according to the authors, and I tend to agree.

Here is a quote from that chapter: "The creative centers tend to be the economic winners of our age... In the form of innovations and high-tech industry growth. The creative centers also show strong signs of overall regional vitality, such as increases in regional employment and population." Richard Florida-The Rise Of The Creative Class

There are different strategies and factors that they hit on in that chapter, but the main theme is that artists need to be given a chance to express themselves, and churches need to be willing to take the chance to make that happen. They say that 30 percent of the people in any church have some sort of artistic background, and the majority of those are not and will not be used. We need to give people the opportunity for artistic expression.

What the book boiled down to me, for the most part, was that we, as the church, need to do a better job of believing in people, coming alongside of them, and empowering them to do what they are capable of, whether they realize it or not. I am challenged to find an apprentice, and begin the process in my own church soon.

For what it is worth, the last part of the book talked about reproducing networks of groups of people, broadening your reach to tens of thousands of people. It lacked the ability to keep my attention. The majority of the meat is jam packed into the first two sections of the book. All in all, a pretty good read though.