The one...

Today as I was doing a Bible study with a friend of mine in the book of Acts we were looking at Lydia’s conversion, and it hit me more than usual…God is all about the one. He sent Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch, he sent Peter to Cornelius, he had Paul and Silas imprisoned to minister to the jailer, and the list goes on and on. Yes we read about Peter preaching and thousands getting saved but more often in the book of Acts you see God calling someone to minister to one person or family.

I wish more of us could recognize what that looks like in ministry today. I’m not saying there’s no place for large-scale, even stadium evangelism, but what I am saying is it’s the one where disciples are made. When you personally get in the trenches, pray with, teach, counsel and answer questions… that’s where you see the growth. One man does the sowing of the seed (i.e. evangelism) and the other tills the soil (i.e. discipleship) and all of that is what comprises the beauty of the body of Christ.

Sometimes those of us in ministry can find ourselves discouraged if we’re only looking at numbers, when really you have one or two solid people… that’s maybe the only reason why God called you to that ministry. We need to not allow our expectations of “success” infringe upon really recognizing what God is doing and His faithfulness to achieve what He had set out to use us to do.

This is not a deep or profound post just simply an encouragement in sharing what God was showing me in order to encourage those of you who maybe feel a bit like you’re in a “Jeremiah ministry”, or where you don’t see large quantities of people show up for your ministry. It’s also to encourage those who aren’t in “formal” ministry and working a 9-5 job and simply meet someone for coffee once a week… that too is priceless ministry in God’s eyes. We need to stop gauging our “success” as servants and disciples by comparing ourselves to others, that’s what God called them to do… not us. We all have our own callings, one is not more valuable than the other. We are called to look not to the right or to the left but straight ahead faithfully doing what God has called us to do with all our might and make disciples be it to ten thousand people in a stadium, ten people in a classroom, or just one person in a coffee shop.