Harold’s Secret
Harold was a “C-” preacher and organizational leader. His Personal Multiplication Capacity (PMC), however, was “A” level. Pastor Harold led a small evangelical, holiness church in rural Kansas. But the size of his church did not define the size of his kingdom impact. Harold was a disciple-maker and a launcher of leaders.
During his fifteen year ministry at the church, twelve vocational ministers and many other lay ministers were sent into ministry… including me. Pastor Harold’s secret was living Spirit-empowered with the goal of empowering others. Harold had a high Personal Multiplication Capacity (PMC).
Every believer and especially every leader develops a certain level of Personal Multiplication Capacity (PMC).
Every believer and especially every leader develops a certain level of Personal Multiplication Capacity (PMC).
What is a PMC?
Your PMC is the result of multiplying two factors. The first number is a self-measurement (1-10) of your daily empowerment level. How Spirit-empowered are you living today? How ablaze, spiritually attuned, activated, prayerful, faith-filled, humble and holy are you today (Acts 1:8, Ephesians 5:18)?
The second factor is a daily self-measurement (1 to 10) of how empowering you are as a discipler or leader to other believers. How are you serving a few individuals to elevate them into the fullness of their calling? How much of your ministry is producing ministers and not just ministry “product” (2 Timothy 2:2, Ephesians 4:12)?
When these two factors (empowered x empowering) are multiplied they produce a subjective, but potentially life-changing score which is your Personal Multiplication Capacity. The exactness of the score is not what matters, but living in a daily pursuit of this PMC paradigm can radically increase your kingdom impact.
Jesus is The Apex
Jesus is the apex (the 10 x 10) of what PMC looks like. His submission, faith, spiritual habits and obedience positioned him to live fully empowered by the Spirit. Then, Jesus prioritized using that empowerment to empower a few ordinary people to replicate his character and ministry. Yes, Jesus preached to crowds, healed the sick and cast out demons. But his empowerment was focused on making disciples who would multiply his ministry.
Jesus knew a small number of multiplying disciples carried more kingdom potential than the largest crowd he could teach. Consequently, roughly 75% of his recorded time was spent discipling and empowering those closest to him. As Howard Hendricks taught, “We teach what we know but we reproduce who we are.” We can only truly share who we are by being up close and personal.
What is true for individuals is also true for churches. Churches have majored in addition without using addition to fuel multiplication. The results are in and they are disheartening. The share of practicing Christians in America has nearly dropped in half since 2000. That statistic must surely be linked to this one — “Fewer than 5% of churches in the United States have a reproducing disciple making culture.”
As I minister across the nation I find abysmal PMC levels among pastors and believers. Spiritual empowerment levels are low because spiritual depth is shallow. Empowering others is rare because there are more visible, metric driven priorities. If you ask leaders, “Give me the names of 2 or 3 individuals who would tell me that you are personally discipling them,” get ready for a blank stare or sudden stammering.
Fruit That Will Last
Sadly, it took me years of ministry to awaken to my own low PMC. I was a success on the church scoreboard, nevertheless, a certain level of ministry frustration began to settle into my soul. I began to question whether my model of ministry was producing the maximum kingdom fruit. Jesus’ statement in John 15:16 started to disturb me – “…I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last…”
“Fruit that will last” is a specific kind of fruit. Fruit doesn’t last by focusing on self-perseveration but by distributing itself in the soil around it then dying to reproduce. Most of the fruit I was bearing was enjoying the branch until it rotted away, aka consumer Christians.
I realized I was not empowering people to reproduce their faith. I was using my gifts to grow the church but not laying down my life to multiply the church through disciple-making.
Thankfully, my PMC has started to rise. One current example…
Greg is the CEO of a construction company who through a wild God-story became a disciple of mine. The “old” Larry would have been too busy in ministry to personally invest in Greg’s spiritual maturation. The “new” Larry saw Greg as a friend and at the top of my ministry priority list. As we met, Greg, a life long nominal “Christian” grew from a “good deeds religious guy” (his words) to an on-fire, disciple-making Jesus-follower. He talks about his PMC. Last month he told me of two men he is discipling and how he expects to have three discipleship groups in the near future.
Anyone can be a Harold or a Greg. Any willing Christ-follower can raise their PMC. When this Jesus-style discipleship becomes normative in the church, we will see a book of Acts kind of kingdom impact in our nation.
Read more about how you can develop your Personal Multiplication Capacity in the new book from Larry Walkemeyer releasing February 27, 2024. FREE digital copies we be available at exponential.org along with Kindle and Print versions from Amazon.
The Empowerment Factor – Increasing Your Personal Multiplication Capacity introduces a powerful approach to multiplying your faith life into the lives of others. Using a new, simple self-diagnostic tool it assists disciple-makers in exponentially increasing their kingdom impact. The book teaches spiritual and practical truths on how to raise your personal empowerment to become a truly empowering leader of others.
