Growing plant — come alongside

Something has shifted. The group you’ve been coaching has started a second group. Then a third. There’s real leadership gift showing up in people who couldn’t have named a Bible book a year ago, and now they’re asking questions you can’t answer off the cuff — questions about doctrine, about how to handle disagreement, about what a healthy church actually looks like long-term. They don’t need protecting anymore. They need something else.

What phase three looks like

Phase three is the growing plant — the multiplying stage. Disciples are now reproducing disciples: second- and third-generation groups are appearing, leadership gifts are emerging, and there’s a genuine hunger for deeper understanding that wasn’t there before. The DBS focus stays the same — keep the simplicity — but you can begin modeling prayer, worship, and Scripture memory alongside it.

The posture the phase calls for is come alongside.

Barnabas, not a committee

Two pictures from Acts define this posture better than any list of rules could.

The first is Barnabas walking into a room full of suspicious believers who did not trust the new convert Saul, and vouching for him — advocacy, not absorption. He didn’t fold Saul into a program or put him under a supervising committee. He stood beside him and made his story credible to people who needed convincing.

The second is Priscilla and Aquila, who heard Apollos teaching boldly but incompletely, and took him aside — privately, relationally — and explained the way of God to him more accurately. Not from a stage. Not in front of the crowd he’d just taught. Alongside, in a conversation, strengthening what was already strong rather than smothering it.

He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the way of God to him more accurately. — Acts 18:26 (OTB)

Notice the size of that correction: one conversation, two people, no audience. That’s the whole method for phase three.

What alongside behaviors actually look like

Encourage the facilitators by name. Offer counsel when they ask — not before. Open your worship spaces to them without demanding attendance in return. Do joint ministry to the poor together, as co-workers, not as host and guest. And resist, on purpose, the instinct to load your own church’s cultural habits onto a movement God is already growing in its own direction.

Therefore, it is my judgement that we should not trouble the Gentiles who are turning to God, — Acts 15:19 (OTB)

That was the Jerusalem council’s own conviction about new Gentile believers — don’t burden them with requirements that were never actually about obedience to Jesus. The instinct to standardize a growing group in your image is old. It was already a temptation for the apostles.

Why “alongside” is harder than it sounds

Coming alongside is more vulnerable than either protecting or controlling, because it requires you to stay close enough to be genuinely useful without ever taking the reins. You will be tempted, especially here, to mistake your comfort for their need — to add a requirement, a form, a “just one more meeting,” because it would make you feel more confident about where they’re headed. Resist that. The growing plant needs your presence, not your management.

Recite this

Alongside, never over.

Try it this week

Think of one group in phase three that you’ve been tempted to formalize — a requirement, a check-in, a report you’ve thought about asking for.

Finish this sentence, with a real date on it:

I will offer to walk alongside ________________ on ________________, and let them decide what they need.