Although making disciples is the clear mission of the Church, when asked, most churches say that making disciples who make disciples is still their biggest weakness.
We sense God is calling the church to return to its primary purpose, to make disciples who make disciples.
In order for us to do that we must make a one eighty turn with five essential shifts back to disciple-making in our life and leadership. Join 5,000+ leaders and practitioners to multiply your insights and impact.
Jeff Vanderstelt
As the Executive Director of Saturate and visionary leader of the Soma Family of Churches, Jeff Vanderstelt gets to spend his days doing what he loves — mentoring leaders and equipping the Church in the gospel and missional living. Additionally, Jeff is on the leadership team of Saturate the Sound, a local church collective focused on gospel saturation in the Puget Sound. Jeff has authored Saturate, Gospel Fluency, and Making Space.
LÉONCE CRUMP
Léonce B. Crump Jr. is an international speaker, former NFL athlete, and the co-founder and senior pastor of Renovation Church in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also the author of Renovate: Changing Who You Are by Loving Where You Are and co-author of The Resilience Factor: A Step-By-Step Guide to Catalyse an Unbreakable Team. Léonce has been published in varying print and digital publications, writing on everything from leadership to politics. He serves on several nonprofit boards that promote human flourishing. He regularly speaks nationally and globally at conferences and blogs on topics ranging from family dynamics to financial wisdom at LeonceCrump.com. A champion for the church’s participation in focused and intentional cultural renewal, Léonce is a leading voice of a generation committed to operating as God’s redemptive agents on the earth. Léonce and his wife, Breanna, reside in Atlanta with their three daughters and son.
Danielle Strickland
Danielle lets Love lead her to inspire, challenge, provoke and disrupt the present, and to live the future now. Having lived in different cultures and contexts around the world she celebrates diversity and deeply longs for wrong things to be made right. Danielle practises following Jesus daily. This pursuit has led to exciting entrepreneurial exploits (like co-founding multiple charities and non-profits) and a whole host of failures (that we don’t as often talk about). All of this has convinced her of the deep need we all have for hope, faith, and love. Her deepest longing is to demonstrate what living that boundless life looks like.
Danielle has written six books (the latest is The Other Side of Hope), has a podcast called The Right Side Up (which recently celebrated half-a-million downloads), and speaks to people at events all over the world. Danielle leads Boundless Communications Inc. which launches creative exploits like Women Speakers Collective (liberating voices of women around the globe), IMBY (a tiny home movement IN MY BACKYARD), Brave Global (preventing human trafficking), Infinitum (a way of living deeply), and Hagar’s Voice (support and advocacy for survivors of abuse). Danielle lives in Vancouver, Canada with her three sons and husband Steve. Danielle loves getting outside, doing new things, physical adventures, and she can’t seem to turn down a free lunch.
Evan Mawarire
Evan Mawarire is a Zimbabwean clergyman who founded #ThisFlag Citizen’s Movement to challenge corruption, injustice and poverty in Zimbabwe. The movement’s main objective is to empower citizens to hold government to account. The movement organized multiple successful non-violent protests in response to unjust government policy. For his work, Mawarire was imprisoned and tortured in 2016, 2017 and 2019 and charged with treason facing 80 years in prison. Evan has addressed audiences at The Atlantic Council, Yale, Harvard, the Oxford Union (UK), the Oslo Freedom Forum and the Geneva Summit for Human Rights & Democracy. Foreign Policy magazine named him among 100 global thinkers of 2016. The Daily Maverick Newspaper of South Africa named him 2016 African person of the year. Evan Mawarire was a nominee of the prestigious 2018 Swedish government’s Per Anger Prize for democracy actors. He is a former fellow of Stanford University’s Centre for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law, Yale University’s World Fellows and a Regan-Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Mawarire is currently a visiting fellow at both the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University. He serves on the advisory board of Yale International Leadership Centre and is currently the Director of Education at Renew Democracy Initiative in Washington DC.
Aubrey Sampson
Aubrey Sampson, M.A Leadership and Evangelism, co-planted and serves as teaching pastor at Renewal Church, a multiethnic church in Chicagoland. She co-leads New Thing's Network for Chicago Female Church Planters, and is the author of several books, including The Louder Song: Listening for Hope in the Midst of Lament and Known: How Believing Who God Says You Are Changes Everything. Aubrey is passionate about walking with the hurting, especially those who wonder where God is in their pain. She co-hosts the Nothing is Wasted Podcast. Aubrey and her husband Kevin have three amazing sons, and have lived and served in the Chicago area for over two decades.
