Think about it—what is the one thing that you would love to see accomplished in your lifetime? If I had to guess, it’s probably pretty big. And that’s a good thing—as long as what I say next doesn’t discourage you:
Everything big started small.
I’m sure you remember those famous first words of Neil Armstrong as he walked out on the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The funny thing about that historic achievement is the first steps were taken long before that infamous “first small step.”
President John F. Kennedy birthed the vision in a speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962 when he declared that the United States would “go to the moon in this decade.” Because the President chose to make this endeavor a priority and aligned the budget accordingly, we saw the vision come to reality seven years later on July 20, 1969.
Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” That is so true! Don’t let your big dream overwhelm you before you even begin—start small.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “One is not born into the world to do everything, but to do something.” According to StrengthsFinder 2.0, every person can do one thing better than the next ten thousand people.
What’s your one thing? Find it and focus on growing it everyday.
John Maxwell shares an eye opening thought about the compounding effect of doing something small to grow daily: “If you start with just a single penny and double it every day for thirty-one days, you end up with $21,474,836.48.” Just consider the possible return from practicing your one thing with excellence every day!
Remember, success is gained in inches, not miles. Maybe the first step for you is a small change. Trying to make big changes too quickly can paralyze you with fear because it can appear unachievable.
Try organizing your desk to be more efficient, rearranging your calendar to get more out of your day, or reading a book that broadens your perspective. Any small change that can make you better is worth making.
The greatest mistake I see young leaders make is attempting to skip the small steps in the beginning. When they do this they end up missing out on the many important lessons that must be learned before big steps can be taken. They spend all of their time looking around at other leaders doing big things and get tricked into thinking they should be there already.
It may sound simple but the only place you can start is where you are.
Don’t be fooled: success is a journey, not a destination. And it all starts with one small step.
All across the world this weekend, people will gather in groups—some bigger, many smaller—to worship Jesus. To sing songs, to pray together, to hear God’s Word preached. Voluntarily. No one forces millions of people to show up, to come together for worship, and yet it happens. It happens not just this week, but every single Sunday.
Unfortunately, as recent surveys show, the percentage of Americans attending church has declined in recent years, even in evangelical denominations. The decline of churchgoers isn’t massive, but the data suggest that the infrequent attenders from 20 or 30 years ago have moved further away while the religiously devoted (though a slightly lower percentage) continue to attend.
A survey from several years ago showed that only 35 percent of Americans believe that attending worship services constitutes an “essential part of being a Christian.” The theologian in me wants to quibble with that word “essential,” because I wouldn’t want to imply that going to church makes you a Christian, or that any person who is currently not attending church is necessarily lost. But the vast majority of people who answered that survey weren’t analyzing it theologically. They were simply asked what’s important or essential to being a faithful Christian. And only 35 percent of American Christians said church attendance is a big deal. That means most Christians see church attendance as something optional, something good if it helps you along in your personal spiritual life, but not something that is commanded, required, or essential to your faith. You can have a personal faith that’s strong, and if the church helps with that, great! If you’re fine on your own, that’s great, too!
Why such a low percentage of American Christians who believe churchgoing is necessary?
The first answer is obvious. We live in a highly individualistic culture. In a fragmented era of expressive individualism, many people see themselves as lone individuals who only come together based on common interests or goals. Any commitments we make are on our own terms. In an individualistic culture, the community aspect of our existence can suffer. Church attendance suffers, too.
A second reason for that low percentage? We live in an anti-institutional age. Institutions—whether they be educational or political or religious—get a bad rap, and some of that is deserved. We see how corruption can take root in institutions or how rituals and routines can stifle creativity and innovation. Americans are suspicious toward institutions, including religious ones, and tend to trust individuals to figure out what’s best for themselves, not listen to a church or a pastor or a political figure tell them what to do.
But there’s a third reason, and it’s one we do well to consider because this “churchgoing is optional” mindset may be a negative effect of things we ourselves have said.
In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a rise in church attendance. Much of the churchgoing during that time was cultural. Upstanding citizens in the community would go to church because, well, that’s what upstanding citizens did, not always because they had a genuine faith or a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In response, some preachers and pastors emphasized the distinction between cultural Christianity and what it means to be “born again”—a Christian who has genuinely been converted. (This was always an evangelical hallmark—to say it’s not enough to just be nominally religious but radically saved.) To heighten the contrast, church leaders would say things like, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian. You need to, as an individual, have personal faith in Jesus.”
