Hero Maker

Dave Ferguson, Warren Bird

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780310536949
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Iglesia cristiana

In Hero Maker, you will learn how to bring real change to your church and community by developing the practical skills to help others reach their leadership potential.

Drawing on five powerful practices found in the ministry of Jesus, Hero Maker presents the key steps of apprenticeship that will build up other leaders and provide strategies for how you can:

• activate the gifts of those around you
• help others take ownership of their mission
• develop a simple scorecard for measuring your kingdom-building progress

With rich insights from the Gospels, Hero Maker is packed with real-life ministry stories ranging from paid staff to volunteer leaders--from established churches to new church plants.

Whether you lead ten people or ten thousand, Hero Maker will not only help you maximize your leadership impact; but, in doing so, you will also help shift today's church culture to a model of reproduction and multiplication.

Chicago pastor and church planter Dave Ferguson and award-winning writer Warren Bird make a compelling case that God's power and purpose are best revealed when we train and release others to further advance the Kingdom of God.

By becoming a hero maker and investing in others, you can join a movement of influencers that are impacting thousands of people around the world.

Everybody wants to be a hero, but few understand the power of being a hero maker.

CHAPTER 1

Jesus’ Leadership Secret

Big Idea: Hero makers have discovered that dying to self and living for God’s kingdom through others is the secret of multiplied results and greater impact.

Want to know the secret?

I’m not trying to be clever or sly with that question. But over the last twenty-five years, I’ve learned that there really is a secret to multiplying great leaders. It’s a secret for pastors and volunteer leaders alike. And it’s what leaders in business and social sectors are looking for. You might lead a megachurch or a small group, but this secret is scalable and will allow anyone to exponentially multiply his or her difference making. Not only is this leadership secret available to all of us, but if you keep reading, you can begin to apply it today.

The Secret

Long before I ever dreamed of starting and leading a church, I dreamed of starting and playing in the National Basketball Association. That’s pretty ambitious for a guy who’s five foot eleven and has always had the vertical leap of a middle-aged white guy! But like I said, it was a dream.

You might lead a megachurch or a small group, but this secret is scalable and will allow anyone to exponentially multiply his or her difference making.

My sons share my love of the game. They introduced me to The Book of Basketball,⁴ the definitive, 719-page book on the NBA by Bill Simmons. An award-winning sports writer, Simmons is one of the few people who could write a credible bible of basketball. Chapter 1 of Simmons’ book is titled “The Secret.” Simmons says there is a secret about basketball that almost no one realizes. He admits that he didn’t detect the secret even though he was a lifelong fan, veteran sportswriter, and viewer of thousands of professional basketball games. He didn’t understand the secret until he had a conversation with Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas, best known for leading the Detroit Pistons to two NBA championships. (And Isiah is only six foot one, which gives me hope for the next NBA draft!)

In an interview, Simmons asked Thomas about the secret to winning an NBA championship. Thomas paused and smiled, hinting that there’s definitely a secret to winning championships.

“The secret of basketball,” Thomas finally said, “is that it’s not about basketball.”⁵

This clearly wasn’t the response Simmons expected. Seeing his confusion, Thomas shared a few stories about the incredible chemistry on his team. And that chemistry was not unique to the Pistons; it was something the Lakers and Celtics teams each had at their peak. Thomas said that he learned the secret when his team made an in-season trade of a star, high-scoring player for an aging, less-stellar performer. That player knew and understood the secret to winning. The Pistons gave up Adrian Dantley, who had a preoccupation with his own statistics, for little-known Mark Aguirre, who was a childhood buddy of Thomas. More important, though, Aguirre saw his role as doing anything he could to make the rest of the team successful. That trade didn’t make sense on paper, but it led to amazing results. The Pistons turned their season around and went on to win the championship.

Thomas drove home his point. “Being the best in basketball is really all about team,” he told Simmons. “Everyone must put the team first.” Recalling the championship years, Thomas observed, “Lots of times, on our team, you couldn’t tell who the best player in the game was. . . . It’s the only way to win.”⁶

Most people think winning in basketball is all about having the star players who score the most points, get the most rebounds, have the highest shooting percentage, and have all the right statistics. But Thomas believes that even having all that doesn’t guarantee success. In fact, what he suggests runs counter to the prevailing wisdom. Instead of star players who are individually successful, the real secret to success in basketball is having players who are willing to sacrifice personal success for the sake of the team, even forgetting about their own stats at times.

To win, you need people who will forfeit their own success for the greater benefit of their team. That’s the secret to winning over the long haul.

