I’ll be honest. My mindset around disciplemaking has been wrong - for pretty much my entire Christian life. Bad news - that’s a long time. Good news - I’m not dead yet so there’s time to change things up!!

The catalyst for this change was actually about five years ago. Someone who I respected said ‘Simon, stop making disciples. Start making disciples who make disciples. Those are two different things.’

That one sentence began a journey that’s led me to where I am today and the creation of this newsletter.

It illustrates a key concept. Before we dive into the practical steps, we need to shift our thinking. If they think about disciplemaking at all (which most sadly don’t) Christians operate with an addition mindset: "If I can just lead one person to Christ this year, that would be amazing." But Jesus operated with a multiplication mindset: "How can I invest in people who will invest in others?"

There’s only two times in his life where Jesus is said to have prayed through the night. Once was in Gethsemane. Makes sense - he’s wrestling over carrying the sin of the world! But the other was before he chose the 12. That’s notable. Jesus prioritized extended prayer before making crucial decisions about who would carry on the multiplication work.

He didn't just casually pick the 12; he spent the entire night seeking the Father's heart about these men who would become the foundation of the early church.

This isn't about becoming a spiritual pyramid scheme. It's about understanding that every person you disciple has the potential to disciple others. When you help someone grow in their faith, you're not just changing one life—you're potentially impacting generations.

Think about it this way: If you made 11 disciples a year in ten years time you’d have made 110 disciples. It would be an impressive achievement!

However, compare it to this — if you make one disciple this year, and next year you both make one disciple each, and the year after that all four of you make disciples, by year eleven you'd have over 1000 disciples in your spiritual family tree. That's the power of multiplication.

A guy I met last week told the story of how his father was the first one to reach a remote tribe in brazil who had killed the last four missionaries that came to them. He won a few to Christ and then the multiplication began. 50 years later 90% of the tribe (over 90,000 people) are followers of Christ!

Here's what I've learned from studying movements like the Iranian church that Phil Moore writes about in "The Forgotten Manifesto of Jesus": multiplication doesn't happen by accident. It happens when ordinary believers embrace a simple, reproducible approach to following Jesus' instructions in Matthew 10 and Luke 10.

What You Don’t Need

Let me be clear about what this journey won't require:

You don't need to quit your job and become a missionary. Some of the most effective disciple-makers I know or have heard of are teachers, taxi-drivers, shop owners, and retired people who've learned to see their daily lives as mission fields.

You don't need to become a Bible scholar. While growing in God's Word is essential, you don't need to master complex theology before you can help someone else take their next step with Jesus.

You don't need to have a dramatic testimony. Your story of God's faithfulness in ordinary circumstances might be exactly what someone needs to hear.

You don't need to plant a church or start a ministry. Multiplication often happens best in the context of existing relationships and communities.

What You Do Need

Instead, we all need to be equipped with:

A new mindset to overcome the fear and uncertainty that keep most Christians from sharing their faith and discipling others.

A biblical foundation rooted in Scripture, particularly Jesus' sending instructions in Matthew 10 and Luke 10, and Paul's multiplication principles in 2 Timothy 2:2.

A clear framework for making disciples who make disciples, based on Jesus' own methods and proven effective in movements around the world.

Real-world tools and strategies for identifying and connecting with people of peace—those individuals God has prepared to receive the gospel and potentially become disciple-makers themselves.

Simple discipleship methods that focus on obedience-based learning rather than information transfer, helping new believers grow quickly and naturally.

Your Starting Point Doesn't Matter

Maybe you're thinking, "This sounds great, but you don't know my situation." Perhaps you feel like you don't have enough non-Christian friends. Maybe you've tried sharing your faith before and it went badly. Or maybe you're just not sure you have what it takes to disciple someone else.

Here's what I want you to know: God specializes in using ordinary people in extraordinary ways. The disciples Jesus chose weren't religious professionals—they were fishermen, tax collectors, and political activists. What they had wasn't special training or natural gifting. What they had was availability and willingness to learn.

That's all God needs from you too.

The Adventure Begins

Over the years, I've watched bored Christians transform into bold disciple-makers. I've seen quiet introverts become confident evangelists. I've watched new believers start making disciples within months of their own conversion. I've seen that multiplication movements can begin in the most unlikely places with the most ordinary people.

The difference wasn't their circumstances, their personalities, or their backgrounds. The difference was their willingness to step out of a spiritual slump and into God's design for their lives, their humility to admit that they weren’t happy with the fruit of their Christian lives (even if they’ve been Christians for a long time), their intentionality to learn how to make disciples who make disciples and their perseverance to keep going even when things didn’t work out immediately as they’d hoped.

Your Next Step

So here's where we start: with an honest assessment of where you are right now. As you read these words, what's stirring in your heart? Excitement? Fear? Doubt? Hope? All of the above?

Where have you seen fruit in making multiplying disciples in your Christian life and how hungry are you for more?

Whatever you're feeling, bring it with you on this journey. God wants to use not just your strengths, but your weaknesses, your questions, and even your fears as part of His plan to reach others through you.

The adventure of becoming a multiplying disciple begins with a single step: the decision to move from bored to bold, from passive to active, from consumer to contributor in God's kingdom.

Are you ready to take that step?