We want the action!
Every Friday night at our house is movie night. It is one of the most sacred nights of our week. If we miss a movie night for some unforeseen reason our kids will undoubtedly plead for a makeup night. We’ve watched a variety of different movies ranging from animated comedies to dramatic adventure films. Over the years, when asked what type of movies our boys want to watch, they’re quick to respond, “action, we want the action!” Our boys aren’t too different than most of the world around us.
There seems to be a predisposition among humanity that gravitates towards the dramatic action. We long to see crazy things happen and drama resolved with a grandiosity that leaves us in awe. We love action. We love drama. We love the grandiose. To be sure this is why there are so many movies with giant explosions and harrowing battles. It’s what the people want. Hollywood gives the people what they want – because they know that it’ll lead to box office success.
Which ministry stories get told…
Though we might not want to admit it, this isn’t too terribly far off from the reality of the ministry world. Often the saying goes, “people give towards vision.” While there’s a certain degree of truth to that, I’d edit that saying a bit. Perhaps, “people give towards vision, but prefer to give to the grand.” Read any mission organization’s recent update or communication pieces; what are the stories that are being highlighted? It’s often the dramatic transformation story.
{She} was once lost in a “sea of sin” {read: prostitution, etc.} and met Jesus through a DBS group. Now her life is transformed and she’s telling people about Jesus.
Or, the small Muslim town of {fill in the blank} experienced dreams about Jesus. The town chief invited the missionary in to talk about Jesus. Then, the whole town decided to follow Jesus. We’ve all heard these types of stories. They’re amazing to be sure. Incredibly powerful.
These stories are such a gift to our faith. But, if we’re not careful, we can begin to believe that these are the only ways that God works.
A flare for the dramatic or a penchant for boring?
In my experience these stories are much rarer than the newsletters and communication pieces might have us believe. In fact, I’m convinced that most of the ways we see God move are much more intentionally slow and seemingly insignificant than our action-packed tastes would prefer. Most of the spaces that God can be seen working in are often, to our culture, dreadfully boring.
Certainly, God can have a flare for the dramatic. Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac. The parting of the Red Sea. Elijah’s battle with the Baals. Jesus’ healing of the paralytic. These are just a handful of ways we see God’s dramatic salvation play out throughout the Scriptures. And, it goes without saying, God still dramatically heals and rescues people today. But over the past twenty years of ministry most of the work I’ve seen God do in the lives of men, women and children around the world is much more anticlimactic and uninteresting than I’d care to admit. Most of the stories of God at work make for terribly uninteresting newsletters. God’s work is often slow, always intentional, and usually much smaller and incremental than our cultural tastes care for.
Highlighting the small things…
What if the next mission organization’s communication update was filled with stories like a young man questioning if his faith is even real and if prayer actually works. He doesn’t want to give up on God, so he decides he will begin to practice five minutes of silence everyday for a month to see what God might do. That month God meets him and draws him a little bit closer to God. That’s it. Nothing dramatic, just a practice of silence that leads to a little step of deeper faith. Is this not meaningful? Is this not important in the economy of the Kingdom? Absolutely. But it lacks the drama that most are clamoring for.
What about the young woman who is struggling in her role as a mother. The church has told her that if she doesn’t pray and read her bible every day she’ll be far from God. The weight of her responsibilities with a newborn and the piling on of “spiritual responsibilities” have led her to become so overwhelmed she becomes frozen. Over the course of time, with the help of a spiritual director she comes to see her role as mother as being one of the most formative spaces with God she could ever imagine. She begins to see her life as prayer, her responsibilities as moments to meet God throughout the day which slowly opens her up to hear God’s voice more clearly and see God’s invitations with greater clarity than ever before. Meaning. Importance. But it lacks the drama and flare that most are clamoring for.
The gentle whisper of God
Look no further than the story of Elijah. I’m struck by the juxtaposition that lies in his story. The drama was there for sure. He defeated the Baals through obedience and intimacy with God that allowed for God’s power to move and defeat the enemy. Fire, water, blood, attempted murder – the story had it all.
And yet, the more powerful story is the one told on the mountain of God. It’s the whisper of God that changed Elijah forever. It wasn’t the drama of the earthquake. It wasn’t the drama of the fire. It wasn’t the powerful wind that led to transformation. It was the gentle whisper. Blink and you’ll miss it. Turn your attention away for just a second and you’ll lose the story. God’s action in the gentle whisper of life is powerful, but nothing close to the grandiosity we expect or even prefer. I often wonder what it would do for the hearts of people if more missionaries, pastors, and mission organizations focused more on the mundane stories of life with God as THE stories to tell. What if they chose to move the dramatic stories to the background. How might people respond?
The Kingdom economy
When all we hear are the stories of great drama, we often look for God to move only in those ways. Talk to any follower of Jesus and most of their stories are pretty boring. In fact, Eugene Peterson coined the phrase “a long obedience in the same direction.” Sounds pretty mundane to be honest, and certainly not very flashy. When our eyes are focused on the dramatic action, it can lead us to miss the simple, small, but no less insignificant, ways God is working everyday in our lives.
Being honest with how slow and small ministry is gives us an opportunity to challenge a culture fixated on the action and drama. It allows us to point our people to the upside down Kingdom economy where small is big, and seeming insignificance is of infinite value. It changes where and how we look for God at work around us. We don’t ignore the big and dramatic actions of God. Instead, we choose to look for the myriad of ways He chooses to work and celebrate the small, medium and large victories of Kingdom transformation.
It’s difficult as a missionary or ministry leader to have a bias towards the simple. There is cultural pressure that presses upon us, saying, if we don’t have big stories to tell, our ministry is not productive or worthwhile. I’ve felt this myself. The pressure can lead to all sorts of skewed perspectives that undermine the work of the Spirit. When the cultural drive for the dramatic is our metric for a good story, the temptation to inflate the stories of God or simply not communicate anything at all can abound.
Celebrate the simple
The question I continue to come back to is, do I trust God’s provision for the ministry He’s set before me…no matter what the world around me thinks? If I’m honest, some days I absolutely do and am confident in the still small ways God is at work. Still other days, I wallow in the seeming insignificance of little steps of obedience that don’t make for great stories. May we as ministers, missionaries, and the people of God tell the simple stories of God’s faithfulness no matter how big or small they may seem to us. May I choose to highlight the small, simple ways God is changing and transforming hearts.