Speakers
Exponential 2012 will include over 100 National Leaders including Bill Hybels, Wayne Cordeiro, Darrin Patrick, Dave Ferguson, Alan Hirsch, Brian Bloye, and more. We are in the planning phase now. Please check frequently for speaker updates.
Some of our Speakers for Exponential 2012:
Alex Absalom - Alex Absalom has served as a church leader for almost 20 years, both in the United Kingdom (notably at St Thomas’ Church Sheffield) and in the United States. Alex and his family moved to the US a number of years ago specifically to help a local church develop mid-sized Missional Communities and the associated structures for leadership. On average, he has overseen the planting of 15 MCs a year, all of which have been defined by a clear mission vision and have grown to an average group size of 30. From January 2011, Alex has served on the leadership team of Rivertree Church in Canton Ohio, particularly helping in the development of Missional Communities. His new book, Launching Missional Communities, co-authored with Mike Breen, was published in Fall 2010. Alex has been married to Hannah since 1994 and they have three very boisterous sons! He loves playing sport, is a passionate fan of Liverpool Football Club and is a connoisseur of good tea! Check out Alex's blog at www.alexabsalom.com.
Mark Batterson - Mark serves as Lead Pastor of National Community Church, one church with seven locations in Washington, DC. Mark is the bestselling author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Wild Goose Chase, Primal, and the soon-to-be released book, The Circle Maker. Mark lives on Capitol Hill with his wife, Lora, and three children.
Mark Beeson - Back in the 80s, adrenaline junkie and visionary Mark Beeson, and his wife Sheila, moved against all advice and counsel to Granger, Indiana with their young children. They didn’t have extended family or friends waiting for them, just a vision to start a church for people who didn’t go to church. They started in their living room with 10 people and, after 25 years, Granger has thousands of people meeting across two campuses and several online experiences. After all that, things aren’t slowing down and Mark’s focus hasn’t changed: people matter to God, even if they don’t know it yet. Well-known for his empowering leadership and gifted communication skills, Mark is motivated to encourage church planters and leaders with new vision and purpose in fulfilling the Great Commission. He holds a B.S. from Ball State University, a Masters of Divinity (M.Div.) from Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, and a Doctorate of Ministry (D.Min.) in leadership development from United Theological Seminary in Ohio. He blogs at MarkBeeson.com.
Amy Bloye - As wife, mom and role model/mentor to other church planter’s wives, Amy lives out her mission at home and in her community. She draws from past experiences of growing up in a pastor’s home and serving as a full-time educator to help her navigate the ups and downs of being a pastor’s wife to Brian and a mom to her two student athletes, Taylor and Zach. After 18 years of marriage and ministry, Amy is uniquely equipped to encourage and inspire church planters’ wives. She enjoys travel, bargain shopping and family time.
Brian Bloye - In the mid 1990’s, while serving as a pastor to students, Brian began to sense God’s leading to plant a church. In 1997, he and his wife, Amy, moved to northwest metro Atlanta and launched West Ridge Church in one of the fastest growing counties in Georgia. Today, West Ridge serves the community and the world through initiatives like Engage Atlanta, Engage Burkina and the Launch Network. Brian’s passions include spending time with family and engaging in global outreach through community transformation and church planting. Brian and Amy reside in the northwest metro Atlanta area with their two sons, Taylor and Zach.
Mike Breen - Mike Breen has been an innovator in leading missional churches throughout Europe and the United States for more than 25 years. In his time at St Thomas Sheffield in the UK, he created and pioneered Missional Communities, mid-sized groups of 20-50 people on mission together. The result, less than 6 years later, was the largest church in England, and ultimately, one of the largest and now fastest growing churches in the whole of Europe. In 2006 Mike was approached by Leadership Network to lead an initiative into church planting. Through his leadership, more than 725 churches were planted in three years. This has never been done before in European church history. Today, Mike lives in South Carolina, leading 3DM, a movement/organization that is helping hundreds of established churches and church planters move into this discipling and missional way of being the church. His new book, Launching Missional Communities, is available on October 1st. www.missionalcommunities.tv. Mike has been married to Sally for over 25 year and they have 3 grown-up children. Mike’s passions include contemporary design and architecture, travel, movies, cycling, golf, fine wine and food…though not necessarily in that order.
Julie Bullock is a generosity strategist with Generis, a national consulting firm working with large churches, church plants, multi-site churches across all denominations in the area of accelerating generosity. Prior to joining the Generis team, Julie served as the pastor of generosity at Community Christian Church, a multi-site church in Chicagoland with thirteen campus locations. While on staff at Community, Julie served as the director of development for the NewThing network, as a generosity and fundraising coach to new church plants and churches desiring to go multi-site. Prior to her work at Community and NewThing, Julie served as the regional director of development for Wheaton College during its $250 million capital campaign, the largest in Wheaton’s history, and has strong experience in gift planning and charitable estate planning.
Matt Carter - Matt Carter serves as the lead pastor of The Austin Stone Community Church, which has grown from a core team of 15 to over 6000 attending each Sunday since the church began in 2002. Matt’s desire to see the church become an advocate for the welfare of the city of Austin has led to the creation of a network that exists to actively pursue the redemption and renewal of the city for the advancement of the Gospel. The For the City Network provides a platform for organizational collaboration by providing physical space to local non-profits as well as creating a funnel for volunteer engagement. In addition to pastoring at The Austin Stone, Matt is a cancer survivor, co-author of the upcoming book “For the City” and speaker for camps and conferences nationwide. Matt holds a MDiv from Southwestern Seminary and he and his wife Jennifer have three children: John Daniel, Annie, and Samuel.
Neil Cole - Neil is an experienced church planter and pastor. He co-founded Church Multiplication Associates (CMA) and the Greenhouse Movement which has grown to thousands of churches in 50 states and 40+ nations. Neil has authored
Church 3.0, Organic Church, Organic Leadership, Search & Rescue, Cultivating a Life For God, TruthQuest and co-authored Raising Leaders for the Harvest, and Beyond Church Planting: Pathways for Emerging Churches with Dr. Robert Logan and Organic Church Planters' Greenhouse with Paul Kaak. He will be releasing Journeys to Significance in March 2011. Neil lives in Long Beach, California with his wife Dana and their three children.
Wayne Cordeiro - Wayne is the founding pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii with over 14,500 in weekend attendance. New Hope is also listed as one of the top ten most innovative churches in America with Outreach Magazine listing them as one of the “top five churches to learn from.” New Hope is known for redeeming the arts and technology. Over 3,000 attending services each week via the Internet. New Hope has seen over 73,000 first time decisions in Hawaii since its inception 27 years ago.
Wayne is a church planter at heart with over 108 churches planted in the Pacific Rim countries of the Philippines, Japan, Australia and Myanmar. Nationally, he has planted churches in Hawaii, California, Washington, and Nevada.
He has recently accepted the role as Chancellor over his alma mater, Eugene Bible College, renamed New Hope Christian College. NHCC is now part of a consortium of New Hope Christian Colleges with locations in Hawaii, Oregon, Myanmar, and Tokyo.
He has authored eleven books, including such classics as Doing Church as a Team, Dream Releasers, Seven Rules of Success, Attitudes That Attract Success, Divine Mentor, Leading on Empty, The Irresistible Church, and his latest, Sifted (an Exponential Series book debuting at Exponential 2012). Wayne is also the author of the Life Journal, which is being used by thousands of churches worldwide, is bringing people back to the Word of God.
Wayne and his wife, Anna, have three married children and five grandchildren. His hobbies include music, reading, water sports, and riding his Harley Davidson. Wayne and Anna now split their time between Hawaii and Eugene, Oregon where they have a family farm. There he writes, and enjoys spending time with his grandchildren.
Aaron Couch - Aaron is the co-planter of Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho. In 2007, Aaron branched out with a team and is a co-planter of Real Life Ministries on the Palouse in Moscow, Idaho as well. In the 4 years that RLM has been “On the Palouse,” it has grown to over 1,000 in attendance on a Sunday morning. Aaron’s passion is seeing people become everything that God has wired them to be. Discipleship is a core value for him and he has discipled people of all different age groups. Everyday is a blessing from God to experience His love and grace and to express that to as many people as God allows.
