The Ministry of Small Things
When I was pastoring, we had a paraphrase of a Mother Teresa quote etched in big block letters on the front of the church building: Small Things Done With Great Love Will Change The World.
I think there’s something to this “small” thing.
Many years ago, a little book called Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…And It’s All Small Stuff became a gigantic best seller. It was a nice, simple book about not worrying. And, of course, a whole series then followed: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Wives, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Teens, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Teachers, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Left-Handed Bikers With Two Full Sleeves.
Okay, I made the last one up.
But the Sweat books became a huge best-selling series.
Nevertheless, I held a contrarian’s view: Sweat the small stuff…the big stuff is out of your control anyway.
I don’t think it’s the big things in life that turn us inward in unhealthy ways; those big things have a natural way of shaking us out of ourselves and reorienting our priorities. It’s more the little things that slowly turn us into someone we really don’t like.
Interestingly, Jesus said: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” In other words, pay close attention to the “very little.”
A while back, I reread a great passage from Richard Foster’s classic book, Celebration of Discipline. Foster writes:
“There is the service of small things. Like Dorcas [in Acts 9:39], we find ways to make ‘coats and garments for the widows’. The following is a true story. During the frantic final throes of writing my doctoral dissertation I received a phone call from a friend. His wife had taken the car and he wondered if I could take him on a number of errands. Trapped, I consented, inwardly cursing my luck. As I ran out the door, I grabbed Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, thinking that I might have an opportunity to read in it. Through each errand I inwardly fretted and fumed at the loss of precious time. Finally, at a supermarket, the final stop, I waved my friend on, saying I would wait in the car. I picked up my book, opened it to the marker, and read these words: ‘The second service that one should perform for another in a Christian community is that of active helpfulness. This means, initially, simple assistance in trifling, external matters. There is a multitude of these things wherever people live together. Nobody is too good for the meanest service. One who worries about the loss of time that such petty, outward acts of helpfulness entail is usually taking the importance of his own career too solemnly.’
Whew! That’s a Bonhoeffer mic drop. Foster goes on:
…The great virtues are a rare occurrence; the ministry of small things is a daily service. Large tasks require great sacrifice for a moment; small things require constant sacrifice. ‘The small occasions . . . return every moment.’”
What a strong passage. It’s like loving the people who are closest to you; sometimes that’s the most difficult thing to do. The people who know you best often get the short end of the stick in terms of our expression of love. Maybe it’s not that we take them for granted; maybe it’s because, as Foster writes, “the ministry of small things is a daily service”—and daily gets old.
If that’s true, then when Paul writes, “Let us not become weary in doing good,” he gives us a little encouragement to not get tired in the “small things department.”
Leaders, let’s not forget that maybe it’s not always the Big Vision or the Big Campaign or the Big Whatever that truly forms us. Or perhaps even makes God smile.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s the small things.
Dave Workman | The Elemental Group
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