In my previous post I highlighted the value and importance of finding the right near neighbor to become the catalyst. There is a great risk in identifying this as the typical outcome, though. My friend’s response reveals that danger–you waste lots of time.

Those who are already believers currently receive a disproportionate percentage of Kingdom resources.

While my years of schooling make it difficult for me to leave a one-sentence paragraph, that one needs to stand alone. Please go back and re-read it. The likelihood is great that it applies to you. I know it applies to me. This is one of the troubling convictions that come to those of us who travel internationally. After my first trip to West Africa I came back with one haunting conviction: “They do so much with so little and we do so little with so much!”

Catalyzing Multiplication generally requires a two-pronged approach. Barnabas models both prongs when he goes to Antioch. He does what he was sent to do, but he also left, recruited Saul to come back with him and then returned to spend time in that region where the growing work among Gentiles was birthed by the Spirit of God. “Find out where God is working and join him there,” was the counsel Henry Blackaby and Claude King gave us through the Experiencing God workbook. Their materials preceded that wise nugget with an emphasis upon really listening to God. Barnabas listened and he joined what God was doing by connecting two distinct streams of God’s activity.

If believers already receive a disproportionate percentage of Kingdom resources, do not go all in on finding near neighbor Multipliers. Keep actively looking for Persons of Peace, also. It’s a both/and rather than an either/or. I suggest this because you will need some of your own experiences to help coach that potential near neighbor Multiplier when you find him/her. Western Christianity has a huge gravitational attraction which will dominate your life without intentional effort to leverage some of your creativity, energy and efforts toward reaching out to lost people. Make reaching out to them your primary focal point, but keep your eyes and ears open for that near neighbor believer who might become the catalyst, with the right kind of training, coaching and mentoring. Just like you have to beware of the “side drafting” tendencies when you pass a semi on an interstate highway, beware of your own tendencies to get “sucked back into” Addition thinking.