Brandon Cox - Brandon has been a Pastor for fourteen years and is now planting Grace Hills, a new church in northwest Arkansas. He also serves as Editor and Community Facilitator for Pastors.com and Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox. He and his wife, Angie, live with their two kids in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Artie Davis - Artie Davis is the Founding Pastor of Cornerstone Community Church in Orangeburg, SC, which publicly launched in 2002. Cornerstone is a multi-ethnic, multi-site church with several locations. Prior to launching Cornerstone, Artie was a successful entrepreneur and has a passion for coaching and multiplying leaders and writes about it almost exclusively on his blog, AriteDavis.com. He is also the founder and Director of a church planting movement called the CombNetwork.com. Its passion is to partner with pastors and leaders to plant “life-giving” churches in smaller towns, which are “ethnically reflective” of their community. And oversees and directs TheSticks.tv, a gathering movement for leaders and pastors in smaller towns. Artie is married to his partner in all things, his wife Georgie. They live in SC, and have three children.
Justin & Trisha Davis - Justin and Trisha's return to ministry is the result of a victorious battle for their marriage and family. After successfully planting their first church, Justin had an affair with a staff member, who was also Trisha’s best friend.
What followed was a 4-year journey of pain, grief and ultimately the restoration of their relationship by the grace of God. This experience left a watermark on their marriage of what it really means to experience grace, love and redemption firsthand—both individually and as a couple.
In 2009 they founded RefineUs Ministries using their story of failure, loss, and transformation to guide The Church, pastors, and church planters towards a healthy marriage and family.
Justin and Trisha are bloggers, authors, and teachers in Nashville, TN where they reside with their three boys. Justin is currently campus and teaching pastor of Cross Point Community Church, Bellvue Campus—recently named the 28th fastest growing church in the country. Justin and Trisha both attended Lincoln Christian University in Lincoln, IL where they met and fell in love (with Justin adamantly asking Trisha out twice a week for 6 months before she said yes.)Justin received his BA degree in Christian Education in Lincoln and Trisha later earned her degree from Indiana University.
With the rare free time that they can scrounge up, you will find Justin and Trisha going on walks, eating at PF Changs, or having coffee together; and sometimes all three at once. They consider the resurrection of their marriage to be a great gift and feel it a privilege to use RefineUs to help others towards that same healing.
They are co-authoring their first book and are passionate about sharing all that God has done in their life, marriage and family.
Mark DeYmaz - Mark is the founding pastor and directional leader of the Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas, a multi-ethnic and economically diverse church. Mark is also co-founder of the Mosaix Global Network, an organization dedicated to inspiring unity and diversity in the local church throughout North America and beyond. His book, Building a Healthy Multi-ethnic Church provides the Biblical mandate for the multi-ethnic church and outlines seven core commitments required to bring it about. Mark is a contributing editor for Leadership Journal and posts weekly on his blog, Glue, at www.markdeymaz.com. His next book, Ethnic Blends will be released in April 2010.
Jason Dukes - Who is Jason Dukes? I am a follower and a leader, a husband and a father, a son and a brother, a learner and a teacher, a writer and a dreamer. I try to listen to and live with Jesus everyday. I try to give my family more than leftovers, creatively and passionately investing into their lives. I try to think about the interests of others ahead of my own, but that’s really hard. I am most grateful when I have been a part of a conversation that has been catalytic to move someone to live beyond self. I really dig Duke basketball, Saints football, good music, and Jeff Gordon. The publisher I work with would probably like me to mention that I wrote two books: "Live Sent" and "beyond MY church."
I currently serve on pastoral team with Westpoint Church, which my wife and I were asked to start back a few years ago. I also helped to start some stuff since then: HouseBlendCafe.com, Repr
Bill Easum - Bill is the President of 21st Century Strategies and is a highly respected international church consultant and Christian futurist. Bill has been a pioneer in the church growth movement with 35 years of pastoral ministry in four churches and two denominations. During his 24 years at Colonial Hills Church in San Antonio, the church grew from 35 in worship to over 1,000...with 2,200 members. His record of service in evangelism and social justice ministries has been acknowledged by the Industrial Areas Foundation in New York as one of the finest records in North America. Since 1987, Bill has consulted in over a 1,000 churches and conducted seminars for small group work, church planting, multiple sites and mentoring leaders for the ministries of the future. He is the author of seventeen books, including Ten Most Common Mistakes Made by New Church Starts.
Ron Edmondson - Ron is a pastor and church leader passionate about planting churches, helping established churches thrive, and assisting pastors and those in ministry think through leadership, strategy and life. Ron has over 20 years business experience, mostly as a self-employed business owner, and has been in full-time ministry for over 8 years. The greatest times for Ron are with his wife Cheryl and two amazing adult sons, Jeremy and Nate. Ron is an INTJ personality on the Myers Briggs indicator, which means he has big ideas, loves creative and critical thinking and loves to see progress. Since he is usually around people, he craves down time and is usually training for either a half or full marathon.
Naeem Fazal - Naeem was born and raised as a Muslim in Kuwait. He came to the United States shortly after the Gulf war of 1990. In 1992, he had a supernatural experience with Christ that changed the course of his life. He was ordained in 2001 at Seacoast Church . In 2006, with the help of Seacoast Church, the ARC, and Mosaic LA, he planted Mosaic Church in Charlotte,NC.
Since launching Mosaic, one of the country’s most innovative churches, Naeem has been featured in Relevant Magazine, Leadership Journal and Charlotte Magazine.
Naeem is a member of the ARC advisory team, Origins Project Leadership Team and is affiliated with the Mosaic Alliance and Church Multiplication Network. He is the co-founder of Charlotte’s citywide outreach initiative “What If Everyone”. His story was featured on Inspiration Today (INSP) and the Christian Broadcasting Network.
As an international speaker, Naeem spoke at the 2009 Catalyst conference, the Origins Project conferences, and The Nines. He was a keynote speaker at the 2010 Outreach Magazine conference and co-hosted the 2011 ARC conference. For more on Naeem please visit NaeemFazal.com, find him on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter (@naeemfazal).
Dave Ferguson - Dave Ferguson and four friends from college launched Community Christian Church, a church that is passionate about "helping people find their way back to God". This church has grown to 700+ leaders with more than 6,000 in attendance at eleven sites every weekend throughout Chicagoland. Dave serves as a resource for other churches and leaders seeking to expand through multiple church sites and provides visionary leadership for the NewThing Network, a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches. He is also the co-founder and serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Community who partner with real estate developers to accomplish their mission of "helping people build quality relationships where they live and work through the power of genuine community". Dave is the co-author of The Big Idea: Focus the Message, Multiply the Impact, Exponential: How you and your friends can start a missional church movement and the soon to be released On the Verge: The Future of the Church as Apostolic Movement, all with Zondervan.
Jon Ferguson - Jon is co-founder of Community Christian Church and NewThing. He serves as Teaching Pastor, Chicago Network Leader and leads the team of staff champions for adult, student, children's, and creative arts ministries across all Community locations. Jon is also co-author of The Big Idea and Exponential. Follow him on twitter @jonferguson and via his blog at www.jonferguson.org.
Sue Ferguson - Sue is passionate about helping people find their way back to God through small groups. Sue, along with her husband Dave, the lead pastor, was one of the original six people who planted Community Christian Church that is now a multi-site, missional community with eleven locations and more than 6,000 people. A former middle school teacher, Sue has served in a variety of leadership roles and is currently the Director of Term Small Groups at the Yellow Box campus. But more than all this stuff – Sue loves Jesus and her family, which includes three terrific kids.
Daniel Floyd - Daniel joined a group of 50 people in Fredericksburg, Virginia to start Lifepoint Church in 2005. Since its inception, LIfepoint has grown to more than 1500 people in attendance and over 1300 recorded salvation decisions. A gifted communicator with a passion to ignite a generation consumed by reaching people far from God, Daniel has sown into Lifepoint's DNA a mission to serve as a resource for other church plants. Lifepoint actively participates in planting and equipping churches and recently created and hosted REACH 2011, a hands-on learning environment for over 300 church planters and their staffs. Daniel also serves on the Board of the Launch Network. Based out of West Ridge Church in Dallas, GA Launch is a church planting network committed to inspiring and equipping next generation planters to lead strong. Daniel is the author of Living the Dream, a small group curriculum and set of DVD short films based on the life of Joseph. He lives in Fredericksburg with his wife, Tammie; son, Owen; and daughter, Faith.
