Instead, there was a lot of tramping about, in one's or two's or three's or four's, conversing and preaching in homes and synagogues and marketplaces - even prisons. Not at all. Scholars of the early church have concluded that the gospel spread so far, so fast, because of local initiative. It spread because ordinary Christians lived out their faith and took it with them as they moved around the empire. Leadership matters a great deal, and without the guidance of apostles, prophets, pastors, and teachers the early church would not have spread so well nor would it have overcome its many problems.
Similar stories fill volumes of church history.
Another angle brings another aspect into view. The Evangelical Awakening which brought the gospel to so many in England during the eighteenth century arose out of the faithful, but ignominious, preaching of George Whitefield and the Wesleys as they stood up to their ankles in the mud of fields and crossroads. Refused the privilege of pulpits, they preached where they could. Yet we now understand that the roots of this revival go back further, in one case to an unhappily-married Christian woman who determined to succeed in one particular local project. How grateful so many of us are, though, that Susanna Wesley persevered in her calling as mother to that family and to John and Charles in particular.