That question has a way of clearing the room. Pastors and leaders know how to count attendance. We can count views, offerings, volunteers, campuses, groups, first-time guests, salvations, and baptisms. Thank God for every one of them. Numbers matter because people matter. But there is another number we do not count often enough:
How many people are multiplying because of us?
Not merely attending. Multiplying. Not merely applauding. Multiplying. Not just carrying our coffee, our notes, or our conference bag, although bless every intern who has ever done all three. I mean carrying the mission and carrying conviction. Carrying mercy. Carrying discipleship. Carrying the kind of spiritual DNA that keeps walking long after we are no longer in the room.
Legacy has a sound to it. It is the laugh of a young leader who caught fire in your youth ministry. It is the voice of a church planter you prayed over in a back room. It is the quiet strength of a business owner who has finally realized their company is a calling, not just a career. Legacy is not a plaque in a hallway. Legacy walks around with your values in its chest.
In my new book, The Road We Must Travel Again, just released, I explore how the Good Samaritan story is more than a mercy moment. It is a multiplying moment. The Samaritan does not simply rescue a man in a ditch. He creates a pattern for how the mission of Jesus moves from one life to another, from the road to the inn, from a single act of compassion to a sustained movement of mercy. Go to www.marcestes.com or the link above to order your copy now.
The Sentence That Changes Everything
We love the dramatic parts of the Good Samaritan story. The robbery. The ditch. The religious drive-by. The oil and wine. The donkey, who in many churches would probably end up on a Planning Center schedule by Tuesday. But the hinge of the story is one overlooked sentence: “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”¹
That is not a casual instruction. That is leadership transfer. “Take care of him” means, “I trust you. I see capacity in you. I am putting responsibility in your hands. I am asking you to carry forward what I started.” The Samaritan is not just handing off a patient. He is handing off a pattern.
One life is rescued on the road. One innkeeper is empowered in the inn. One act of mercy becomes a system of care. That is multiplication. The miracle did not end when the wounded man got off the donkey. It continued every time the innkeeper made room for someone else who needed mercy.
Pastor, leader, this is where the text gets under our skin. Some of us have built ministries where everyone knows how gifted we are, but very few know how called they are. That may sting, but it may also heal. If the ministry cannot grow without our voice, our touch, our approval, or our constant supervision, we may have built something impressive, but we have not yet built something multiplying.
Multiplication Is Not a Trend
Multiplication is not a ministry trend. It is a kingdom mandate. You find it on page one: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”² The first recorded command God gives humanity is not “build a brand.” It is not “protect your platform.” It is not “make sure no one else preaches as well as you.” It is multiply.
From Genesis onward, multiplication becomes a pulse in God's purposes. God spoke to Adam and Eve. He repeats it through Noah. He promises it through Abraham. He forms a people who will carry blessings into the nations. Then Jesus comes and carries the same rhythm. He calls twelve. Then He sends seventy-two. Then He fills one hundred twenty in an upper room. Then the Spirit falls, the Church is born, and the gospel begins to move from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
Jesus never gathered crowds just to impress crowds. He formed disciples to multiply disciples. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”³ That is not addition language. That is multiplication language.
Luke shows the same progression in Acts. At first, the Church is adding people daily. Then Acts 6:7 says, “the number of the disciples multiplied greatly.”⁴ Addition is what happens when people are reached. Multiplication is what happens when people are raised.
There is the difference. Crowds can be gathered through gifting. Multiplication requires fathers and mothers. Crowds can be stirred by a moment. Multiplication requires formation over time. Crowds can admire your anointing. Multipliers carry your burden.
Paul understood this with breathtaking clarity: “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”⁵ Paul to Timothy. Timothy to faithful people. Faithful people to others. Four generations in one verse. That is not accidental leadership. That is apostolic architecture.
Why Churches Stall at Addition
So why do so many churches stall on the way to multiplication? Because addition is safer...and easier. Much easier! Addition lets us keep control. Multiplication requires trust. Addition fills rooms. Multiplication empties rooms because leaders get sent. Addition can make us look successful. Multiplication may make us look less necessary.
And that might be the fear beneath the fear.
Some leaders do not really fear failure. They fear becoming less central.
That is a hard truth, but shepherds do not get healthier by avoiding hard truths.
The Samaritan had to trust the innkeeper. Jesus had to trust the disciples. Paul had to trust Timothy. Every pastor who wants a legacy must eventually trust the people he or she is raising. You cannot multiply what you refuse to release.
We are living in a moment where the Church has more tools for reaching than any generation before us. Pushpay’s 2024 State of Church Technology report found that 90 percent of surveyed churches now offer a hybrid ministry model, and 91 percent livestream worship services.⁶ Exponential’s 2024 State of AI in the Church Survey found that 87 percent of respondents are open to some use of AI in ministry, and 66 percent already use AI tools at least occasionally.⁷
The roads are wider than ever, but wider roads do not guarantee deeper disciples. We can use technology to keep people watching, or we can use it to send people walking. We can build audiences, or we can build carriers. We can count views, or we can count grandchildren.
That is one of the great burdens behind The Road We Must Travel Again. Technology is not the mission. It is the road the mission rides. Digital tools, AI, livestreaming, texting, social media, and global connectivity are not merely for distributing content. They are for multiplying carriers of mercy, truth, discipleship, and hope.
Your Multiplying Moment
Pastor, leader, board member, here is the audit. Who are your spiritual grandchildren? Not who attends your church. Not who likes your preaching. Not who reposts your clips. Who is discipling someone because you discipled them? Who is leading with courage because you trusted them before they felt ready? Who is carrying mercy into rooms you will never enter?
Somewhere in your ministry, an innkeeper is waiting. A young leader. A staff member. A marketplace leader. A small group pastor. A student. A volunteer who keeps showing up early and staying late. They do not need another compliment. They need responsibility.
Give them more than a task. Give them trust. Let them lead the outreach, not just attend it. Let them disciple people, not just direct traffic. Let them carry real weight and then stay close enough to coach them without choking them. That is how mercy becomes movement: rescue on the road, transfer in the inn, return to see what God has multiplied.
At some point, every leader has to decide whether they are building a monument or a movement. Monuments are admired. Movements are inherited. Monuments point back to who built them. Movements push forward through those who carry them.
The Samaritan leaves us with more than a good example. He gives us a leadership template. See the person in the ditch. Stop. Serve. Invest. Entrust. Return. Multiply.
My prayer is that when Jesus looks at our ministries, He finds more than busy churches, polished platforms, and clever strategies. May He find leaders who refused to let the story stop with them. Leaders who turned mercy moments into multiplying movements.
The road is still in front of us. Someone is still in the ditch. Someone else is waiting in the inn, ready to be trusted.
This is your multiplying moment. Do not let it pass.
Endnotes
- Luke 10:35, ESV. The supplied source material for this post frames Luke 10:35 as the hinge of the Good Samaritan story and emphasizes the Samaritan’s handoff to the innkeeper as empowerment, trust, and multiplication.
- Genesis 1:28, ESV.
- Matthew 28:19, ESV.
- Acts 6:7, ESV.
- 2 Timothy 2:2, ESV.
- Pushpay and Mastercard, State of Church Technology 2024. Public summaries of the report state that 90 percent of surveyed churches offer a hybrid ministry model and 91 percent livestream worship services.
- Exponential NEXT, State of AI in the Church Survey Report 2024. The report states that 87 percent of respondents are for AI use in ministry to some degree, and 66 percent already use AI tools at least occasionally.