D o m i n i c R o s a t o

4 Fields, 5 Parts, 6 Essentials of Kingdom Growth

Taken from a WayForward training in 2025.

Over the past six years, WayForward has been using the Four Fields of Kingdom Growth as a framework to Form Disciple-Makers in apartments. This framework helps us visualize the 5 things Jesus and his leaders did to see the Kingdom of God grow: go, gospel, grow, gather, and guide. It equally follows the model of the parable Jesus shares in Mark 4:26-29 of the farmer entering new fields, sowing seed, watching it grow even though he knows not how, and when the time is right, cutting and bundling the harvest together. The farmer works with the reminder that it is ultimately God who gives the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6-9). Like Jesus and his followers, we need to have a plan for each field, but it is God’s Spirit that causes the growth. The 4 Fields is usually trained sequentially, but in reality, the 5 parts can happen simultaneously.

Field 1: Go | Entry (going into new apartments and areas).

Field 2: Gospel | Seed Sowing (sharing the good news of Jesus Christ).

Field 3: Grow | Disciple-Makers (nurturing growth in Christ through actionable & accountable obedience).

Field 4: Gather | Kingdom Communities (establishing communities of disciples that grow & multiply).

Part 5: Guide | Leaders (MAWL’tiply leaders to shoulder height).

Mark 4:26–29 is one of Scripture’s clearest pictures of how the Kingdom of God actually advances in the world. With lack of clarity, practicality, and over emphasis on assumed definitions that every believer can advance the Kingdom, Jesus reveals that the Kingdom is not primarily the result of human innovation, strategy, charisma, or effort. Instead, Kingdom growth is God’s work from beginning to end, and disciples participate only by His grace, under His direction, and within His divine order. The parable of the growing seed also shows us six core essentials of the Kingdom—that together explain the entire disciple-making and Kingdom growth process:

  1. Spirit – growth and increase are a supernatural act of God. (1 Cor. 3:6; Mark 4:27-28).
  2. Sowers – men & women disciple-makers willing to sow the seed, represented as a farmer. (v.26)
  3. Seed – the Gospel of God cast from the hand of the sower. (v.26)
  4. Soil – the hearts of the people far from God in which seed is sown. (v.26)
  5. Season – commitment to the harvest and brings new workers from the harvest. (v. 27)
  6. Sickle – mobilized labor in the harvest force. (v.28)

Ultimately, Mark 4:26–29 reminds disciple-makers that fruitfulness is God’s responsibility; faithfulness is ours. The Kingdom grows mysteriously yet profoundly, invisibly yet powerfully, slowly yet inevitably, because God Himself is committed to seeing His Word bear fruit in the world. When we align our lives with the 4 fields, 5 parts, and 6 essentials, we step into the ancient, Spirit-empowered rhythm through which God has always expanded His Kingdom—The Holy Spirit causing growth, Sowers sharing the gospel Seed into the hearts of the Soil, all being done with commitment to Seasonal rhythms and using a Sickle to mobilize new believers into Disciple-Makers.