Randy Frazee
Randy Frazee is the lead pastor at Westside Family Church in Kansas City. A frontrunner and innovator in spiritual formation and biblical community, Randy is the architect of The Story and Believe church engagement campaign. He is also the author of The Heart of the Story; Think, Act, Be Like Jesus; What Happens After You Die; The Connecting Church 2.0; and The Christian Life Profile Assessment. He and his wife, Rozanne, live in Kansas City, Kansas.
Michael Carrion
Rev. Carrion serves as Vice President of Church Planting and Leadership Development at Redeemer City to City in New York City and is the regional coach for church planting and development for the Evangelical Covenant Church. Rev. Michael Carrion, is the founding pastor, and now Bishop of The Promised Land Covenant Churches in the North and South Bronx, and the founding chairman and superintendent of the Bronx Academy of Promise K-8 Charter School. He also serves on the board of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition and is currently on the Mayor's Faith Sector Advisory Council. Michael has been married to his wife Elizabeth for 30+ years. They have five adult children and three grandchildren.
Bob Bouwer
Bob Bouwer serves as the Senior Pastor of Faith Church (Kingdom Network), a multi-campus church with five locations in Northwest Indiana and South Chicagoland. He is renowned for his dedication to the church, particularly in discipling leaders and fostering growth. Bob is passionate about connecting with those who are spiritually disconnected. He and his wife, Laurie, are proud parents of four married children and have 13 grandchildren.
Philip Miller
Pastor Philip Miller is the 17th Senior Pastor of The Moody Church in Chicago. Philip holds a B.A in Pre-Seminary Bible from Cedarville University and a Th.M. in Pastoral Leadership and New Testament Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary . His wife, Krista, also holds a B.A. from Cedarville University and a Th.M. degree from DTS. They have four children: Claire, Violet, Cora, and Jude. Philip enjoys cycling, Garrett’s Caramel Crisp popcorn, Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza, and craft root beer.
Tara Beth Leach
Tara Beth Leach is a pastor, preacher of the Word, and a writer. She speaks widely at conferences, retreats, and universities across America on Women in Ministry, Church Leadership, and the call to be a Radiant Witness. She is a pastor in Naperville Illinois and is the author of Emboldened, Radiant Church, and Forty Days on Being a Six. She has two beautiful and rambunctious sons and has been married to the love of her life, Jeff, since 2006.
Paco Amador
Pastor Paco Amador was born in Mexico City and has been pastoring the New Life congregation in Little Village for 17 years. The Little Village version of New Life Community Church is a young bilingual family of faith with multiple services and two sites throughout the neighborhood in English and Spanish as well as a growing violence prevention ministry among many other efforts. “Our focus in Little Village is to be fully immersed in loving every one of our neighbors, serving each other’s needs and demonstrating through our lives the redemptive beauty of Jesus, our King.”
Paco is currently working on a doctoral degree, has run the Chicago Marathon twice, enjoys life with 8 children and bike-riding through the city. Paco and his wife Sylvia have been married for twenty-seven years and can’t imagine a better place to live than Little Village.
Dave Ferguson
Dave Ferguson is the lead pastor of Community Christian Church, a multi-expression missional community that is passionate about “helping people find their way back to God.” Community has grown from a few college friends to reaching thousands of people in Chicagoland and around the world. Dave also provides visionary leadership for the international church-planting movement NewThing and is the President of Exponential. He is an award-winning author of books that include The Big Idea, Exponential, On The Verge, Finding Your Way Back To God, Starting Over, Hero Maker and most recently B.L.E.S.S. 5 Everyday Ways to Love Your Neighbor and Change the World. Dave and his best friend Sue have three terrific adult kids - Amy, Josh and Caleb.
Sign up and experience the Exponential Central livestream:
Note: times listed in Central time zone.
12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Main Session 1
2:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Break
2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Workshop 1
3:30p p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Break
4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Main Session 2
8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. Workshop 2
9:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. Break
10:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. Main Session 3
12:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Lunch Break
2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Workshop 3
3:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Break
4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Main Session 4
8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. Workshop 4
9:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. Break
10:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Main Session 5