“You cannot get seduced by numbers and stats,” Simmons concludes.⁷ “It’s not about statistics and talent as much as making teammates better and putting the greatness of your team ahead of yourself. That’s really it.”⁸

Jesus Knew the Secret

Jesus had a team. His team was the disciples. Jesus knew the secret and never got seduced by numbers and stats. He was explicit about his desire to equip his followers to do the heroic: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12, emphasis added). Jesus told his followers that he was investing his life in them so they would do greater things than he would. He was setting them up so they could reach more people, go more places, and make more disciples than he ever would during his three years of earthly ministry.

Jesus told his followers that he was investing his life in them so they would do greater things than he would.

Paul Knew the Secret

The apostle Paul begins chapter 12 in his first letter to the Corinthians by, in effect, asking us a question: “Do you want to know the secret?” It’s a secret he has learned not about basketball but about the kingdom of God and how each of us has something to contribute to God’s work in his kingdom. He writes, “Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed” (1 Cor. 12:1, emphasis added).

Paul goes on to reveal and explain the secret in verse 12. He explains that the church has a specific design, a way in which it is intended to work. It’s a body. It’s a team. And whether we’re looking at the church locally or globally, the entire church is created by God to work together as a team, using everyone’s Spirit-empowered gifts and all other resources to build up the whole body and to accomplish our God-given mission.

The “secret” is fairly simple, right? Rather than focusing on our individual success or the success of our local church, we need to think about the greater work of God’s kingdom—all the places where he is acknowledged as Lord. That whole takes priority over any individual part. You and I are part of a mission that is bigger than what either of us can accomplish by ourselves, no matter how gifted we might be. The kingdom Jesus gave his life for is far bigger than the local church you serve or the denomination or network you’re part of. As we each contribute to God’s team, it’s a win for the kingdom of God as more people are added, regardless of which local congregation they land in.

Thinking this way, as simple as it sounds, radically transforms our approach to leadership. Previously, whenever I’d read any of the hundred-plus kingdom references in the New Testament, my first thought would be how that applies to my own context, to Community Christian Church. Now when I read kingdom, I try to imagine our church and the churches down the road, my friend’s church in downtown New York, the thirty-two-member rural church in Oklahoma, the underground church in China, and all the other global churches within God’s kingdom.

The “secret” is simple: you have to think about the kingdom of God more than about yourself or even your church.

This speaks to our priorities. It’s what Jesus was getting at when he said, “Seek first his kingdom” (Matt. 6:33, emphasis added). Jesus draws our attention to the work of kingdom multiplication through parables about seeds (Mark 4:26–34) and yeast (Matt. 13:33). And there is a reason why he does this. When I begin to seek God’s kingdom more than my kingdom, his power and purposes are revealed to us and through us.

We cannot advance the kingdom of God or accomplish Jesus’ mission if we don’t apply this secret to our lives and leadership. Every true movement of the Jesus mission begins with a heart change in the leader, and that happens as we learn to take the spotlight off ourselves. When we make this vital shift, we begin to shine the spotlight on others—we put the best of our efforts and energy into equipping other Christ followers and emerging leaders—empowering them to be the heroes, wherever they end up serving. Here is what lies at the heart of Jesus’ leadership. This is his secret.

In short, we must shift from being the hero to becoming a hero maker.

Table 1.1 shows the contrast.

Table 1.1: Hero versus Hero Maker

PRACTICE	HERO	HERO MAKER
Multiplication Thinking	I think ministry happens through my own leadership.	I think ministry happens through multiplied leaders.
Permission Giving	I see what God can do through my own leadership.	I see what God can do through others, and I let them know what I see in them.
Disciple Multiplying	I share what I’ve learned in ways that add more followers.	I share what I’ve learned in ways that multiply disciples.
Gift Activating	I ask God to bless the use of my own gifts.	I ask God to bless leaders I’m sending out.
Kingdom Building	I count people who show up to my thing.	I count leaders who go out and do God’s thing.

Warning: Shifting to the hero-making practices detailed in this book means that we die to self in order to live more for Christ and his kingdom. It might mean that we never get the public credit because we’ve chosen to live in a shadow rather than to seek out a spotlight.

Even though we know these decisions are the right ones because we’re advancing God’s kingdom, that doesn’t make them easy. As one of the leaders at Community Christian Church commented as we discussed being a hero maker,

You’re reminding us that real leaders first die to any vision of personal glory. The dying involves a very real transition, one of grief and loss of ever becoming that culture-defining ...