This year's Exponential conference is to be broadcast worldwide via the web to enable as many people as possible to take part.
Speakers include Crazy Love author and evangelist Francis Chan, Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren, LifeChurch.tv founder Craig Groeschel and, from the UK, the Message Trust's Andy Hawthorne.
From 22 to 25 April in Orlando, Florida, the Exponential 2013: DiscipleShift conference will look at five key "shifts" that need to happen for the church to make and release disciples.
These are: Reaching to Making; Teaching to Modelling; Attending to Participating; Connecting to Transforming; and Attracting to Deploying.
Hawthorne will speak about the impact the Message Trust is having in reaching thousands of teens in the Greater Manchester area despite Britain's challenging post-Christian climate.
He will also be leading a Shift session on Attracting to Deploying, which will challenge churches to stop counting the number of people they attract to the number of people they are deploying.
The conference is already sold out, with 5,000 registered to attend. Exponential organisers are broadcasting the conference live via the web to engage church leaders, small groups, church planting teams, full churches and individuals all around the world in the discipleship conversation.
"This webcast offers leaders who can't make it to Orlando, or are leaving a spouse or team members at home a solid solution for encouraging and equipping them through what we believe will be game-changing conversations for the church," says Exponential leader Todd Wilson. "It's the second best thing to being on site."
Registrations to the live webcast have come in from around the world. In Africa, a team of 50 people in the port city of Lagos, Nigeria, will participate in the discipleship conversation. In the agricultural city of Chihuahua, Mexico, a team of 20 has registered, as well as a group of eight in the capital city of Kingstown, Grenadines, in the Eastern Caribbean. And in Europe, a group in Genoa, Italy, will hear the same speakers and discussion as a team of 30 in Fabens, Texas.
"New technology is going to help take powerful ideas that are changing the game in the United States and make them accessible across the globe," says author Alan Hirsch, a thought leader and key mission strategist for churches across the Western world. "It's all about movement."
To take part in the webcast, register for free at http://www.exponential.org/webcast