Looking back, we may conclude that was the right move at the time. Distinguishing between the trappings of faith and the substance of salvation remains vital. But I wonder if, in the decades that followed, the truth that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian morphed into a different idea—that being a Christian doesn’t necessarily include going to church. I wonder if people started thinking that personal, individual faith in Jesus is the only important thing, and if the church can help with that, fine, but if not, that’s fine, too.
Here’s where the problem shows up. The idea that belonging to a church is an optional add-on to one’s Christian life is far from the biblical picture. The idea of an unchurched Christian wouldn’t have made sense to the writers of the New Testament.
When I was a student in Romania, American evangelists would come and preach, and they’d sometimes say things like, “I’m calling you to trust in Jesus, not to become part of the church.” The translators would always change that last part. I remember one of my professors (who was also a pastor) saying, “That’s not really true. When we call people to follow Jesus, we’re calling them to become part of his people.” I think the Romanians were right. When we urge people in our congregation to trust in Jesus and to turn from sin, we are also calling them to become part of our fellowship. We call people into the family of God.
I love Mr. Rogers. I have watched his show for years—including now as an adult. I have books and documentaries about his life. There is something deeply comforting about him walking in the room, putting on his cardigan, changing his shoes, and asking, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”
WE ARE CALLED TO BE NEIGHBORS
This call to be a neighbor is, of course, a deeply Christian sentiment. In Luke 10 we find Jesus being questioned by a religious expert, as the scripture defines him. The question the religious expert asks is, “And who is my neighbor?” He asks this question because he understood that loving God and loving neighbor was an expectation of the life that honors God. “Who is my neighbor?” was, then, an attempt to define boundaries around who he was called to love. Likely, as was true for many Jews in the first century, this expert carried racial and cultural animosity towards groups of people like the Samaritans, who were half-Jew, half-Gentile, as well as towards Gentiles themselves, the Romans likely chief among them.
The Jews, of course, had reasons for not liking the Samaritans and the Gentiles. They had religious objections to the Samaritans. We see those objections play out in the story of the Woman at the Well when the woman and Jesus converse about the differences in their worship. The Gentiles were not only ungodly in the Jewish mind, but they were also the oppressors of the Jews. All of this to say, the religious expert wanted to justify his lack of love toward some specific groups of people. In essence, when he asked “Who is my neighbor?” the religious expert was actually clarifying that there were many people for whom he did not consider himself a neighbor – and that was perfectly fine in his worldview.
“There is no one for whom we can absolve ourselves from being neighborly.”
Jesus upends his definition of a neighbor. Jesus clarifies, through the story of the Good Samaritan, that the whole world is full of our neighbors. He helps the religious expert see that those who follow God and those who don’t, those for whom some might have religious, cultural or racial objections are all among our neighbors. Jesus clarifies that there is no one for whom we can absolve ourselves from being neighborly. But you likely already know all of that.
KINDNESS AMIDST DIVISION
There is one specific question that Jesus asks the religious expert that I think is incredibly appropriate for us today. Jesus queried the religious expert, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” This piercing question reveals the flaw in the religious expert’s faith. The religious expert provided an answer back to Jesus that was 100% correct. He said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.” And yet, even though his answer was correct, Jesus indicates in the story that the religious expert was wrong. Why? Because, although he got the theology right, he got the application wrong. Jesus asked him two questions. First, “What is written in the law?” In other words, “What does the Bible say?” The second question, though, is where the expert got tripped up. Jesus asked, “How do you read it?” In other words, “How do you apply the text? How do you practice your theology?” The religious expert was completely orthodox, and yet far from God. You and I can be completely orthodox, and yet far from God.
We live in a time of great division. We often seem to justify our partisan spirits and our aggressively angry postures toward one another. This is true in the culture at large, and this is sadly often true among those who call ourselves followers of Christ. Consider, if you will, who it is that you think is to blame for the problems in our culture. Republicans? Democrats? Immigrants? Secularists? Religious people? Irreligious people? Muslims? Members of the LGBTQ+ community? It doesn’t matter who it is, but consider your posture toward them. Do you view them as your neighbor? Do you view them as someone to be loved; someone to serve? To be even more specific, ask yourself this question: when was the last time that you were friends with, had extended conversations with, shared a meal with, or served in humility someone with whom you have a profound disagreement? If it’s been a while, or maybe you can’t remember a time at all, it could be true that you have functionally become like the religious expert; someone who is orthodox in your theology, but far from God in your practice.
