Exponential Announces New Learning Community

Extended jouney focuses on how leaders can create a disciple-making culture

Exponential

Across the country, an increasing number of church leaders are experiencing a holy discontent about the church in the U.S. They’re questioning whether or not we’re really making authentic disciples sold out to Jesus or just creating consumers of Christian goods and services. They’re no longer interested in simply growing attendance. These leaders long for a greater Kingdom impact that makes a palpable difference in the world. They’re wrestling with our appetite for growth and numerical addition, while instinctively knowing God intends multiplication.

Responding to these tensions, Exponential gathered like-minded leaders and friends to “travel” together and explore what God was saying to them about the next years of their lives and ministries. The experience birthed the Future Travelers Learning Community, focused on helping leaders shift their paradigms from addition to multiplication.
Now, Exponential has created  a new Learning Community experience focused on discipleship and helping leaders create a disciple-making culture in their churches.
“Recently, an opportunity opened up to include denominational and network leaders, who, in turn, have invited their best and brightest to participate in this engaging learning experience,” explains Bill Couchenour, director of distributed resources for Exponential. “Fueled by the strong feedback from past alumni and the impact these churches are making, the Learning Community experience has expanded to include a journey with a discipleship emphasis.”
From November 2014 through April 2015, leaders in the discipleship Learning Community called “DiscipleShift” will come together in three separate gatherings at host churches where they will explore  the five key shifts that churches must make to refocus on the biblical mission of disciple making (as outlined in the 2013 book DiscipleShift by Jim Putman, Bobby Harrington and Robert Coleman).

Learn more about Exponential Learning Communities.

Each gathering combines the relational, experiential and informational components required for transformation–including one and a half days of teaching, discussion, breakouts and practical application.Host churches for fall 2014/spring 2015 include  Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho (week of Nov. 3); Westridge Family Church in Kansas City, Mo. (week of Feb. 23) and Soma Communities in Tacoma, Washington (week of April 13). Each journey includes:

• innovative teaching by widely recognized leaders;
• peer-to-peer; small group learning environments designed to be an intimate, living room experience, with participants engaging face-to-face in small groups (for this reason, gatherings are limited to 25 or fewer individuals);
• and case study teaching by host practitioner churches sharing their experiences in implementation, including lessons learned about what did and didn’t work.

Couchenour has been involved in Learning Communities almost from the beginning. Below, he answers questions about this newest Learning Community:
Bill, why did Exponential add this new Learning Community called DiscipleShift?
The initial Learning Community has been very well received by lead pastors and their executive pastors. A couple of years ago, we responded to these leaders’ requests and created cohorts for denominational and network leaders. Some of those leaders subsequently asked us to create the same experience for a cohort with their tribe. Based on the response and results, we decided to expand to a second Learning Community. Now we have two options, one with a missional emphasis and one with a discipleship emphasis.
Why discipleship, specifically?
Jesus gave a clear purpose for the Church with the Great Commission. Sometimes we fall short of that purpose because we think of discipleship as a class instead of life-on-life process or because we focus exclusively on conversion. Creating a culture of discipleship requires us to think differently. In other words, it requires a paradigm shift to really grasp what it means to equip rather than just inform, and to send rather than just gather. The importance of discipleship and the need for paradigm shift make it a good fit for a Learning Community.
How do leaders know if they should pursue this journey? 
Exponential Learning Communities were designed for leaders who are experiencing a holy discontent about the effectiveness and future of the U.S. Church.These communities are for leaders who are questioning whether we’re really making authentic disciples sold out to Jesus or just creating consumers of Christian goods and services. They’re for leaders no longer interested and content in simply grow attendance.
How will you/Exponential measure the effectiveness/impact of this DiscipleShift Learning Community? What are the tangible goals?
We measure the success of the Missional Learning Community by the change it makes in the churches that participate. We look for the actual actions that churches take as a result of being part of the Learning Community. For some churches, that has been a shift in their primary goals from the ABC’s (attendance, buildings and cash) to measurable differences in their community. Some have gone on to engage missional experts to coach them through an organizational shift. One church is actually shifting their spending from 70% for weekend services to 30%, so they can use a larger amount for deploying people than they do gathering people.
We’ll measure the effectiveness of the DiscipleShift Learning Community in similar ways. What real change is it making in the church? Certainly, we’re interested in how many people are engaged in discipling relationships but, more importantly, we’ll be interested in the changes that’s happening in the lives of the people involved. Are there more people seeing themselves as everyday missionaries called to their neighborhood, school or workplace? Is the gospel spreading more virally? Is the church becoming more engaged in all the domains of a community? Real change is not always easy to measure, but that’s our goal.
How did you determine which churches to tap as hosts of the DiscipleShift Learning Community gatherings? We selected the host churches because they are distinctly different models, but each one has established a culture of discipleship. Visiting all three churches gives participants the opportunity to see the principles in action in different contexts. That’s helpful because creating a discipleship culture is not “plug-and-play.” It requires the church leadership to understand the principles and then contextualize them for their own church.
What factors make these Learning Communities so effective in activating change? The combination of innovative teaching and case study application by host churches in a peer-to-peer setting is powerful. From my perspective, this journey is the most effective learning environment for paradigm shift that leads to action.
Learning Communities cohorts are forming now for fall 2014/spring 2015. Learn more here.