Doug Foltz - Doug Foltz serves as the Director of Project Management for Stadia: New Church Strategies. He has helped start 35 new churches through his work as a project manager. He was an associate planter with LifePointe Christian Church in Charlotte, NC where he served for 3.5 years. He holds degrees from Lincoln Christian University (BA), and Emmanuel School of Religion (MDIV). Doug has a passion to help new churches start healthy and works with church planters to develop healthy systems and strategies to plant the gospel in their communities. Doug has been married to Amanda for 15 years and together they have two beautiful children.
Bob Franquiz - Bob is the Founding and Senior Pastor of Calvary Fellowship in Miami, FL. Bob is also the founder of church-strategies.com, an organization that provides training and resources to Pastors and Church Leaders. Bob is also the author of Elements: Starting a Revolution in your World, Watermark: An Explanation of Baptism and Zero to Sixty: 60 Principles and Practices for Leading a Growing Church. Prior to entering Pastoral ministry, Bob played guitar for Christian Hardcore band Strongarm; a band that has been called one of the best Christian Metal bands of all time. Prior to planting Calvary Fellowship, Bob served as an assistant pastor at Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale, one of the 10 largest churches in the U.S. His primary role was as dean of Calvary Chapel Bible College, where he trained future Pastors, ministry leaders, and church planters. Most importantly, Bob considers his greatest achievement as being married to his “just out of high school” sweetheart, Carey, for the last 14 years. Together, they have a beautiful daughter, Mia Grace and a son, Alexander.
Michael Frost - Michael Frost is an internationally recognized Australian missiologist and one of the leading voices in the international missional church movement. His books are required reading in colleges and seminaries around the world and he is much sought after as an international conference speaker. Frost is the Vice Principal of Morling College and the founding Director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study centre located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia. He is the author or editor of twelve popular Christian books, the most recent of which are the highly successful and award-winning The Shaping of Things to Come (2003, co-authored with colleague Alan Hirsch), Exiles (2006) and Re:Jesus (2009). These books explore a missiological framework for the church in the postmodern era, and their popularity has led to regular speaking engagements at international conferences all around the world. Frost is also a church planter, having launched the missional community, Small Boat Big Sea, in Sydney in 2002.
Pat Furgerson - Patrick first became involved with church planting when he joined the New Life Christian Church (www.newlife4me.com) launch team 18 years ago. Several years after launch, God called Patrick to full-time vocational ministry. He served as a general associate minister focusing on operations and administration for five years before transitioning to lead New Life's church planting ministry, Passion for Planting (www.churchplanting4me.com). In this role Patrick was a project manager for dozens of church plants and developed many systems and processes to be used with church plants across the US. In addition to continuing oversight of the project management ministry, Patrick continues to serve as an associate minister in a variety of positions. Patrick has been married to his wife, Kim for 18 years and has a six year old son, Mayo.
Jason Gerdes - Jason serves as the Lead Pastor of Revolution Church in Canton, GA located in the suburbs of Atlanta. He took over as Pastor when the church was 5 years old and has gone through what he would describe as a re-planting effort. God has extremely blessed and now the church is experiencing a great season of growth. He is married to his wife Lindsey and has 2 children, Jackson and Natalie. Jason is involved with church planting through the Launch Network and is passionate about planting the gospel and seeing it multiply throughout the world.
Stephen Gray - Stephen has transitioned churches in Illinois, Kansas, and Nebraska and planted churches in Nebraska, and Missouri. He is the co-owner/founder of Church Plant Dynamics. A company designed to train the next level, new generation, church planters. He earned a Master of Divinity and a Doctorate of Ministry from Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of the best selling book Planting Fast Growing Churches. Stephen is presently serving as the Church Planting Facilitator of the Western Region of the Free Methodist Church. He has written the following manuals and books: Legacy Churches: How To Close A Church With Dignity (2008) - Planting Fast-Growing Churches (2007) - Recommissioned: A Fresh Look At Church Planting (2006) - A Comprehensive Manual for Church Planting: Starting And Maintaining A Church Planting Movement In Your Association (2006).
Larry Grays - Larry is the founding pastor of Midtown Bridge Church in Atlanta, GA. The church launched in 2007 with a heart to reflect the diversity of midtown Atlanta and a commitment to see the gospel proclaimed and demonstrated in the heart of the city. He also serves on the board of the Rebuild Initiative. The Rebuild Initiative is a network of urban churches that seeks to multiply urban leaders with the gospel. Larry is also on staff with Send North America as an urban church mobilizer.
Hugh Halter – Hugh is the national director of Missio, committed to training, developing, and apprenticing Incarnational leaders for the church. Hugh is the lead architect of Adullum, a congregational network incarnational communities in Denver, CO. Hugh's writings include, The Tangible Kingdom, and the accompanying Tangible Kingdom Primer, as well as AND...The Gathered & Scattered Church, and SACRILEGE. Hugh is an advocate for disoriented God seekers and loves to inspire and re-orient leaders around the mission of God.
Kim Hammond - Husband, father, follower of Jesus, Pastor, National Director of Forge America & Director of Missional Imagination for Community Christian Church and New Thing Network, Clock builder, mentor, motivator and mobilizer of missionary leaders & their movements.
Bobby Harrington - Bobby Harrington is the founding and lead pastor of Harpeth Community Church, just beside the Harpeth River, south of Nashville,
Tennessee. Bobby holds many theological degrees, including the doctor of
ministry degree from Southern Baptist Theological seminary. Bobby is one
of the founders of the new Relational Discipleship Network. Bobby served
as the director of Research, Development, and Missional Leadership for
Stadia, a national church planting organization. He was Stadia's lead
trainer of church planters, where he trained hundreds of church planters
from 2003 through 2011 and helped pioneer their national church planting
network system. He was also the president of Church Coaching Solutions
from 2005 through 2010. He is the author of Together: Network and Church
Planting (with Marcus Bigelow). Bobby is married to Cindy, with two
children, Ashley and Chad.
Jeff Harris - Jeff has served as the Senior Pastor of Grace Point Church in San Antonio since 1994. Under his leadership, Grace Point has transitioned from a traditional church plant into a growing, dynamic community of believers that is transforming the surrounding community and world. He founded The Missional Association, an organization dedicated to supporting and connecting church plants with existing churches. Jeff is also a church consultant as a Lead Navigator with Auxano. He graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary and Midwestern Baptist and has four children with his wife Jody.
Jerry Harris - Jerry is the lead pastor of The Crossing, a multi-site mega-church with locations in Illinois and Missouri. Over the last 13 years, Jerry has led the church from 230 to nearly 5000, from 1 to 6 locations, and to 14 worship experiences causing The Crossing to be named in Outreach Magazine's 100 fastest growing churches 2 years in a row. In 2008, Jerry saw the need to shift the church's focus from attraction to discipleship, which has since created massive positive change and impact. Jerry is the chairman of the board of Care India, a group of over 200 churches and associated ministries in southeastern India. He is a founding board member of The Solomon Foundation and Relational Discipleship Network. He has authored 2 books, Micropolitan Church, a model of successful church planting in communities under 50,000, and 50 Days, an interactive study of character development through spiritual disciplines. Jerry and his wife Allison, have 4 children, 3 of which are in full time ministry.
Brandon Hatmaker - Brandon is pastor of Austin New Church (ANC), author of “Barefoot Church”, co-founder of Restore Communities, and a missional strategist and ministry coach with Missio. Together, ANC and Restore Communities have developed a unique network of churches and non-profits which serve in a collective effort to impact their city and world.
Andy Hawthorne - Andy is a British evangelist, author and founder & CEO of The Message Trust, a Christian mission organization based in Manchester, England. He is a popular speaker at New Wine, Soul Survivor, Keswick Convention, and other Christian conferences in the UK. He was a member of the Christian band World Wide Message Tribe. With Mike Pilavachi from Soul Survivor and Roy Crowne of YFC, he is one of the founders of Hope 08.
Andy is married to Michele Hawthorne and together they have two children, Sam and Beth.
Chip Henderson - Chip is the senior leader and primary teacher at Pinelake. Well known for his commitment to biblical, life-application preaching, Chip has seen God do immeasurably more during his tenure as Senior Pastor. Under his leadership, the church has grown from 800 to over 6000 weekly attendees and moved to a multi-site church model with four campuses established. In 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011 Pinelake was listed as one of the 100 fastest growing churches in America by “Outreach” magazine. Chip’s passion is to help people discover and fulfill their God-given purpose for living. He is a graduate of Mississippi State University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Chip is married to Christy and they have three children, Rachel, McKenzie and Regan.
