Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders

by Dave Ferguson

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 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.

Genres: Leadership, Christian, Discipleship, Church, Nonfiction, Christianity, Self Help

272 pages, Hardcover

Published March 13, 2018

Reviews

[Tara Jessup · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has some great principles in it but it reworks the same ideas over and over again.

[Tudor Marici · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas about developing leaders in ministry. However I think a cardinal mistake is taking specific examples of how God has blessed specific ministries and making that prescriptive for all ministry success. Each ministry leader needs to be faithful with the calling God has placed on their lives. Faithfulness is harder to measure than multiplying church plants and leader commissioning. I did like the basic underlying principle to make others the hero, elevate them and challenge them to grow, instead of elevating yourself as the hero.

[Kory · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book with useful stories and encouragement for church planting that is unfortunately built upon a false premise.

The most common error in church leadership books today is confusing the values of leadership and service. Carrying this mistake too far leads to churches that are feckless and confused because they build such massive organizational structures with various teams and have high/growing attendance, yet they are flagging in the three categories that tend to indicate strong discipleship and ownership among their church body–volunteering, giving, and small group participation (community).

This is the sandy foundation that Hero Maker (and many similar books) are built upon, so even the things it does well are limited by this error. I have seen Jesus and his disciples misrepresented in this and other books so let me suggest this biblical position: While Jesus and his disciples participated in roles where they led and others followed, this entire structure was predicated upon their insistence to pursue servanthood. Jesus said this of himself (the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and become the ransom for many), and demanded it of his disciples (whoever among you would be great must be the servant of all). Stop writing books about Jesus, the leader who made leaders. That's not what he was doing and the Son of God makes no sense as a posterchild for leadership–it's a word that Jesus literally never used in the Bible. Good leadership is derived from a pursuit of service, but as we know, inviting people to serve in ministry is a less appealing hook in recruiting than inviting them to be a leader of a ministry.

The usefulness of this book for me was found in how it champions the church planting paradigm. It caused me to be more thoughtful about how the smaller communities of church are effective and mobile when they are mission-minded about planting and not self-preservation-minded about survival. Ferguson offers several overcomplicated analysis tools for this, but I think the fundamental question is sound and is needed: are we willing to risk our comfort for the progress of the kingdom by positioning our church to plant a church?

I wish there was a way to mine that content out of this book for other readers because about 20% of what is in here is really helpful if you want to pursue a plant. It's just scattered all over and I fear the influence of the whole book is just as likely to inspire a pastor who wants to build a church for the sake of grandeur as the one who would build it for the sake of the Kingdom. So as Jesus says, be humble here and you'll be great later :)

[BJ Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you want to be a hero, or do you want to be a person creating heroes? This is the primary question in this book. Every pastor wants to grow a big church. This is in itself a noble goal. But Dave Ferguson wants us to shift our focus from growing churches to growing leaders who will grow many more churches than we could ever do on our own.

This book is very similar (but better IMO) to Exponential. That book is about churches planting churches, this covers much the same ground in the same way but it is about leaders growing leaders. It is kind of like how Rick Warren first wrote Purpose Driven Church, and then made it personal by writing the very similar (but much better) Purpose Driven Life.

This book was originally on the syllabus for my Leadership class but it wasn't used. This was one of the many problems I had with that poorly led and conducted class. Oh, the irony. I had read and taught Exponential with my church back in New York and so I bought it and read it anyways. I'm so glad I did. In some ways, this book was a realignment for what I need to continue doing and do better. In others... there will be changes.

This is a great and very readable book. But it isn't the type of book you just read. It is the type of book you apply. If you are comfortable with the status quo in your life and ministry then skip it. If you want to be more effective for the Kingdom, then this is a must read.

[George P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Am I trying to be the hero, or am I trying to make heroes out of others?” Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird believe church leaders should ask this question daily if they want to develop a culture of multiplication in their congregations. To help leaders do this, the authors outline five essential practices of hero making: multiplication thinking, permission giving, disciple multiplying, gift activating and kingdom building. Hero Maker is a helpful book for any church leader who wants to do the “greater things” Jesus promised His disciples in John 14:14.

[Megan Beck Wisener · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for ministry! Teaching leaders how to turn from growing their own ministry to growing the Capital C Church. Teaching leaders how to multiply growth by creating other leaders/disciple makers, rather than just add to their own ministry.

Great tips and content heavy

[Sarah Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t recommend this book enough to ministry or marketplace leaders. It has more sticky notes, mark-ups, and notes than any other book I own - Bible aside. 🤪🙌

My only critique would be that amidst the dozens of stories, I would’ve loved to see more examples of women living out hero-making values.

