According the CDC’s web site:

“The main way that illnesses like colds and flu are spread is from person to person in respiratory droplets of coughs and sneezes. This is called “droplet spread.” This can happen when droplets from a cough or sneeze of an infected person move through the air and are deposited on the mouth or nose of people nearby. Sometimes germs also can be spread when a person touches respiratory droplets from another person on a surface like a desk and then touches his or her own eyes, mouth or nose before washing their hands. We know that some viruses and bacteria can live 2 hours or longer on surfaces like cafeteria tables, doorknobs, and desks.”

While viruses spread easily and can reproduce rapidly, they are not very sustainable without a host-surviving only a couple of hours if exposed.

So while we can simply “sneeze” the Gospel and possibly see lots of conversions by scaring the “hell” out of people, but a couple of weeks later we are unlikely to see them ever again.

Reproduction that is sustainable, however, always moves from the simple to the complex. The same principle applies in the Kingdom of God.

The third parable Jesus presents in the fourth chapter of Mark’s Gospel is the parable of the mustard seed. Jesus said:

“How shall we picture the Kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.”

The growth of the Kingdom of God starts at the smallest of levels. And there is much discussion these days about church multiplication. But no matter how committed we are, trying to reproduce churches complete with a multi-level staff and all the flavors and varieties of ministries all with catchy names is starting at the wrong place. They can be reproduced, but how sustainable will it be? We must go further down to the microscopic level if we want to start a reproduction process that will be sustainable.

Neil Cole writes,

“The way to see a true church [reproducible/sustainable] movement is to multiply healthy disciples, then leaders, then churches, and finally movements in that order . . . we are not to start churches, but to make disciples who make disciples. . . Many today teach that the best way to make disciples is to start churches. This is backwards; in fact, it is upside down. The best way to start churches is to make disciples.”

Making disciples simply means investing time in the lives of people. In short, disciples cannot be mass-produced. They are reproduced. Therefore, to make disciples, we will find ourselves in the organic, often messy, often troubled, sometimes harmonious web of relationships.