Jeff Hickman - Jeff is the Founding and Lead Pastor of Lifesong Church, a rapidly growing and multiplying church in the Spartanburg/Greenville area of SC. Jeff has a vision for planting the Gospel where people live, work, and play and is actively raising people around the world (www.lifesongchurchonline.com). He is also one of the Directors with Planting the Gospel (plantingthegospel.com).
Alan Hirsch - Alan is the founding Director of Forge Mission Training Network. He is the co-founder of shapevine.com, a ministry of Christianity Today International and an international forum for engaging with world transforming ideas. Currently he shares in leading an innovative learning program called Future Travelers helping numerous mega-churches become missional movements. He has also been part of the leadership team of Christian Associates, a missional church-planting agency with focus on Western Europe. Known for his innovative approach to mission, Alan is a teacher and key mission strategist for churches across the western world. His popular book The Shaping of Things to Come (with Michael Frost) is widely considered to be a seminal text on mission. Alan's recent book The Forgotten Ways, has quickly become a key reference for missional thinking, particularly as it relates to missional movements. His book ReJesus is a radical restatement about the role that Jesus plays in defining Christian movements. Untamed, (with his wife Debra) is about missional discipleship for a missional church, On the Verge (a process for missional movement for mega churches with Dave Ferguson), Right Here, Right Now (Everyday mission for anyone), The Faith of Leap (on the theology of risk). His latest book, The Permanent Revolution is about apostolic ministry and the significance of Eph 4 for the church in the 21st Century. His experience in leadership includes leading a local church movement, among the marginalized, developing training systems for innovative missional leadership, as well as heading up the Mission and Revitalization work of his denomination. Alan is and adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary, George Fox Evangelical Seminary, and Wheaton, among others, and lectures frequently throughout Australia, Europe, and the U.S.
Brian Hook - Brian brings 27 years of church experience in various models. Brian currently serves as the Church Planting Pastor of NorthWood Church, and has developed a new strategy of planting that has led to 51 churches being planted out of NorthWood in the past 3 years. He also serves as a catalyst for Vision360 in DFW to bring church planters, business leaders, and existing churches together to plant new churches strategically. His experience with various models and stages of ministry is a great resource for church planters and leaders that want to see movement out of their church. Brian holds a bachelors degree from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix and a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Theological Seminary in Forth Worth. He and his wife, Jessica live in Keller, Texas with their four children, Phoenix , Dallas, Noah and Faith.
Bill Hybels - Bill is the founding and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., and chairman of the board for the Willow Creek Association.
The best-selling author of more than twenty books, including The Power of a Whisper. Axiom, Holy Discontent, Just Walk Across the Room, The Volunteer Revolution, Courageous Leadership, and classics such as Too Busy Not to Pray and Becoming a Contagious Christian, Hybels is known worldwide as an expert in equipping and training Christian leaders to transform individuals and their communities through the local church.
Hybels received a bachelor’s degree in Biblical Studies and an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Trinity College in Deerfield, Ill. He and his wife, Lynne, have two children and two grandsons.
Chip Judd - Chip and Coleen Judd planted and pastored Victory Christian Fellowship in Georgetown, SC, for 24 years. He and Coleen have been married for thirty-five years and have three awesome adult children, a great son-in-law and one ridiculousley cute grandchild (so far).
After successfully transitioning their church to new leadership, they launched a new ministry, Morph Quest, that is dedicated to serving emerging, existing and transitioning leaders. Chip has enjoyed the honor of being invited into the inner workings of a diverse cross-section of churches and ministries as a consultant, coach, counselor and trainer for over a decade. His approach to life and leadership is based on thirty years experience as a pastor and professional counselor. Chip's counseling and pastoring experience combine to give him unique and powerful insight into blind spots and blockages in families, churches and their leadership teams.
Chip has recently joined the ministry team at Seacoast Church in Charleston, SC, and is excited about developing leaders that experience and enjoy longevity of passion and purpose. He also works with ARC and LAUNCH networks doing church-planter assessments. He and Coleen are excited about helping to shape the next generation of church planters and leaders.
Matt Keller - Matt is the lead pastor of Next Level Church in Fort Myers, FL. Matt is a passionate communicator who uses humor & story in the weekly services of Next Level and across the country. Since its humble beginnings in 2002, Next Level has grown from 4 to nearly 1,000 attendees in their weekend experiences. Matt has a heart to help others in the church world and frequently travels & consults with pastors of Up the Middle churches across the U.S. With a heart for planting, pastoring, leadership development & consulting, Matt is a leading voice in the next generation of leaders today. Matt & his wife, Sarah, have 2 boys, Will & Drew.
George Klippenes - George serves as Start Director (National Church Planting Director) for the Evangelical Free Church of America. At the present time, the EFCA has more than 1300 churches and about 175 church plants. Our mission is to glorify God by multiplying healthy churches among all people. The EFCA has developed seven support systems to help planters and churches maximize their potential for multiplication. Our vision is that every EFCA church is a reproducing church and that no EFCA planter is left alone. George has served as student pastor on Red Lake Indian Reservation, Youth For Christ director, missionary in Ethiopia, pastor of a rural church, small town church, and planted a rurban church. George served the North Central District of the EFCA as a district director of church planting and has served the EFCA as the National Director of Church Planting since 1998.
Mac Lake - Mac is a pioneering influence in the church planting movement. In 1997, he planted Carolina Forest Community Church (Myrtle Beach, SC). In 2004, he began serving as Leadership Development Pastor at Seacoast Church (Charleston, SC) where he served for over six years. July 2010 Mac Lake joined with West Ridge Church to become the Chief Launch Office for Launch Network, a church planting network based out of West Ridge. Mac and his wife, Cindy, live in metro Atlanta and have three children, Brandon, Jordan and Brianna.
J.R. Lee - JR is the Lead Pastor of Freedom Church. He lives in Acworth, GA with his wife Devin and their three children, Lexi, London, and Bryce. In January 2007, Pastor J.R. Lee began leading visionary meetings at his home in TN and within 5 months, twelve people had moved 400 miles to Acworth GA to launch Freedom Church. The first public Worship Experience was held on January 27, 2008. Since that time, Freedom Church has grown rapidly to over several hundred people and lives are being changed by the Gospel every single week.
Mark Lee - Mark is the lead pastor of VantagePoint Church started in 2008 with a dream of being the hands and feet of Jesus to their local community. The church has passed out over 30,000 bottles of water for free, done oil changes for single moms, cleaned up local schools and neighborhoods and more. Since that time the church has grown from a launch team of 25 people to over 700 in weekly attendance. Mark is an avid runner, a wannabe worship leader, a hack theologian and loves every moment spent at home.
Brad Leeper - Brad is drawn to innovative, growing churches and the challenges of helping them expand practically and spiritually. He uses his understanding of the multi-site church strategy and other pioneering and other pioneering church movements to assist them with building the finances needed to reach their ministry goals. Brad is a "President and Principal" with Generis, and has experience as a consultant to churches across the nation, a staff leader in resource development for local ministries, a Campus Director for Campus Crusade for Christ, and a church elder in his own 5,000-member home church, Perimeter Church in Atlanta.
Greg Ligon - Greg has been with Leadership Network since 1997. He currently serves as Vice President of Church Innovations and Publisher. In this role, he serves several Leadership Community Directors and oversees the organizations publishing partnerships. During his time at LN, he has also directed the Multi-Site Churches Leadership Community, Leadership Training Network and spearheaded strategic services for the organization. Greg is also one of the authors of The Multi-site Church Revolution andA Multi-site Church Road Trip. Prior to joining the LN team, Greg was responsible for creating and directing the United Methodist Campus Ministry at Southern Methodist University in Dallas for seven years. He also served as associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Waco, Texas. Greg and his wife, Susan, have two full-throttle boys, Daniel and Andrew.
Shawn Lovejoy - Shawn is the Founding and Lead Pastor of Mountain Lake Church, the Directional Leader of churchplanters.com and the author of 'The Measure of Our Success - An Impassioned Plea to Pastors" releasing in April 2012. God has used Mountain Lake Church and churchplanters.com to become one of the most influential church planting ministries in the world, and Shawn gives Jesus all the credit. Shawn loves his wife, his kids, the church, pastors, college football, and PlayStation3. In that order. He lives near Atlanta, Georgia.