Really excited for the way this book, with its foundation in Jesus’ disciple-making model and many stories, examples, and practical strategies, will shape my relationships and leadership as I grow as a hero-maker!

[Robbie Deacon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Succinct and practical book on how to create a multiplying church movement by shifting one’s focus onto intentional leadership development.
The author spends most of his time defining terms and giving the reader tools to develop leaders and create organizational culture. HeroMaker is also filled with supporting anecdotes and statistics to help the reader understand how effective multiplication practices can be.

This book is worth reading for those in any sphere of vocational ministry and has challenged me to adjust my personal leadership paradigm.

[Michael Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful putting what I’ve seen take place at Summit Church/Summit College into words and practices. I do agree, the best way to reach the world is to multiply leaders who multiply leaders.

[Tim Littleford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential read for new leaders on how to develop leaders.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Movements are started by leaders who have died to their own success. Steve Addison
The secret is simple, You have to think about the kingdom of God more than yourself or even your church.
If we only focus on addition, we never get to multiplication
Hero makers know it’s all God’s so they say, How do I grow God’s church rather than my/our church?
Ask, Am I actually multiplying God’s kingdom?
Hero making is deferring your rewards until heaven.
Jesus spent 73% of his time with the 12 disciples. 46 events with the few, compared to 17 events with the masses.
It’s a shift in thinking from my leadership to ministry happening through multiplied leaders.
When you take care of the little things, think about the big things so that the little things go in the right direction.
Leader asks: What did you hear from the Holy Spirit? What will you do because of it? How can we pray for you? (disciple leaders)
Give 5 hours a week to doing the work of discipling and reproducing leaders. It could literally change the whole world.
The best leaders look into the soul of a person and say, I see what you could be, and my role is to bring that out of you. Derwin Gray
Jesus gave permission: He said, Follow me because God’s going to work through some leaders other than me: each of you!
6 levels: Watch what i do, and then let’s talk about it. Let’s together figure out a plan for what you should do. Propose a plan for what I should do and let’s talk about it. Let me know your plan for what you should do, but wait for my feedback. You should handle it completely, and then let me know what you did. You should handle it completely, and there is no need to report back to me.
Summary of great commission: Here’s the mission. I'm giving you my authority to do it. Use it to make disciple makers. I’m with you all the way.
Are you reproducing or multiplying other Christ followers, who in turn do likewise?
Disciple makers start with the few, not the many. They prioritize relationships, not curriculum. Disciple makers focus on sending capacity over seating capacity. They hand off authority rather than holding on to it.
Spiritual gifts usually go in a pile on church office to be abandoned, or pastors are overwhelmed by interest, or it just gets weird, or is all about filling in the slots for ministry.
Kingdom building shifts from counting the people who show up to counting the leaders who go out and do God’s thing.
It’s entirely possible for a church’s attendance to be growing, while the kingdom of God is shrinking.
My only motive is advancing God’s kingdom, not mine. My missional method is multiplication, not addition. My measure of success is to send people, not create a crowd.
We can never build buildings big enough or fast enough to catch up with what God wants to do.
Culture is spontaneous repeated patterns of behavior. Erwin McManus
Hero Maker creed: I commit to thinking with a multiplication mindset, my model is Jesus (Acts 1:8), to seeing leadership potential in others (Matt. 4:19), to sharing what I’ve learned and not being satisfied until its multiplied to the fourth generation, (John 3:22), to blessing leaders by sending them out, not by holding on to them. My model is Jesus (Matt. 28:19-19), to counting only what advances God’s kingdom and not what increases mine (Matt. 6:33).

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dave Ferguson, Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders. (Zondervan, 2018).

Dave Ferguson is lead pastor at Community Christian Church in Chicago. This book challenges leaders to turn their focus from being a hero, with a focus on themselves and their own ministries to becoming “hero makers” as they focus on multiplication by developing other leaders.

The heart of the book is “five essential practices” for making heroes (multiplying leaders). They are:

Multiplication thinking: investing in developing the leadership of other people.
Permission giving: seeing the potential for leadership in others.
Disciple making: investing in the lives of others.
Gift activating: asking the Lord to bless and send those in whom you have invested.
Kingdom building: a change of attention from a concentration on what you are doing to what God is.

