In recent days, as I read various material, I saw for the first time that I remember, the use of the terminology, “force multiplier.”  I really don’t think I heard it before and on the same day I saw it twice.  Military officers or strategists might be rolling their eyes, because of those words’ common usage.

The Concept of Force Multiplication

In definition, a smaller factor when added to a larger one multiplies the larger one in its effectiveness and outcomes.  Colin Powell said, “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”  On a football team, the addition of what some might call, “one key player,” results in many players better than they were before his inclusion.  If you are a baseball fan, you’ve seen a whole line-up add multiple runs per game with the addition of one good power hitter in the middle of the batting order.  I see force multiplication explicated by Solomon in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12:

9 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.  10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.  11 Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?  12 And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

The addition of one to one doesn’t equal two in Solomon’s explanation.  One can hardly measure how much greater the achievement and results with the addition of one to one.  Something exists, a force multiplier, that brings more than the addition of one.

The efforts of a single person in a church can take the church to far greater affects than the addition of one.  It multiplies the effort of the entire church in an exponential way.  Even the addition of one skill or one surrendered talent to one person could take the whole church to a new level.  A utilized tool could make one person so much more effective that it multiplies the accomplishment of the whole church.

Kinds of Force Multiplication

The encouragement of a less talented individual could bring confidence and greater motivation to the more talented individual.  He may lack the spirit to continue.  The production of the less talented person does not increase, but the effect of his encouragement multiplies the production of the talented person.  The encouragement is a force multiplier.  God knows this effect that encouragement has.  If you are a wife, you could do this for your husband.  If a child, you could do this for your parent or a parent for a child.

The day after I learned “force multiplication,” while working out I listened to a podcast of William Lane Craig and Stephen Meyer.  They discussed with a host the existence of God and origins.  If you have one good argument for the existence of God, that will help.  Craig is now well-known for the “Kalam cosmological argument” for both the existence of God and the origin of the universe.

Stephen Meyer argues for the same conclusion as Craig, but gets there with what he calls “inference to the best explanation.”  His inference is a God hypothesis, part of the name of his magnus opus, Return of the God Hypothesis.  He says that the choice of God as a hypothesis best explains the available data, whether the irreducible complexity of the cell or the information found in a strand of DNA.

If it is true that God is the explanation for everything, then one would think more than one argument exists for that.  It’s like doing a math problem and checking the outcome of your figures by the use of a second method.  Joining the inferential argument by Meyer, a more inductive approach, to the philosophical argument, more a deductive tact, it becomes a force multiplier to Craig.

The Whole Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

Each true path ends in God.  And those are not the only ways to reach that same outcome.  Several more exist than the inductive argument of Meyer and the deductive one of Craig.

As I think about force multiplication, I am reminded of the statement, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”  A church is a body.  Each body part fits into the whole.  Each body part functions in a greater way by fitting into the whole body.  A church can outperform the actual summation of the abilities of each member by their working together.

When you were reading this post, you perhaps thought of other force multipliers for the church, your family, and your individual life.  You think, prayer.  Maybe you added, God’s working in your life, or Bible knowledge.  As powerful as America is, its rebellion against God can and will debilitate its apparent advantages.  The United States could lose its technological dominance very quickly.  God Himself is the ultimate force multiplier.