Tricia Lovejoy - Tricia is married to Shawn Lovejoy, Founder and Lead Pastor of Mountain Lake Church. She leads the women of her church in a monthly environment called Girlfriends, and she mentors Pastors’ wives across the country. Together, she and her husband lead out in ministry and life. They have 3 children. You can connect with Tricia at http://SharpenHer.com or http://MountainLake.tv
Will Mancini - Will Mancini founded Auxano after emerging from the trenches of local church leadership and leads the Auxano team as "clarity evangelist." Will serves as a “vision architect” for hundreds of churches across the country, including Chuck Swindoll's church in Frisco, Texas and Max Lucado's church in San Antonio, TX. He is the author of Church Unique: How missional leaders cast vision, capture culture and create movement (March 2008 release, Leadership Network and Jossey-Bass). Additionally, Will co-authored Building Leaders with Aubrey Malphurs. His pastoral experience includes leadership development responsibilities at Clear Creek Community Church that grew from a church start to over 3500 in weekend attendance in eleven years. Will’s style blends the best of three worlds: 1) process thinking from the discipline of engineering, 2) communications savvy as an ad agency executive, and 3) practical theology as a pastoral leader. His education includes a ThM in Pastoral Leadership from Dallas Theological Seminary and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Penn State.
Brian Mavis - My life’s mission is to make Jesus so close and real that people feel Him, love Him, and love like Him. I have also been called to strengthen, encourage, and challenge Christian leaders. I have been in ministry twenty years or so. I’ve been a part of small churches, mega churches, and house churches. I currently lead the Externally Focused Network which helps churches strive to be the best church for their community. I also lead the local and global missions at LifeBridge Christian Church. In the past, I helped create and led SermonCentral.com. I wrote the “Faith In Action” series for World Vision, the “One Sabbath” campaign for Bono’s One organization, the Bible study for “The Hole in Our Gospel,” and two Bible studies and two booklets for Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” I’ve been married twenty years, have two teen daughters, and have had 7 foster sons.
Brian is the Pastor of Community Transformation at LifeBridge Christian Church and the Director of Externally Focused Network (Bringing together churches that are looking for best missional/externally focused practices to their communities). Brian has been called to strengthen, challenge, and encourage Christian leaders. As he says, “My fruit grows on other people’s trees.” Brian is the founder of MoreAtStake.com, a site that challenges Christian risk-takers. He helped create and led SermonCentral.com (the largest sermon resource site in the world) from 2000-2005. He has written curriculum for some high-profile campaigns including Bono’s “One Sabbath Campaign,” Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ,” World Vision’s “Faith in Action” and “The Hole in Our Gospel.”
Eric Metcalf - Eric led Small Groups and Campus Pastored at COMMUNITY (www.communitychristian.org), a multi-site church with 13 locations across Chicago, for 12 years. Eric now provides leadership to NewThing (www.newthing.org), a growing church planting movement focused on catalyzing a movement of reproducing churches. Under Eric's leadership, NewThing has doubled in size every year for the past 3 years with over 100 churches in highly unchurched cities like: Boston, Manhattan, San Francisco, and Paris, France; with a long term goal of 1,000 churches by 2015. Eric has been married for 13 years to his beautiful wife Erin and has three incredible children: Joey (7), Lydia (6), and Max (3).
Kem Meyer – Kem is a recovering corporate spin doctor who used to think church was for out-of-touch people who just needed to “get a life.” Now? She believes the local church is the hope of the world — it just needs some help. As Communications Director at Granger Community Church, Kem's job is to help find ways to eliminate information obesity and simplify complexity. That may include weighing in on a series package, a web interface or back office data. It all counts, because—at the end of the day—everything communicates. Her book, Less Clutter. Less Noise. (now in its fifth printing) provides simple insights for the not-so-simple art of communication to help churches, businesses and not-for-profits find ways to get the word out and, simply, do better. You can find her blogging at KemMeyer.com.
Brian Moll - After nearly a decade of work in the suburbs, Brian and his family moved to New York City in 2005 where he serves as the Senior Pastor of Forefront Church, an emerging network of neighborhood churches working towards the vision of seeing lives, neighborhoods and the city renewed through the power of Jesus.
Tony Morgan - Tony is a Pastor on the Lead Team at West Ridge Church near Atlanta. He’s also a strategist, coach, writer, speaker and consultant who equips leaders and churches to impact their communities for Christ. More important, he has a passion for the people. He’s all about helping people meet Jesus and take steps in their faith. For more than 10 years, Tony served on the senior leadership teams at NewSpring Church (Anderson, SC) and Granger Community Church (Granger, IN). With Tim Stevens, Tony has co-authored Simply Strategic Stuff, Simply Strategic Volunteers and Simply Strategic Growth–each of which offers valuable, practical solutions for different aspects of church ministry. His newest book, Killing Cockroaches (B&H Publishing), was released in 2009. Tony has also written several articles on staffing, technology, strategic planning and leadership published by organizations like Outreach Magazine, Catalyst and Pastors.com. Tony and his wife, Emily, reside near Atlanta, Georgia with their four children–Kayla, Jacob, Abby and Brooke.
Carter Moss - Carter has been a Campus Pastor at COMMUNITY (www.communitychristian.org), a multi-site church with 13 locations across Chicago, for 7 years, at a campus which has reproduced several locations. Carter also now serves as the Small Groups Champion at COMMUNITY, and leads the writing of the Small Group training material & the weekly Big Idea Discussion Guide. A graduate of Iowa State University, Carter has been married for 15 years to his beautiful wife Jennifer and has three awesome kids: Isaiah (13), Avery (8), and Levi (7).
Tom Nebel - Tom Nebel is Director of Church Planting for Converge Worldwide. He has participated in planting dozens of churches in Wisconsin and hundreds of churches across the United States, currently experiencing a success rate of 85%. His passion is to fuel regional church planting movements so that they may be effective in expanding the Kingdom of God. Tom is author of Empowering Leaders Through Coaching, The Coach’s Logbook, and Big Dreams in Small Places: Church Planting in Smaller Communities. His most recent book is entitled Church Planting Landmines: Mistakes to Avoid in Years 2-10. Tom and Lori make their home in Madison, Wisconsin, and Orlando, Florida. They have two adult children, Andrew and Matthew.
Greg Nettle - Greg Nettle is the Senior Pastor of RiverTree Christian Church in Northern Ohio. Greg started his ministry as a missionary in Ireland where he spent 2 ½ years plating a church in Dublin. Near the end of his time overseas, a small church in rural Jackson Township, Ohio called the 26 year old, single Nettle to be the Senior Pastor of Jackson Christian Church (which was later renamed RiverTree Christian Church). At that point in time, the attendance was approximately 120 people. In 2009, Greg celebrated 20 years of service at RiverTree. And now, more than 3,000 people call RiverTree their church home. Because Greg is a guy after God’s own heart, he has a great passion for two things: children on the margins of society and helping people enter into a deep love relationship with Jesus. As God wrecks Greg’s heart on these two fronts, Greg continues to search for ways that the church as a whole can be the hands and feet of Jesus to the world. One of those ways was to start Kingdom Synergy Partnerships, which is an organization where healthy churches come together to collaborate, share ideas, and invest in planting new churches. Greg’s vision through KSP in Ohio is to “make it hard to go to Hell in Ohio.” Currently, there are approximately 40 churches in the state of Ohio that are joining forces to help people know Jesus. 12 new churches are already in the process of being launched. Greg’s sense of adventure and his love for travel has taken him to many places around the world including Ireland, Peru, Ecuador, Tanzania, France, England, Holland, South Africa, Wales, Jamaica, Haiti, and Scotland. Greg’s recent adventures include summiting Mount Kilimanjaro (the world’s highest inactive volcano) and Cotopaxi (the world’s highest active volcano). Greg, and his wife, Julie have two children, Tabitha and Elijah.
Shauna Niequist - Shauna is the daughter of Bill and Lynne Hybels, and she was born the year that they started Willow Creek. Shauna worked in student ministries at Willow Creek and as the Creative Director at Mars Hill, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the author of Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet, and she and her husband Aaron have two boys, Henry and Mac.
Dave Olson - David T. Olson is director of the American Church Research Project. He planted four churches in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Florida and now leads the church planting movement for the Evangelical Covenant Church as its director of church planting. His new book, The American Church in Crisis, has just been published by Zondervan.