This book is a simple presentation of the importance of investing in multiplying leaders and practical steps by which it might be done. Principles are simply stated and illustrated with a number of examples. Ferguson provides specific steps for implementing the practices he recommends. So this book will be a guide to leaders who want to invest in multiplying other leaders.

Despite the positive contribution of the book, there are several criticisms that may be made. First, the book reads like the work of an “entrepreneur” and, indeed, in its description Ferguson is described as a “spiritual entrepreneur.” While it is not exactly clear what a “spiritual entrepreneur’ is, some readers will wonder if that is the profile of the kind person that should be developing emerging leaders. Second, the title of the book raises questions. Since perhaps the most difficult aspect of developing leaders is to prepare those who will truly be servant-leaders, one wonders how much the title “Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders” might communicate a false impression of the end in view. Finally, and most importantly, this book is very weak on the biblical development of how to develop servant-leaders. While Ferguson does make some reference to Scripture, the book is much more given to stories and practical ways to go about the preparation of leaders than to careful biblical thought about how that might be done. So, for example, there is no discussion of the reality of suffering that will inevitably be part of genuine New Testament leadership, although Scripture itself is very clear about it.

So here is a book that provides a necessary encouragement to invest in the multiplication of leaders but it will need to be supplemented with more biblical content.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I like about this book
It describes and details something that is missing in most work place and church organizations, a culture of mentorship. Over the past few generations we have lost this as a culture and we now expect most people to learn either in a class room setting or by watching youtube videos on their own. Most people don't really have someone that you can to go through life with sharing their experiences to help you navigate life's pitfalls. I have personally used the examples given in this book (secret of championship basketball is a particular favorite) in my own church and office to advocate for that transformation while also seeking a few people to start the hero maker (mentorship) journey. Another item that I do like is gives a lot of very practical advice how begin this transformation.

What I don't like
My main complaint against the book is that how repetitious it is. I feel like you could probably skip about 1/3 of the book if you are able to pick up on the ideas quickly. Some may need the several different ways he introduces concepts but I personally found myself skipping ahead to when he started the next idea.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Do you want to be the hero or do you want to make heroes out of others.” The book is built around that question. Or you could sum it up with the Sandlot line: “remember kid, heroes get remembered, but legends never die.” It could have easily been 100 pages shorter and gotten across the same message, but overall it provides a strong challenge for ministry leaders. The challenge diverts from the typical managing your time and skills to maximize your results to equipping others to do more than you could ever do on your own. Take your time with this one as there is it needs a lot of space for self reflection and prayer.

[Gary Keisling · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book challenges Christians, especially those serving in positions of spiritual leadership, to intentionally engage in ICNU conversations noting the possibilities you see in the lives of others so they may fulfill their potential. A recurring theme Ferguson and Bird reiterate throughout the book is thinking in terms of multiplication instead of addition.

While the book includes a plethora of illustrations making this point one must first understand who they are and what God intends for them to accomplish, which may not involve multiplication.

[Ben Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

An inspiring book on leadership and church planting that has left me with lots to think about - am I trying to be a hero or am I making heroes of others? Am I seeking first God's kingdom or my own kingdom? Is my focus on seating capacity or sending capacity? Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird do an outstanding job of reminding us about the centrality of the Great Commission and providing practical strategies for multiplying the presence of the kingdom by being a hero maker.

[Tim Genry · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re a church leader or are interested in church leadership, read this book.
If the gathering of believers in Acts looks different than the gathering of believers you worship with, read this book.
If you’d like to help yourself and others move towards Jesus yet don’t know how, read this book.
If you want to be comfortable and you don’t want your vision of Jesus or His church to stretch you, don’t read this book.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. I feel more empowered and encouraged to be a Hero Maker-- to constantly look to pour into others and develop them as leaders!

Have to give a shout out to two of my friends who were mentioned in this book on Page 196-- Kevin Pike and Bob Carlton-- and to my awesome church family-- Ridge Point Community Church-- all of which have helped shaped me into someone who desires to serve God by being a multiplying Hero Maker.

[Wes Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I like about this book is that it gives a clear vision of multiplication, good language to explain it, and very clear practical steps and ways to implement it.

I think the negative would be at times they try to tie biblical passages to leadership principles. Not that it is wrong to do but sometimes it seems like a little bit of a stretch and unnecessary.

[Brooks Anderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s not a numbers book, but all the examples of success are about numbers.

I’ll chew the meat and spit out the bones. Some good stuff, some bad.

[Austin Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for leadership development and processes. Could probably be distilled into a 20-30 page ebook to save the time.

[Donnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This should be required reading for anyone who is serious about ministry.

