From Addition to Multiplication: What Has to Change First
“We have programs. We have small groups. We have a mission trip every year. People are growing. But nothing is multiplying.”
Imagine you’re at a conference with other ministry leaders. Someone near you is describing their discipleship situation just like that. They pause, then say something you’ve probably heard — or said yourself. “I feel like I’m running on a treadmill.” Even movement trainers and leaders can experience this.
It’s a common feeling. And it points to something real.
The treadmill problem in discipleship is not a resources problem or a commitment problem. Most of the leaders I know who are frustrated by it are deeply committed and genuinely want to make disciples. The problem is our paradigm — a way of thinking about discipleship that produces addition growth at best, and at worst produces spiritual consumers who need more and more input but never multiply anything.
Having an Addition Mindset, Without Realizing It
Addition thinking sounds faithful. It says: reach people, teach people, grow people. And none of those desires are wrong. The issue is what’s missing. Addition thinking almost never asks, Who is this person going to disciple? It rarely builds toward reproducibility from the beginning. It produces trained attenders rather than active disciple-makers.
I spent years doing this without recognizing it. We were seeing fruit — real fruit. People coming to faith, getting baptized, growing in the Word. But the fruit wasn’t bearing more fruit. Paul’s image in 2 Corinthians 9 gives hints about this: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. The question is not only how much we’re sowing, but what we’re sowing toward.
What Has to Change First
It isn’t the program. It isn’t the curriculum. It isn’t even the method — though those things matter.
What has to change first is the expectation. And that is true both for pastors who have never attempted multiplication before and for multipliers in the field who are not yet seeing what you are aiming for happen and have drifted into addition-only results.
When you begin to expect that every person you invest in could disciple someone else — and you build that expectation in from the beginning — it changes everything. It changes how you choose who to invest in (Hint: Not the smartest and most mature, but those who obey). It changes the questions you ask. It changes whether you do it for them or teach them to do it themselves. It changes whether you measure success by who shows up to your gathering or by who is making disciples somewhere you’ll never see.
This is not a technique. It is a mindset shift.
Movements around the world didn’t begin with better programs. They began when ordinary people, in unremarkable circumstances, started expecting that the person in front of them could become the person who reaches the next person — and the next, and the one after that.
The treadmill doesn’t end by running faster. It ends when you step off and ask a different question altogether.
If this resonates, let me share one thing you might find helpful. Our birthday membership sale is open through June 10th — 25% off an annual membership to the Dare to Multiply community. There, we will go deeper on these kinds of topics and get into the details of what getting off that treadmill actually looks like. Join us via the link daretomultiply.com/birthdaymembershipsale.
Something to Think About and Discuss:
Do you feel like you are on a treadmill when it comes to discipleship or disciple-making? Share more about that.
What resonated with you in the article above?
What application to your context feels doable this week?
Share in the comments below or on our Dare to Multiply community.