Larry Osborne - Larry Osborne is a Senior Pastor at North Coast Church in Vista, California, and the Founder and President of North Coast Training Network. Under his leadership, weekend attendance has grown from 128 to over 8,000. Recognized nationally as one of the Ten Most Influential Churches in America and one of the most innovative, North Coast Church pioneered the use of Video Worship Venues and is one of the leaders in the Multi-Site movement with over 20 worship options each targeted at a different missional demographic. Their Sermon-Based Small Groups incorporates 90% of their average weekend attendance and is spreading across the nation as an alternative to traditional small group methodologies. Larry's book's include, Sticky Teams, Sticky Church, Spirituality For The Rest of Us, 10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe and The Unity Factor: Developing A Healthy Leadership Team.
Dave Page - Dave is the Director of Church Planting for the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) West District. He is also a Strategic Leadership Coach with NEXT Coaching Networks. Dave does one-on-one coaching and network coaching for church planters and lead pastors. He started two churches that grew to over 1000 in weekend attendance. Dave is a leadership and launch coach. He specializes in coaching church planters that launch large thriving churches that reproduce. He taught church planting at Saddleback Church for 10 years and does training both nationally and internationally. Dave has a MBA in Leadership from the Ken Blanchard School of Business at Grand Canyon University and a M.Div. from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. Check out Dave’s blog at www.davepageblog.org
Amie Patrick - Amie is wife to Darrin, Lead Pastor of The Journey in St. Louis, MO. Married for 18 years, Darrin and Amie have served in ministry together for their entire marriage and have 4 children, ages 2 to 12. Amie is passionate about leadership, teaching women to practically apply the gospel to all areas of their lives, as well as helping pastors' and church planter's wives to thrive in their calling. She holds a degree in music education and loves great live music, writing, healthy living and the ocean.
Darrin Patrick -Darrin founded The Journey in 2002 in the urban core of St. Louis, Missouri. The Journey has four campuses and has released seven church plants. Darrin is Vice President of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network and Darrin serves as a leader in Exponential. Darrin’s passion is to equip the church to live the gospel in the world.
After earning his B.A. in Biblical languages from Southwest Baptist University and a Master’s of Divinity (summa cum laude) from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Darrin earned his Doctor of Ministry from Covenant Seminary. Darrin’s first book, Church Planter: The Man, The Message, The Mission, was released in 2010. Darrin’s second book For the City was released in early 2011. Darrin is married to his high school sweetheart, Amie, and they have four beautiful children: Glory, Grace, Drew, and Delainey.
Doug Paul - Doug serves as the Director of Content for 3DM, but has previously served as a teaching pastor and Mutli-Site Director at a mega-church, as well as a missional church planter. Due to his unusual background of multi-site and church planting, his specialty is in both church planting and mega-church leadership. You can follow Doug at his blog www.dougpaulblog.com.
Jonathan Pearson - Jonathan is a millennial with a heart to reshape the world. He is the Communications and Online Campus Pastor at Cornerstone Community Church, an ethnically-reflective church with multiple campuses and Assistant Director of The Sticks, an organization that inspires small city leaders to lead BIG. Jonathan writes, tweets, & speaks to inspire people to work together to reshape the world. Jonathan can be found online at JonathanPearson.net and on twitter as @JonathanPearson. Jonathan is married to Melissa and the two live in Orangeburg, S.C.
Steve Pike - Steve's passion for planting began in 1989 when Steve and his wife Cherri, along with their two children, answered God's call to plant a church in Utah. During the 90s they were privileged to see the church grow to a family of over 400 attendees that helped to plant five additional churches in Utah. In January 2006, Steve was selected to lead Assemblies of God church planting efforts in the United States and currently serves as National Director for the Church Multiplication Network (CMN). CMN collaborates with church multipliers to effectively equip, strategically fund and innovatively network new faith communities in America. Since 2006 the Assemblies of God has invested $4 million directly into local church plants and has planted over 1500 churches across the United States.
David Putman – David is founder of Planting the Gospel (www.plantingthegospel.com) where he spends his time catalyzing movement makers for planting gospel-centered churches committed to making disciples. He has been involved in church planting for over twenty years as a planter, catalyst, strategist, and coach. He is author of Detox for the Overly Religious, Breaking the Discipleship Code, and co-author of Breaking the Missional Code with Ed Stetzer. David’s life mission is to help others discover the simplicity, centrality, and beauty of Jesus and his ways.
Jim Putman - Jim Putman is the founder and senior pastor of Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho. Prior to his role as senior pastor, he served as a youth minister in two small churches. In college, Jim won three All American titles in wrestling and went on to become a successful wrestling coach. Real Life Ministries began as a small group in 1998 and has grown to a membership of more than eight thousand. Ninety percent of its fellowship is active in small groups. Outreach Magazine continually lists Real Life Ministries among the top one hundred most influential churches in America. Jim holds degrees from Boise State University and Boise Bible College. His voice reaches hundreds of thousands across the nation through speaking conferences, the web, radio, and weekend services. He is the author of two books; Church is a Team Sport and the recently released Real Life Discipleship. Jim’s passion is discipleship through small groups. With his background in sports and coaching, he believes in the value of strong coaching as a means to disciple others. He lives with his wife and three sons in scenic northern Idaho.
Soong-Chan Rah - Soong-Chan is the Milton B. Engebretson Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL. He is the author of The Next Evangelicalism (2009) and Many Colors (2010). Formerly, he was the founding senior pastor of Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, a multi-ethnic, urban church with ministries of social justice and racial reconciliation.
Jim Randall - As Chief Management Officer and Lead Navigator of Auxano, Jim Randall guides churches all over the country as “vision strategist”. After serving as the primary developer of ministries at a 2000 attendee church, Jim became one of the founding officers of Auxano in 2004. Jim’s expertise lies with developing ministries based upon clarified vision. He brings a breadth of leadership and church growth knowledge from his proficiency of coaching senior pastors and multiple church staffs in the vision arena, especially around organizational clarity, ministry alignment, and team synergy. Jim has demonstrated achievement as a strategic thinker with a unique ability to bring a group of people to a deep sense of personal ownership and passion. His education includes a Master of Arts in Religious Education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a B.S. in Religion from Liberty University. Jim lives just outside of Orlando in Merritt Island, FL with his wife and son.
Omar Reyes - Omar leads NorthWood’s glocal impact ministries. Omar was born and raised in Belize, Central America before moving to the United States 23 years ago. Omar served 6 years in the United States Marine Corp trained in management. He has served orphanages in Guatemala, helped plant churches in Belize and provided leadership training and helped rebuild Honduras after Hurricane Mitch. He and wife Elisa have four children. His passion is to help people realize their full God-given potential in reaching the world as a disciple of Christ.
Dave Rhodes - For more than a decade, Dave Rhodes has been a clarion voice on discipleship and mission as a speaker, writer, consultant and activist. Dave is the Director of Communities for 3DM, shaping the two year Learning Community experience for hundreds (and soon to be thousands) of churches around the world.
Jonathan Robbins - Jonathan is the Lead Pastor/Teacher of The Summit Church in Kernersville, NC in the heart of the "Triad" area (centered among the cities of Winston-Salem, High Point, and Greensboro, NC). Jonathan has a heart burdened to reach people who've been "burned" by unhealthy church experiences and those who've never been. His passion is seeing people who don't "get it" finally "get it" and then "live it"! In 2000, he led a church planting team to plant a church in the Charlotte, NC area that is still going and growing strong. In 2004, God led Jonathan and his family to The Summit Church, a new church plant meeting in a middle school and struggling through a painful leadership transition. In the years that followed, they've witnessed God heal a wounded church and birth a new vision to reach those far from God in that area. Since 2004, The Summit has been blessed with a permanent facility and grown from 300 to over 3,000 in weekly attendance. Jonathan is a graduate of Liberty University and Southeastern Seminary. He is married to Donna, and they have two daughters: Morgan and Maggie.
Dr. Bob Roberts, Jr. - Bob is the founding and Senior Pastor of NorthWood Church near Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX. NorthWood’s congregation of active participants now averages in excess of 2000. NorthWood has started over 130 churches in the US and is a center for training new pastors.
He is a leading practitioner and writer on glocal transformation of individuals, religious communities, non-governmental organizations, cities and global engagement. He has worked extensively in Vietnam, Afghanistan, West Bank and Gaza, Indonesia, Syria, Belize and other countries.
He is the author of several books including Transformation; Glocalization; The Multiplying Church and the most recently released Real Time Connection: Linking Your Job with God’s Global Work. He has penned articles for both faith based and secular international relations journals and periodicals. He is a featured speaker at universities, leading American and International Christian conferences, and secular conferences on development and engagement.
