The vision
Make disciples who make disciples.
The Great Commission is a multiplication model, not an addition model. We think that applies to people one at a time — and to whole churches. TheWay is meant to be a home base in Big Rapids that starts other churches across West Michigan. That's a forty-year vision. Here's why we hold it.
The principle
Multiplication, not addition.
The last thing Jesus told His church was this: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations... Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20). Read that slowly. He didn’t say go get converts. He said make disciples, and teach them everything I told you — and one of the things He told them was to go make disciples.
That’s not an addition model. That’s a multiplication model, and it’s built into the command itself.
Paul spelled out the mechanics for Timothy: “the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). Count the generations in that one sentence. Paul, Timothy, faithful men, others also. Four deep in a single verse, and Paul only ever handled the first one himself.
Here’s what that looks like on a Tuesday.
I walk with you and help you grow up in Christ. While I’m doing that, you aren’t waiting until you’ve arrived — you’re already reaching someone and helping them grow up too. Then I start over with somebody new. And the person you reached starts with somebody. And so does theirs. Nobody is anybody’s last stop.
Addition asks how many people we can gather. Multiplication asks how many we can send. Those two questions build very different churches.
The problem
What happens when a church only grows
A lot of churches grow, and grow, and grow. And then the problems come — financial problems, moral failures, drama, backbiting, gossip. People get very concerned about their position in the church, their entitlement, how long they’ve been there, who they know, what they’ve given. It becomes all about that.
We believe a lot of that has a single root: the church only ever added. It never multiplied. It just kept getting bigger, and a church with nowhere to send anybody turns its energy inward.
The plan
The same model, one size up.
So here’s the part that makes TheWay what it is. We’re not only applying that model to one believer walking with another. We’re applying it to whole churches: a church raised to maturity that starts a church, which is raised to maturity and starts a church, which does the same. The 2 Timothy 2:2 chain, one size up.
Yes, we have to grow. You can’t send people out if there’s nobody to send. But we’re going to grow and multiply, not grow instead of multiplying. The vision is to see all of Michigan — and especially West Michigan — dotted with churches that came out of TheWay, planted in the towns and rural areas around Big Rapids.
That’s a forty-year vision, not a next-year vision. We have to get this church started first. But we’re telling you now so you know what you’re joining.
What it means for you
Nobody has to plateau.
TheWay is not a church you slip into and slip out of. It’s a church you come and become an active, engaged part of — where you grow and reach your potential as a follower of Jesus and keep moving forward in your faith.
In a big church, people tend to stagnate. There’s no room to grow; you hit a ceiling. A multiplying church is the opposite: as new works go out from the home base, there are always next positions to step into, new ways to serve, more responsibility to grow into. You were always meant to be somebody’s next link in the chain, not the end of one.
We believe God gave us this vision. We hope you’ll see it too, and come be part of TheWay from the beginning. The story of how it started is here.
Be here early
Come be part of it from the beginning.
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