Your Method and Message Need to Match

The way that you deliver disciplemaking is the way it will be multiplied.

Read that statement again slowly.

It is a critical equipping principle. People will not only run with your message; they will also run with your method. Therefore, your method and your message need to match.

If your message is that disciplemaking is an intentional process that requires relational investment, but your primary method of delivery is from a platform using monologue rather than dialogue, then you’ll have a movement problem.

If your message is that disciplemaking is a person-centered process that moves at the pace of the disciple, but, in order to be efficient, your delivery system is a four-hour seminar, then you’ll have a multiplication problem.

Although people heard you say person-centered, they received it in a content-centered way. How will they go about training others? It is not uncommon that they pass it on in a content-centered way; just the way they received it.

Whenever possible, even if it seems slower, be sure your message and method match. Why? Because people will multiply in the same way they received it.

How have you found this principle to be true?