by Younoussa Djao
Photo by Markus Blüthner on Unsplash
When I say movement, I mean at least a hundred churches across four generations.
Getting there means giving up two things most of us assume we need: a church that just keeps getting bigger, and a leader smart enough to win every argument. Multiplication asks for something else — ordinary people, passing on what they've actually experienced.
What "Generations" Actually Means
Generation, here, works the way it does in a family.
I am the father of three children. They are my first generation. Their children will be my second generation, and I am the first generation of my own parents. Applied to churches, it looks like this: you, as a disciple-maker, start a church, maybe three or five. Those are first-generation churches. You then train and coach those churches to start new churches of their own, and those become second-generation. When second-generation churches start third-generation churches, the pattern continues.
Every disciple is replicating himself. Every church is replicating itself.
This is exactly the pattern Paul gave Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2, “What you heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful people, who will be able to teach others also.”
That is four generations in a single verse: Paul to Timothy, Timothy to faithful people, those faithful people to others.
Why Bigger Isn't The Same As Multiplying
Sometimes a church looks for one-generation growth: the same congregation getting bigger and bigger, without ever starting anything new.
One-generation growth is not bad. It just will not help accomplish the Great Commission at the scale it needs.
A congregation can grow big, big, big, but at some point it becomes something you cannot control. You end up spending your energy maintaining and managing what already exists, and even the growth itself begins to slow, because there is too much required just to sustain the system you have built.
Multiplication works differently: many things keep reproducing, the way a family grows across generations.
New Believers Don't Need To Be Experts
A natural question follows: who is qualified to lead these new groups?
New believers can facilitate a Discovery Bible Study. They are not there to give answers. They facilitate — they are there to ask questions and let the group discover the answers together, the way they have already seen it modeled.
The coaching itself is simple: ask someone to share what they learned with someone else before you meet again, then ask at the next meeting whether they did it, and how it went.
Sometimes it goes well. Sometimes a question comes up that they cannot answer, and that becomes the next thing to work through together. Eventually you invite them to lead a session themselves, and afterward you take them aside and ask, how do you think it went. “It was not easy, I was trembling,” they might say.
That is normal.
The trembling goes away. You want them to master the process, not to be experts in giving answers.
Testimony Over Debate
Multiplication doesn't just change who is allowed to lead. It changes what you say once you're leading.
In John 9, a man born blind is healed by Jesus.
When religious leaders press his parents and then the man himself about the theology of it, whether Jesus broke the Sabbath, whether he could really be from God, the man gives them nothing to argue with. “I do not know if he is a sinner,” he says, “What I know is that I was blind, and now I see.”
No one can debate that.
The Samaritan woman did something similar. There were no doctrines in what she said. She simply told her story, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
I spent years debating people using the Bible and their own religious text, and I do not remember losing a debate. I also do not remember winning anyone to Jesus that way. I was winning debates and losing people.
What God asks us to bring is our experience of Him. No one can take that apart with logic, and it carries something that persuasion alone never will.
A movement does not spread because someone won the argument.
It spreads the way it always has — one changed life, telling another, from generation to generation.
Getting practical
As you think about God's vision for your city and/or affinity group:
Which of these observations resonates with you?
Is there anywhere you might be pursuing growth by getting bigger rather than by multiplying?
What is one piece of your own story (not a theological argument) that you could share with someone this week?
Younoussa Djao is an experienced Disciple Making Movement Catalyst in West Africa who has seen thousands of faith communities form amongst people groups that previously had none. He is passionate about empowering God’s people to follow Him and make disciples where He has placed them.
© 2026 Younoussa D. All rights reserved.