Dave Ferguson

Dave Ferguson is the CEO / President and co-founder for Exponential. He is also the lead pastor of Community Christian Church, an innovative multi-site missional community that is passionate about "helping people find their way back to God." Community has grown from a few college friends to thousands every weekend meeting at multiple locations in the Chicago area and has been recognized as one of America's most influential churches. Dave provides visionary leadership for NewThing, a global movement of multiplying churches.  He is an award-winning author of eight books, including Hero Maker: 5 Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders. Dave and his wife, Sue, live in Naperville IL. They have three adult children - Amy, Joshua and Caleb.

Noemi Chavez

Noemi Chavez pastors Revive Church, a multisite church in Long Beach, California, and the greater Los Angeles area, along with her husband Joshua. She is a speaker and cofounder of Brave Global, an organization which focuses on reaching out to girls that are on probation and in the foster care system. Noemi also serves as chair of the board for Exponential Español, and with Biola Church Relations Advisory Board. She is committed to raising leaders and bridging generations to serve the future of the Church and their communities.

Jason Reynolds

Pastor Jason C. Reynolds is the Senior Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Jose, CA. Since arriving at Emmanuel in 2012, Pastor Jason has renewed the church’s mission, vision, and values through a variety of endeavors, including a revitalized worship service format, a new and thriving prayer ministry with 13 groups gathering weekly morning and evening by phone for prayer, and the Legacy 50:50 Stewardship Campaign, which raised 1.4M above regular tithes to renovate the worship center and reshape the church’s financial standing. Pastor Jason earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, a Master of Arts in Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, and an Executive Education certificate from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. In 2018, he became a Senior Fellow of American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley. Pastor Jason has been happily married to Poch'e (“Po-Shay”) Reynolds since 2008, and together they have two sons - Jadon Reynolds and Jason Reynolds, II (affectionately called “Bubba”). Pastor Jason is an avid tennis player and loves spending time watching movies and discussing the intersections between culture and faith.

James Grogan

James Grogan is the senior pastor of Community Church Movement, a growing network of churches founded in Chula Vista, California, which includes congregations in Southern California and Baja California, Mexico. He is the lead pastor of EastLake Church, the founding church in the Community Church Movement. He is also a catalyst leader of the San Diego Church Plant Movement, which works to bring pastors and church leaders together across all denominations and tribes to plant more gospel-centered churches in San Diego. James has worked in full-time local church ministry for over 26 years, with the last 20 spent on staff at EastLake Church. James and his wife Rebecca have been married for 25 years and have three children and have served as foster parents for a few other amazing children.

Darren Rouanzoin

Darren Rouanzoin has lived in Southern California his whole life and moved to Long Beach, California, in 2008 to plant Garden Church with his wife, Alex. Alex and Darren have been married for 15 years and have two wild and free boys—Ezra and Amos—and love to camp, surf, hike, paddle board, and adventure as a family. Darren is the lead pastor of Garden Church, a community in the heart of one of the most diverse cities in the US. Darren’s passion and vision are to make resilient disciples who are formed in the way of Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live a naturally supernatural lifestyle.

Andy Wood

Andy Wood is the new second-generation Lead Pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA, one of American’s largest and best-known churches founded by Pastor Rick and Kay Warren. Andy has a heart for developing leaders and church planters, teaching God’s Word in relevant ways, and creating environments where those far from God come to know Him personally. For 14 years, Andy was the Founding and Lead Pastor of Echo.Church, a multi-site church of 3,000 people based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2008, after receiving a master’s degree from Southwestern Theological Seminary, he and his family, along with 3 other families, moved cross-country to start Echo.Church - with a mission to urgently lead people to say yes to Jesus and passionately follow Him. Andy and his wife Stacie said yes to Jesus and a new call to love Saddleback Church. They moved their family from the Bay area and now live in Orange County, California, with their three children, and beloved dog Mercy.

Will Chung

Will Chung and his wife Andrea are the founding and lead pastors of Beloved Church in Buena Park, California. They also have three beautiful children, Karis, Kairos and Zoey. The deepest desire of Will’s heart is to live in ever increasing union with God and to help others to do the same through wholistic discipleship. For more information about Will and Andrea you can visit: www.thebelovedchurch.com.

Alex Absalom

Alex has served alongside his wife Hannah in church leadership in a wide range of settings, from plants to megachurches, for over 25 years. Together they lead Dandelion Resourcing, which focuses on empowering Jesus-followers to go and make disciple-makers in naturally supernatural ways. Alex is an unusually practical (and funny!) teacher and coach, who brings strategic insight and much hard-won experience from the front lines. Originally from England, the Absaloms live in Long Beach CA, where they are also planting a network of missional communities, and they have 3 cheeky but charming young adult sons!

Matt Larson

Matt Larson is the lead pastor at Anthem Church in Thousand Oaks California. He and his wife Kristen have three boys: Andrew, Jeremy and Tyler. Matt served as youth pastor in several EFCA churches before he and Kristen planted Anthem Church in Thousand Oaks with a launch team of 150 individuals.

Jodi Hickerson

Jodi Hickerson serves as Teaching Pastor and Programming Director for Mission Church in Ventura, California. Jodi and her husband Mike, along with their three daughters, are a part of the team that planted Mission Church in September of 2011, which continues to be the adventure they cannot imagine missing.

THURSDAY, October 6