Roberts’ experience has resulted in his being called upon by a global audience, including the United Nations and various State Departments around the world to assist with humanitarian and reconciliation projects. He works with various religions and religious leaders for greater understanding and to participate and assist with engagement projects.
Bob is a graduate of Baylor University (BA), Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div), and Fuller Seminary (D.Min). Bob is married to Niki, his wife of 30 years, and they have two children, Ben and Jill.
Niki Roberts - Niki has been married to Bob Roberts for 30 years. They started NorthWood Church 25 years ago in Keller, Texas. Niki earned her BA in Education from Baylor University and taught in the public schools for 19 years. Answering God’s call, Niki left the public schools in order to minister to church planter’s wives, lead the women’s ministry at NorthWood and to work globally in many different projects. She leads a group of educators who travel to Vietnam to conduct the annual Special Education Training Conference at the Hanoi National University. In addition, she continues to travel globally to Kenya, India, Vietnam, Dubai, Syria, Israel, the West Bank, Australia, Belize, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, Romania, and other places where she speaks on a variety of development issues and women’s topics. She has been involved and led in multi-faith projects globally and in the DFW area. She and Bob have 2 children, Ben and Jill.
David Rogers - With a heart for reaching a city and discipling followers of Christ, in 2006 David planted CrossPointe Church in Valdosta, Ga. With a group of 12 others committed to planting a gospel centered contemporary work, he launched CrossPointe with the intent on calling out the called, equipping the saints, developing multiplying leaders, and sending out co-laborers. Today, with nearly 2000 in attendance and having already planted another church in northern Kentucky, plans have been made to begin launching multiple campuses in the Valdosta area which will serve as equipping centers for new church planters. David also serves as one of the directors of plantingthegospel.com which is committed to networking with others churches and catalytic leaders who desire to plant churches both domestically and around the world. Prior to surrendering to full time ministry, David was a successful entrepreneur who built an organization by developing leaders and aside from preaching the gospel, he has no greater passion. David is married to his wife Lanelle and they have two daughters.
Bryan Rose - As an Advancement Navigator, Bryan Rose has a strong bias toward merging strategy and creativity within the vision of the local church and has had a diversity of experience in just about every ministry discipline over the last 10 years. Serving as a multi-site strategist and campus pastor at a 3500 attendee multi-campus church in the Houston Metro area, Bryan’s passion is to see “launch clarity” define the unique Great Commission call of developing church plants and campuses. Bryan has a Master of Arts in Christian Education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a B.A. in Architecture from Mississippi State University.
Rick Rusaw – Rick has served as the lead pastor at LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont, Colorado, since 1991. As a practitioner, Rick cares about the church being a vibrant part of their community. At LifeBridge they want to help people “Discover Grace,” “Grow in Grace,” and “Live Gracefully.” Rick is the co-founder of Externally Focused Network, and co-author of “The Externally Focused Church,” “Externally Focused Life,” and “The Externally Focused Quest.”
Dave Saathoff - David is the Senior Pastor of Bandera Road City Church in San Antonio, TX. Along with three friends, he began the church in 1992 with a burning vision to serve the spiritual and social needs of his community. Today over 5000 adults, students and children attend one of 10 services on two different campuses. Much of the ministry of BRCC is initiated by the people who are challenged to “be the church” in small ways every day. Whether serving through the church or because of the influence of the church people are freed to find ways to make the world a better place for the common good of all. BRCC has also baptized over 2000 people in it’s history and continues to build it’s ministry around the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
Jo Saxton - Jo is a director of 3DM, a movement/organization helping churches develop a discipling and missional way of being the church. Originally from the UK, Jo was college pastor at St. Thomas Church, Sheffield, England, planting missional congregations amongst college students and young adults. Since moving to the US six years ago, Jo has served on church teams discipling young leaders and planting missional communities in areas ranging from the suburbs to the inner city. Jo is also the author of Real God, Real Life, exploring authentic spirituality in today’s world (released in 2010) Influential (2011) exploring the subject of women in leadership. Jo loves running , good music, reading books, blogs and magazines and laughing loudly with family and friends over a great meal. Jo is married to Chris, a pastor and they have two amazing daughters, Tia and Zoë. They live in Southern California.
Peter Scazzero - Pete is the founder and senior pastor of New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, New York City–a large, multiracial, international church with over sixty-five countries represented. He is also the author of two best-selling books -- Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (Nelson, 2006) and The Emotionally Healthy Church: Updated and Expanded (Zondervan, 2010). He has also written The Daily Office (WCA, 2009), and collaborated with Geri in the recently released I Quit: Stop Pretending Everything is Fine and Change Your Life (Zondervan, 2010). A graduate of Gordon-Conwell (MDiv) and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin in marriage and family), Pete and Geri are co-founders of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, a groundbreaking ministry that integrates emotional health and contemplative spirituality to pastors, leaders and local churches. For more information, visit www.emotionallyhealthy.org or Pete’s blog at www.petescazzero.com
Jim Sheppard - Jim Sheppard is CEO and principal of Generis, a national consulting firm committed to accelerating generosity toward God-inspired vision for churches, church plants and multi-site churches across all denominations. He is an avid student of generosity and is passionate about spreading it throughout the church so Kingdom projects get resourced. Additionally, Jim is a proven leader and inspirational speaker. He is one of the leading consultants in the field of raising funds for churches and ministry organizations, having personally led giving efforts that have produced in excess of $900 million for Kingdom related projects. He lives in the Atlanta, GA area with his wife, Nancy, and their two daughters.
Matt Smay – Matt is the co-director of Missio, a ministry team committed to training, developing, and apprenticing Incarnational leaders for the church. Within Missio, Matt directs the MCAP, an online collaborative training environment for Incarnational leaders, pastors, and church planters. As co-author of The Tangible Kingdom and the accompanying Tangible Kingdom Primer, Matt balances his time and energy between leading Adullum, a local movement of missional communities in Denver, CO and working directly with church planters and existing pastors as a mentor, coach, and consultant.
Dan Smith - Dan is a storyteller-preacher and comedy writer who started Momentum Christian Church in Cleveland, OH in 2006 . His comedy has been seen on VH-1, CNN, Yahoo!, Glenn Beck, and other less-cool shows. Dan is most known for being the dude who "likes big Bibles" (Google "Baby Got Book"). Armed with a witty sense of humor, Smitty's shares his passion for God to all ages and sometimes uses cool words like "plethora." Dan has a unique perspective on faith because he didn't grow up in a religious home. He came to his conclusions about Jesus when he was a 15-year-old hellion in Toledo, Ohio. He is married to Shannon and has 3 mini-me's. Contrary to rumor, Dan never fought in the Clone Wars. His favorite color is off-white. Find out more at www.whiteboyDJ.com.
Efrem Smith - Efrem is an internationally recognized preacher who also consults on issues of multi-ethnicity, leadership, and community development. Currently, Efrem is the Superintendent of the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church, and an Itinerant Speaker with Kingdom Building Ministries. As Founding Pastor of the Sanctuary Covenant Church, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he also served as the President of the Sanctuary Community Development Corporation. Efrem is the author of the books including, “Raising-up Young Heroes,” “The Hip Hop Church,” and “Jump.” Married to Donecia, the couple has two daughters, Jaeda and Mireya. He and his family reside in the Bay Area of Northern California.
Shannon Smith - Shannon is the “baby with book” in the popular online video “Baby Got Book”. Shannon graduated from Kentucky Christian University in 1997 and taught high school math for eight years while living in the Washington DC area. Shannon and her husband, Dan, now reside in Cleveland Ohio where they planted Momentum Christian Church in September 2006. After thinking they would never be able to have children, God blessed Shannon and Dan with Zion (age 6), Azlan (age 5), and Journey (age 3). When the kids aren’t keeping her busy, Shannon is the small group director at Momentum, helps lead worship on Sunday mornings, and hosts a small group at her house on Wednesday evenings. She loves speaking to women of all ages and is passionate about loving God, loving people and serving the world (all while toting around a grande-6 pump-180 degree-no water-chai tea latte from Starbucks).
Tim Stevens – For 18 years, Tim’s leadership has helped Granger connect with people who think church is irrelevant. He has done this through the creative blending of architecture, strategy and technology. He’s acutely tuned in to popular culture and is instrumental in balancing operations, building creative teams and inspiring artists to brand each message series and sharpen the weekend experience. He has co-authored three books in the Simply Strategic series, and is author of Pop Goes the Church, released in 2008. You can connect with Tim at LeadingSmart.com and on Twitter @timastevens.
