A lot of times when people hear the ideas presented within these multiplication concepts, they get scared. In a sense, thinking what if I mess up, what if I do this wrong. I will say, better a mule than no church at all.
Sometimes, I’ll refer to a church that reproduces as a horse and one that doesn’t reproduce as a mule. Mules, of course, are hybrids, a cross between a donkey and a horse. So they’re sterile. But a mule is still a victory. It’s still a trophy of God’s grace. It’s still an outpost of the kingdom. It’s still a light on a hill.
The point is though that we don’t become satisfied with that but once we plant a mule we try again and then we try again, we get a better mule and hopefully eventually we’re able to start a horse church, one that reproduces.
Wayne Gretzky is arguably the best ice hockey player that ever lived. He wasn’t big, fast, strong, but he holds all of the scoring records. One time someone asked him what’s the secret to your success and he told them, you miss 100% of the shots you never take. Now that may be a little oversimplified, but there’s a lot of truth to that. You miss 100% of the shots you never take. So I would far rather that we go out and fail even repeatedly than to do nothing at all. The situation of the kingdom is important enough that it’s worth failing at. People often say anything worth doing is worth doing well. I think it’s different. I think anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, is worth failing at, in other words, better to fail at doing something important than to do nothing.
Anything worth doing — is worth doing poorly — it’s worth failing at.
One time I trained a guy, his target ministry wise was unbelievably large. He wanted to in effect reach all of Indonesia, thousand islands, hundreds of people groups. After he went through a full training, he said, “Curtis, I’m scared what if I do something wrong. Think of the eternal destiny of all of those people.”
I said to him, “Mark, what could you possibly do that will make things worse than they are right now. There are 240 million Muslims going to hell from Indonesia, how are you going to make that worse.”
The status quo is not acceptable. I hope that you are not satisfied with the way things are, I hope that we can labor together to extend God’s kingdom to multiply disciples, to multiply simple churches until the knowledge of the glory of the Lord fills the earth as the waters cover the sea.
More Multiplication Concepts
This concept is part of the “Multiplication Concepts” series by Curtis Sergeant. Consider working through the entire series and challenging someone you know to do it with you. See an entire list of the concepts in the article titled “Multiplication Concepts”.
This same concept is taught in the Zúme Training course using video animation and is translated into 40 languages.
Zúme Training is an on-line and in-life learning experience designed for small groups who follow Jesus to learn how to obey His Great Commission and make disciples who multiply.
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