BOTH TRUTH AND LOVE
To be clear, I don’t think the Bible is calling you to abandon your convictions or to give up any attempts to teach biblical truth. Jesus never condemned the religious expert’s orthodoxy. We ought to hold tightly to biblical truth. Jesus’s objection was with the religious expert’s practice. I think the lesson here is to hold tightly to biblical convictions, but to pass them on, and to engage our neighbors, in a way that demonstrates love and grace—in a way that demonstrates the value of every person created in the image of God. Including, and maybe most especially, those whom we disagree with the most.
A generation ago, “surrendering to ministry” was common parlance in Baptist churches. In fact, hardly an invitation was extended in my home church that did not include a call to surrender to ministry, immediately after an appeal to follow Christ, be baptized, or join the church.
As a boy, the phrase “surrender to ministry” both mystified and unnerved me. It sounded as though one was embracing an unwanted life, a call to a distant land to engage in an undesired work. It seemed like a call one intuitively resisted—as long as possible—until finally buckling under the Spirit’s pressure and embarking on a life of ministry that, albeit noble, would be marked by sacrifice and hardship.
In hindsight, I do not think that is what my pastor meant, nor do I think that is what the New Testament implies. As I found in my own life, surrendering to ministry is not caving to an unwanted vocation; it is embracing what becomes increasingly irresistible—the gospel ministry.
“Surrendering to ministry” is a phrase the church needs to recover and a ministry-posture the church needs to cultivate. Every faithful ministry begins with a surrendered life, and that submissiveness shapes every aspect of one’s ministry, including why, where, and what one preaches.
Why You Preach
First, “surrendering to ministry” rightly establishes the preacher’s motivation. After all, the preacher’s incentive should not be filthy lucre, the applause of men, or any other earthly enticement. Rather, the preacher should, like the Apostle Paul, know in his heart, “If I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.”[1]
Surrendering to preach is to be so gripped by God’s call and so moved for his glory that one knows Jeremiah’s burden: “If I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.”[2]
The urgency with which one preaches may ebb and flow based on a multitude of factors including the receptivity of the congregation, the preacher’s spiritual vitality, and the tenor of the text itself. But, for the preacher rightly surrendered to ministry, the “why” of the ministry is settled—it is for Christ and his glory.
Where You Preach
Second, “surrendering to ministry” includes a determination to follow God’s call—wherever it may lead. The minister is to be at God’s disposal, sensing and seeking his leadership for where he would have the minister go and to whom he would have the minister serve.
Initially, this includes a willingness to leave family and friends, to go to a distant place, or to undertake a new work. After all, Jesus reflected, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”[3]Too many ministers are perfectly willing to follow God’s call as long as it does not lead out of their hometown. Such kingdom restrictiveness is alien to the New Testament and stymies one’s availability to be used by God.
Additionally, a willingness to go wherever includes a willingness to minister to whomever. There are churches across the land poised for anything but numerical success. Challenging demographics, an unreceptive audience, or a dilapidated neighborhood might make God’s call unattractive, but if it is God’s call, it is a glorious one—regardless of the zip code. After all, struggling churches and dying communities need ministers too.
What You Preach
Third, “surrendering to ministry” means operating under the authority of God’s Word. Most especially, this relates to the act of preaching itself. The role of the preacher is not to cobble together anecdotes with human insights, and then sprinkle in a couple of Bible verses to produce a “homily.”
To surrender to ministry is to submit to preach God’s Word. The surrendered preacher knows he has a predetermined message—the Word of God—and a predetermined responsibility—to preach that Word. The preacher’s job description is to read, explain, and apply the text, bringing it to bear on God’s people.
The faithful preacher tunes his ear to the Spirit of God, not the critic’s grumble. His finger is on the text, not in the air gauging the wind, and his voice is given to preaching the Word—not peddling shallow sermons for shallow people.
Too many pastors are textual acrobats, contorting their preaching to avoid Scripture’s sharper edges. Such preachers have become adept at explaining away angular texts and dodging confrontational verses. On the contrary, the preacher’s charge is clear: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort with great patience and instruction.”[4]
Conclusion
These days the phrase “surrendering to ministry” seems to have gone the way of the El Camino car and the waterbed. This is more than unfortunate; it is altogether unhealthy—and the church is the big loser.
A surrendered life is integral to a healthy ministry. “Surrendering to ministry” is a phrase to be recovered, but, more importantly, it is a heart-posture to be cultivated and pursued.
Has God called you to ministry? If so, in the words of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he has issued to you “the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called.”[5] Respond to him by surrendering to his ministry and cultivating a life of submission to Christ and his Word.