Steve Stroope - Steve is Lead Pastor of Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, Texas. He was called to pastor Lake Pointe shortly after its founding. Church attendance under his leadership has grown from 53 at its inception to over 11,000 today. Steve provides coaching to partnership churches and pioneer missionaries in Africa, Australia, New Zealand, China, Cuba, Russia, Mexico, France, South Africa, and North America. He is a sought-after speaker, both nationally and internationally. Steve graduated from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, with a B.A. in Psychology and received the Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He has co-authored two books, Money Matters in the Church and It Starts at Home. His newest book, Tribal Church, was released in January 2012. He and Marsha have two grown daughters, three grandsons and one granddaughter.
Geoff Surratt - Geoff helps churches across the country in strategic planning, teaching and staff development. Geoff previously led the church planting and multisite ministry of Saddleback Church and served Seacoast Church overseeing their 13 campuses. He has almost 30 years of ministry experience in a variety of roles in local churches, and is the author of several books including The Multisite Church Revolution and 10 Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing. Geoff lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife Sherry. They have two children and one grand daughter.
Greg Surratt - Greg is the founding pastor of Seacoast Church, one of the early adopters of the multi-site model. Located in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, Seacoast has been recognized by various media as an innovative and influential thought leader in future strategies for church growth and development. Seacoast combines a unique approach to highly participatory worship with a heart for missional evangelism. Greg calls their weekends a "practical,spirit filled, but non-spooky, yet kind of mystical worship experience, done in multiple locations, very inexpensively." Seacoast currently has 29 weekend worship experiences in 13 separate locations.
Greg is also a founding board member of the Association of Related Churches (ARC), a church planting network that has given birth to 135 churches in the last 9 years. Greg is married to a very hip grandma, has 4 children, 7 grandchildren and enjoys reading, photography, fishing, golfing and rooting for lost causes...specifically the Cubs, Broncos and Gamecocks.
Eric Swanson - Eric has a passion for engaging churches worldwide in the needs and dreams of their communities toward the end of spiritual and societal transformation. He served with Campus Crusade for Christ for twenty-five years before joining the staff of Leadership Network where he currently works as a missional leadership specialist, serving as Leadership Community Director for Externally Focused Churches, Missional Renaissance and Global Connection Churches working with scores of missional churches around North America. He also works with leaders around the world who are focused on kingdom transformation. He holds a D.Min. degree in “Transformational Leadership in the Global City” from Bakke Graduate University and is co-author of The Externally Focused Church, The Externally Focused Life, The Externally Focused Quest: Becoming the Best Church FOR the Community, and To Transform a City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City. Eric has been married to Liz for over 30 years, has three married children, three grandchildren and resides outside of Boulder Colorado. www.ericjswanson.com
Ron Sylvia -Ron is the founding and lead pastor of Church at The Springs in Ocala, Florida, and the Director of NEXT Churches. The Springs began in an office building in 1994 with only 21 people and now averages 3,000 in weekly attendance. While leading a fast-growing church, Ron learned first-hand the value of mentoring and coaching. As a result, Ron started NEXT Churches, an organization that provides coaching networks, conferences and resources to lead pastors nationwide. Ron and the NEXT team have coached hundreds of church planters and pastors to start and lead healthy churches. Ron also leads coaching networks as one of the few certified in the well-known Tom Paterson Strategic Planning Process, using the process to help pastors think and act strategically in the local church. Ron is the author of Launching a Purpose Driven Church conference curriculum and recently authored his story and methods in the book, Starting New Churches on Purpose.
Scott Thomas - Scott Thomas is the President of Acts 29 Network and one of seven pastors overseeing Mars Hill Church in Seattle WA with 14 church sites and over 12,000 in attendance. Under Scott’s leadership, Acts 29 has planted over 400 churches in the last six years and now has 450 churches in the US and in 16 countries around the world. Before leading Acts 29, Scott was a senior pastor for 16 years and a youth pastor for 9 years. Scott co-authored Gospel Coach (ZONDERVAN ©2012) and created an accompanying coaching system and website to shepherd pastors for healthy leadership. Scott also wrote Theological Clarity and Application (©2010 Zondervan). Scott has been married for 30 years to Jeannie and they have two sons, Derrin and Dustin (22 and 19). Scott is a regular lecturer for Resurgence Training Center in Seattle, a conference speaker around the US, consultant for Western European church planting and has trained over 2,000 leaders in Gospel Coach.
Jeff Vanderstelt - Jeff is a Church Planter who leads Soma Communities, a body of church planting churches in the South Puget Sound. He also serves as the Vice President (West) of Acts 29 as well as the Church Planters Advisory Counsel for the Conservative Baptist NW Association. Jeff spends most of his time equipping church planters and church leaders in Gospel Centered Leadership and Missionally focused methodology. He has been planting churches for 6 years. Prior to that was a youth pastor in four different churches over the span of 14 years, the most recent being Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. Jeff has been married for 18 years to Jayne and together they love and shepherd 3 beautiful children in the Gospel and Mission of Jesus Christ.
Rob Wegner - Rob Wegner serves as a teaching pastor at Granger Community Church, calling the people of God to get out of their seat and into the Story. Under his leadership, Granger has seen thousands move out on mission, culminating in redemptive movements locally and globally, that include expressions like Monroe Circle Community Center, a hub for neighborhood renewal in the inner city, and a movement of over 1000 reproducing churches in India that includes more than 140,000 people. Rob is also the lead catalyst for EnterMission, which sparks holistic transformation of communities by cultivating grassroots movements, equipping and networking churches for glocal impact, and forging transformational partnerships across the domains of society. Currently Rob is working alongside Alan Hirsch in an innovative coaching program called Future Travelers helping mega-churches become missional movements. His first book, Share the Well, which he co-wrote with his wife, Michelle, is an eyes wide open experience through visually stunning photos and captivating stories of the holistic church planting movement they helped birth in India. His second book, Missional Moves, which releases in Fall of 2012, is the next book in Zondervan’s Exponential Series. Rob and Michelle have three girls – Madeline, Whitney, and Belle who are quickly becoming Kingdom revolutionaries. You can find Rob blogging at www.robwegner.org or on Twitter @robwegner.
Tim Wheat - From student pastor to college pastor to church planter to senior pastor to church planting coach, Tim has been engaged in a vast array of ministry experiences. These various positions have allowed Tim to understand, develop, and grow in his passion of leadership development. Currently serving at the Pastor of Church Planting at PinelakeChurch, he is also a trainer with the Launch Network where his primary focus is training and preparing a new generation of church planters to lead strong. He lives in Brandon, MS with his wife, Melody, and their three daughters; Madison, Michaelah, and Maicie.
Jud Wilhite - Jud is an author, speaker and senior pastor of Central Christian Church www.centralchristian.com. Central was founded in Las Vegas and has expanded into several states and locations. A recent study revealed that over ninety percent of people surveyed at Central said God “saved their lives” through the church. In partnership with God Behind Bars, Central also began launching multi-site church campuses inside prisons in several states. Jud is the author of several books including Torn, Throw it Down, and Uncensored Grace. He and his wife Lori have two kids and live in the Las Vegas area.
Lori Wilhite - Lori serves alongside her husband Jud<http://potsc.com/> who is the Senior Pastor at Central<http://
Chris Willard - Chris is the director of Leadership Network’s initiatives serving rapidly growing churches and churches working to create a culture of generosity and stewardship. He has nearly 25 years of ministry leadership experience including a long career with Campus Crusade for Christ where he served in a variety of positions including regional director for New England and New York and national director of new campus expansion. Chris also served as the Executive Pastor of Discovery Church in Orlando, and helped navigate Discovery through a season of unprecedented growth. Chris coaches and consults with the leaders of many of the most effective faith based organizations in the country. He has a BA from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Belhaven University and lives in Orlando with his wife Susan and their three children.
John Worcester - John is the founder of Church Planting Leadership (CPL), www.ChurchPlanting.net. John and his wife, Diane, are migrant church planters who have started seven reproducing churches on both coasts and in Russia. Over 20,000 attend these churches and their offspring. John is currently assisting the Canadian National Baptist Convention with their goal of filling Toronto with healthy reproducing churches. He is also consulting with Saddleback Church to develop their church planting training curriculum that is based on the timeless church planting practices of Jesus and Paul. John has assessed, coached, and trained 1000’s of church planting leaders from 42 countries. The Worcester’s have raised two sets of twin sons who are all planting college ministries or churches.
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