Dave Ferguson in his book “Multiplier: How Healthy Leaders Create Lasting Impact” writes about the power that four great practices have to spark multiplication.
These four practices naturally lead to four powerful coaching questions to create momentum and get the multiplication flywheel happening.
The four practices are:
Practice #1: Make Disciple Makers
Practice #2: Establish Spiritual Communities
Practice #3: Mobilise New Leaders
Practice #4: Launch Expressions
The coaching questions revolve around the four practices and simply ask, “How are you going at…?” For example, “How are you going at making disciple makers; disciples who make disciples?”
When leaders regularly ask these questions of themselves, their teams, and their churches, they begin to shift attention away from maintaining what exists and towards multiplying what God wants to reproduce. The questions are simple, but they have the power to expose gaps, clarify priorities, and turn the flywheel to create forward momentum.
1.How Are You Going at Making Disciple Makers?
Jesus never commanded His followers to simply gather crowds. He commissioned them to make disciples. Yet many churches measure success by attendance, programs, or activities rather than by the number of disciples who are helping others follow Jesus.
A disciple-maker is someone who intentionally invests in others and helps them take steps towards spiritual maturity and mission. Multiplication begins when disciples don’t just grow personally but reproduce themselves in others and those others extend the multiplication by reproducing themselves in yet more people.
That’s the pattern we see in 2 Timothy 2:2 where Paul writes to Timothy telling him:
“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.” (NIV)
The Apostle Paul was an expert at making disciple makers!
This question challenges leaders to ask whether their church has a clear pathway for disciple making. Are people learning how to share their faith, invest in others, and help others follow Jesus? Or are they simply consumers of spiritual content?
Healthy multiplication starts with disciples who make disciples.
2. How Are You Going at Establishing Spiritual Communities?
Dave Ferguson writes in “Multiplier: How Healthy Leaders Create Lasting Impact” that:
“People don’t grow in isolation. They grow in community. That’s why the second push on the flywheel is the establishment of spiritual communities—places where disciples can belong, grow, and live on mission together.”
The New Testament vision of the church was never centred on isolated individuals. Followers of Jesus gathered in spiritual communities where they worshipped, learned, prayed, and served together.
Establishing a spiritual community like a small group is a fantastic step for a disciple to take where they can be positioned to disciple others and grow in their leadership in the spiritual communities that they establish and develop.
Doing this creates momentum whereas spiritual communities that stay the same without seeing new spiritual communities developed will create further inertia.
The key question is whether new spiritual communities are being formed. Are disciples finding places where they can grow together and invite others into authentic Christian community?
Multiplication accelerates when communities become environments where disciples are nurtured and equipped to reach others.
3. How Are You Going at Mobilising New Leaders?
One of the greatest barriers to multiplication is a shortage of leaders. Churches often have ministry opportunities, mission fields, and potential new expressions waiting to be launched, but not enough people equipped to lead them.
Multiplication requires a commitment to identifying, developing, and releasing emerging leaders. Rather than relying on a small group of gifted individuals, multiplying churches intentionally create leadership pipelines that help people discover and develop their God-given potential.
Dave Ferguson speaks often of the power of the ICNU question in raising leaders; “I See In You …”.
Archbishop Ric Thorpe frequently says that he will ask a leader “who are you apprenticing?”. If any church has apprentice leaders in place across teams, groups, ministries and departments, they won’t experience a leadership crisis.
This question encourages leaders to consider whether they are actively investing in others. Who are you mentoring? Who are you coaching? Who is taking on greater responsibility because of your encouragement and support?
4. How Are You Going at Launching New Expressions?
Disciple-making, spiritual communities, and leadership development all create momentum towards a fourth practice: launching new expressions of church and mission.
Throughout the book of Acts, we see the gospel continually moving into new places, new cultures, and new communities. New disciples formed new communities. New leaders emerged. New churches were planted.
The same principle applies today. New expressions may include church plants, micro churches, missional communities, campus congregations, workplace ministries, online communities, or fresh expressions designed to engage people who may never walk into a traditional church service.
This question challenges leaders to look beyond maintaining existing ministries and ask where God may be calling them to start something new.
Multiplication happens when we continually create space for new Kingdom expressions to emerge.
Keeping the Flywheel Moving
These four questions are powerful because they keep the focus on the activities that produce multiplication:
- How are you going at making disciple makers?
- How are you going at establishing spiritual communities?
- How are you going at mobilising new leaders?
- How are you going at launching new expressions?
If these questions are used regularly in leadership conversations, team meetings, coaching relationships, and strategic planning sessions, they will help create clarity and alignment around what matters most.
Multiplication rarely happens by accident. It happens when leaders intentionally build systems and cultures that reproduce disciples, communities, leaders, and churches.
Perhaps the most important question is not whether you know these four practices, but whether you are consistently asking them. Because when you do, the multiplication flywheel starts to turn and once it gains momentum, the impact can extend immeasurably more what any one leader or church could accomplish alone.
