How was your 2018?
As 2018 winds down and I reflect on the wild and adventurous ride our team has had this past year, I’m humbled by and thankful for how God has so clearly walked ahead of us and abundantly poured out his blessings on the work we’ve been called to.
I’m grateful that we’ve been called to lead and steward an ongoing national conversation on church multiplication and the the frameworks and resources we are creating and distributing are providing a critical role in the future of the U.S. church. I’m grateful that the trust and confidence in the Exponential brand is now having an impact internationally.
I’m grateful that our mission to see the percentage of churches that ever reproduce or multiply increase from less than 4% to greater than 10% is worth investing our lives in. I’m grateful for an amazing team that is wholeheartedly sold out to this mission and is so sacrificially giving themselves to it when they could opt for an easier path that pays more money and demands less time.
I’m grateful for tangible fruit we are seeing as the needle on multiplication is starting to move. We are excited to see key leading indicators moving the right direction with multiplication replacing accumulation as the normative measure of success for leaders and the for the church.
I’m grateful for leaders like you who share in our vision, make our work more joyful and meaningful, and invest in other church planting and multiplication leaders. Thank you for doing what you do, and for being supportive of, and an encouragement to our team and to so many other leaders.
Let me share some highlights from 2018…
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Our team of six is stronger and we welcomed Jason Stewart to the team, as our much-needed COO. Jason is just the right person, at just the right time to help us take hold of the amazing opportunities God is placing in our path.
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Our board is stronger and more diverse with the addition of Terry Knutson (a seasoned marketplace leader and Kingdom entrepreneur) and Cynt Marshall (former VP at AT&T and now the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks).
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Nearly 10,000 leaders were inspired, encouraged, and equipped at our seven Exponential HeroMaker events. 1,000s of these leaders stepped out in faith to plant or support new churches.
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Our library of FREE, high-quality resources was expanded with new eBooks, audio and video training, webinars, new online courses, and a new online HeroMaker assessment.
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Our Learning Communities expanded from 6 cohorts serving 150 leaders to 9 cohorts serving 225 leaders. The majority of these leaders are young, emerging leaders representing the most diverse makeup of participants that we’ve seen in our initiatives.
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We piloted our first-ever online cohort.
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Our conferences featured over 350 speakers, over 500 hours of unique training content, and over 80 different sponsors.
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We added New York City as a regional event and had over 400 people register for this first-time event. Our Global event in Orlando sold out with over 5,000 people and all our regionals increased in size.
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We committed to a long-term relationship with leaders from 26 countries in Europe to form Exponential Europe and to begin offering a global event in Berlin in 2020. Our role is to help reproduce and equip these indigenous leaders to help catalyze healthy disciple making and multiplication movements.
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We built deeper and stronger relationships with our sister ministries Leadership Network, Discipleship.org, and two ministries we’ve helped birth (Multipliers and Made for More).
- We continued to write and steward the regular church planting and multiplication column in Outreach Magazine.
Here’s just a taste of the amazing things we are looking forward to in 2019…
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We are adding a new regional in Boise, Idaho in spring 2019.
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We are adding a new Exponential Español in Southern California in spring 2019. This national event will be in Spanish and will seek to inspire, encourage, and equip the next generation of Latino leaders to plant healthy, reproducing churches.
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Our 2019 theme Made for More: Mobilizing God’s People, God’s Way will feature the largest, most comprehensive, and integrated library of FREE resources we’ve ever had. Seeing churches mobilize every Believer as an everyday missionary to everyday mission fields where they work, live and play is critical to seeing disciple making and multiplication movements. These resources will be jointly published with a new non-profit mobilization ministry called Made for More.
- We working to complete three more multiplication assessments to complete our library for an individual and organizational assessment for each of our three dimensions of multiplication.
- Partnering with Lifeway Research to release new research for measuring current Level 4 and Level 5 multiplication in the North American church. The research is scheduled to debut at Orlando 2019 and to be updated annually into the future.
- We were entrusted by the Buford Foundation and Linda Buford to steward the legacy of Bob Buford via the new Buford Library for 100X Impact. In 2019, we will debut a new online content library that be used by like-minded ministries it improved the management and distribution of their content.
I’d like to connect with you in 2019 at one of our Made for More Exponential events across the country. My desire is for Exponential to be a blessing to you and your ministry in the coming year.
May you be encouraged and find joy in Christ as you celebrate the New Year!
Todd Wilson
CEO, Exponential