[Tommy Kiedis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gold mine! Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird attach a sticky name (Hero Maker) to an important concept (leadership multiplication), and then offer a blueprint for making it an everyday leadership reality.

Hero Maker is so much more than a good idea. Hero Maker feels like I'm listening to leaders who have observed leadership multiplication, practiced it, reflected on it, taught it, and distilled the broader concept into five repeatable practices anyone can emulate.

Hero Maker is pragmatic, but it is not pragmatism. Dave and Warren help the reader to see the practice of Jesus as well as how his disciples, then and now, move from leadership addition to leadership multiplication.

You can't simply read this book. You have to absorb it and do the necessary work to put it into practice. The fruit can be exponential leadership development.

5 Takeaways from Hero Maker (and it was hard to isolate this to five):

1. Developing a Hero Maker Culture. Henry Cloud says, leaders have what they create and what they allow. Dave and Warren provide essential help for growing a culture of leadership multiplication.

2. Asking the right questions. The chapter not only asks a great question ("Am I trying to be the hero, or am I trying to make heroes out of others?"), it provides help to continually ask the kinds of questions that lead to better leadership and leadership development. They help you "dream big."

3. Permission Giving. I loved this take on the "I do it, you watch..." leadership development process. The six levels for giving permission are simple, practical, and oh so essential.

4. "I see in you." "When a leader says to someone, "I see in you . . ." and describes a preferable future, [then] the switch is flipped on for gift-based serving." Often times I have to return to concepts over and again to learn them, this one stuck from the first time I heard it.

5. Apprenticeship. Hero Maker is a text book on apprenticing. Apprentices graduate when they have another apprentice. As with the rest of the book, the author's principles are followed with practical processes and stories of others who have successfully navigated the practice.

[Lauren Terwilliger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was SUCH a helpful tool for me and the church I serve at because it helped me identify where we are at in the disciple-making and church multiplying process as well as the gaps in how to grow to the next level.

The parts of the book I found extremely helpful were:
- The 5 levels of churches defined
- Types of questions at each level
- Kingdom scoreboards (simple, meaningful metrics)
- 7 step process for creating a hero-making culture

We are currently a level 3 church (growing) but have big dreams for disciple-making and church multiplication, yet we have been stuck. I’m excited to bring what I’ve learned from this book back to my church staff team so we can implement it!

[Daunavan Buyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book! I highly recommend it to people who are looking to be challenged as a kingdom-minded leader. The main thrust of this book is to inspire leaders who want to help others rise above... for the sake of the kingdom. Many of us as church leaders are content with addition, but this book casts the vision of multiplication - leaders who are hero makers, championing others for the sake of God’s Kingdom being established. This book highlights leaders who are living this out while providing practical ways to do that ourselves. Check it out!

[Rev James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not worth time and money

This is mostly platitudes. Seems like he learned a word, exponential, and just going to use it, in context or not. He hit on a good concept of training up leaders, its called discipling in a real Christian church, but it seems he has no real education, no record of serving in any public way military public safety. But likes to throw around tough guy stuff, but isn't really. Very little about genuinely in Christ, A whole lot of self promotion, I really should only give two stars

[Otis · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if we followers of Christ, really took to heart our commission from Jesus? What if we took to heart to multiply the family of God? This book is an excellent resource of what we should be striving to reach. That being as many souls as possible to tell him/her about our Hope. We have a motto at our church, it’s Win, Train, Send. In this book, it speaks volumes of how to successfully accomplish this great commission. Wonderfully informational impactful read.

[Jeff Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve read that inspires the process of discipleship and multiplication. Very practical. The legacy I will one day leave is not for others to remember my name, but the name of Jesus, and this book instructs on how to disciple in a 2 Timothy 2:2 way to impact God’s Kingdom that goes far beyond me. Moreover, it takes this process and extends it towards multiplying groups and churches: a movement for greater impact for The Gospel.

[Logan Maloney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just incredible. This book wasn’t a book that completely revolutionized my thinking about multiplication in the church but it did change how important I see it is for us to do! It felt like as I was reading this book, I was being personally talked to and motivated to do this. This book also gave a great full picture of multiplication and the impact it can make on cities, countries, and the rest of the world. Everyone please read this!

[Mark Youngkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The publisher of this book is positioning it as a leadership text, and I began reading it with that expectation. It is only sort of about leadership. What it's really about is church planting. So if you're interested in being a church planter, you'll likely benefit from this book a lot. It is only incidentally a book with leadership insights, but those insights are useful.