Get small

It's one of those deep spiritual lessons that I know, but that God keeps reminding me of: In order to do great things for God, you must do small things for God! Thinking on this started this weekend with our EQUIP conference - a day of encouraging and training our small group leaders. So I'll start there. One of the reasons that Eastview is growing is that we have dedicated ourselves to being small. We take the people that come on the weekend and put them in small groups for a proper environment for growing. The result is that as people grow in this small setting, they begin to reach out, to share their faith, to talk to others about what God is doing in their lives....and the church gets bigger. But it gets bigger by getting small.

Smaller yet, spending a morning focusing on each small group leader, encourages them, equips them with tools to help others grow, and recalibrates their engines for leadership. We had over 200 leaders there and the individual attention we gave each was one of the biggest things we've done in a while. We have bigger crowds, but there was nothing bigger than our small gathering of small group leaders.

Here are some other things going on for me personally:

Been lifting weights again...used to all the time...I like it...it's raw. You know how to get big muscles? Well, being 18 years old helps,but if you can't do that, you start small. Exercises with less weight leads to building muscles that are stronger. One exercise at a time!

Working on another book for a spring release. You know how to write a book? Get small!. You have to start with a thought and then start writing a chapter...and then the next one, etc... No one except Mark Twain writes a book in a week. It's a long process, but I'm 3/4 of the way done.

You know how to grow your faith? Get small. It's the beginning of holy habits like prayer, Bible intake, service, etc... that helps us grow. But you have to start small. You don't start by praying three hours a day...you start with five undistracted minutes...then you mature from there.

You want to change the world? Get small...as in focus on the small things in the world you live in. As God helps you make daily decisions of change and conviction based on your faith, God may open greater doors to change a bigger part of the world...but mostly you start with the small part that you have.