[featured_image]The key question that every believer needs to ask is: “Do I want to be part of a movement of God’s people or do I just want to help grow a larger church?” While movements will result in the multiplication of churches, movements are not only about multiplying churches. The Church is the means or instrument to accomplish the mission.

Essentially, movements are evidence of the missionary people of God aligned with God’s missionary heart.

Multiplication movements are the work of the Spirit of God through Christ-followers who are being transformed day by day. The process of life transformation is not something that happens in a moment or even in a day or week. God develops and conforms believers to the image of His Son over their lifetime. He uses followers of Jesus who are in the process of being transformed to spread His message and mission around the world, starting in their specific geographic context.

Any attempt to encourage missional activity and hopefully, multiplication movements, must be connected to what God is accomplishing already in transforming people and places for His glory.

Only God creates movements.

The concept of “fueling” multiplication movements seems almost heretical if it means that a man or woman somehow can bring about transformation at a personal or corporate or community level apart from God. That will never happen.

Only God transforms.

Fueling multiplication movements is actually about identifying what God is doing already to advance His kingdom, faithfully submitting to His will, and discovering ways to align with the mission and message of Jesus. Fueling multiplication movements requires recognition of the ways that God has been working both biblically and historically, and then looking for evidence of similar activity today.

In order to fuel multiplication movements that will transform America, pastors and church leaders need to embrace different ways of doing church and discipleship. Without disciplemaking the Church will die. It will cease to exist. Yet with a commitment to multiplying disciples as Jesus commissioned, disciplemakers empowered by the Spirit of God will change the world. It will happen as they embody the mission and message of Jesus.