Next Ventures is an innovative approach to finding, connecting, and learning from emerging leaders who are shaping the future of the church. We begin the process by collaborating with our Venture Partners – churches and ministries with national influence – to discover a new wave of innovative projects and leaders and then provide them with small capital grants for encouragement. We bring 10-15 of these innovators together each year at an event we call our

Welcome to One Eighty, welcome to Discipleship. Over the next 8 weeks, we will be turning our focus to creating a discipleship culture as we look ahead to our 2024 Global Exponential Conference March 4-7th. -- On this episode we are talking about how Jesus’ style of evangelism always led folks to follow Him. So many times we try to separate evangelism and discipleship. That leaves us with weak Christians and an even weaker church.

Recently, I drew my signature “annual church calendar” diagram for a room full of staff members at a large church in Atlanta.  I’ve been using this image since 2002 to provide a visual for executive leaders to help them think about the annual rhythms of the church, the topics we tend to prioritize, the optimal times for gathering and developing leaders, the times when leaders and congregants alike are most inclined to be thinking about

Are your members equipped for the personal mission? Many of us tried turning our churches into evangelistic “fishing ponds.” That didn’t work. We taught our members to invite others to church instead of equipping them to go and make disciples. So, let’s turn our equip our members as “spiritual archaeologists” uncovering treasure in the people around them. The goal is to embolden ordinary Christ-followers to enter and explore friendships among the 70 percent of Americans