A Ministry of the Mundane

I’ll never forget the quiet of the church building on my first day as pastor. I had previously served on a large church staff with many action-packed weekly ministries. The building was a beehive of activity. But in my new role as pastor of a small church, it was a different experience, one my Bible-college training and Christian upbringing didn’t quite prepare me for.

I suspect most of my ministry colleagues have made similar adjustments. I once heard Chuck Swindoll say to a gathering of ministers, “In ministry life, there are more moments of the mundane than the magnificent.” This is true, but why is it so hard to adjust to a ministry of the mundane?

Pastors are rightly motivated to see God do a grand work in their midst. After all, that’s why we surrendered to the call to ministry in the first place. We want to be vessels through which God changes the lives of the people we serve. We read the book of Acts and are inspired, again and again, by the way the Spirit of God builds Christ’s church. And we ask ourselves: Why can’t that happen here, in this community, through this local church?

We all want God to do something big, and we want that big thing to happen through our ministry. This isn’t necessarily a bad or carnal impulse. We should dream, as Paul did in Romans 10:1, for the salvation of those who are alienated from God. We should read the Great Commission and the words of the Lord in Acts 1:8 and the picture of the gathering of the kingdom from all nations in Revelation 5 and 7 as both a challenge to spread God’s name and a promise of Christ’s activity in this generation. Nobody should go into ministry with only a casual interest in seeing people moved from death to life.

God is in the whisper

However, this doesn’t mean we, ourselves, have to be overcome with frenetic activity. Sometimes God moves in big, catalytic moments like conferences and memorable worship services or large-scale events. Other times, however, God moves in the quiet, small things.

I’m reminded of Elijah, who experienced an adrenalin crash after his showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. Many in Israel still worshipped Yahweh, yet still he was despondent because the big convert, Queen Jezebel, remained hardened in opposition.

As God ministered to his discouraged prophet in 1 Kings 19, he demonstrates God’s unwillingness to be held captive by our expectations. Elijah stood and watched a series of big natural phenomena: a strong wind, an earthquake, and a fire. Each time, the text is clear that God was not in any of these events. God was in what came next: a whisper.

Does this mean God isn’t in control of earthquakes and fires and wind? No. Does this mean God doesn’t use big events to bring about his purposes? No. But the point God is making to Elijah and to us who speak and minister for God, is this: God is also in the whisper. He’s in the quiet, ordinary moments of life.

Gregory the Great wrote, “Purity of heart and simplicity are of great force with almighty God, who is in purity most singular, and of nature most simple.”

I wonder if we go into the pastorate expecting every day to be Mt. Carmel, when more days are like Elijah’s solace under the juniper tree.

Most of our professional ministry training prepares us for the big moments. This is good. But I wonder if we go into the pastorate expecting every day to be Mt. Carmel, when more days are like Elijah’s solace under the juniper tree.

We have a natural restlessness. In part it’s a product of the culture in which we live, where we are constantly awaiting the next big thing. Our smartphones light up with alerts from social media, email, text, and phones. Each one has the promise of something new: a new conversation, a new opportunity, a new news story. We are mastered by the moment.

I find it extraordinarily difficult to turn this off. It’s a constant battle that I don’t always win. I find it hard not to check my phone regularly, even when I should be present with people.

This is a symptom of not just a busy culture, but a busy heart. We are restless creatures because we are running from the solitude that allows us to meditate, to be quiet, to hear God speak, to repent. It’s uncomfortable to face ourselves, so we fill our time with distractions.

The way of Jesus is not just active ministry. It’s time away with the Father. It’s not just crisis and confrontation; it’s the ordinary, mundane, and common. As much as we need to plan the next big event, we need to experience routines, and rest and renewal. At times, this might mean a sabbatical or time away with the family. Often it’s simply structuring our lives to include moments that are not big or consequential: breakfast with friends, a few hours to read and grow, or pursuing a life-giving hobby. I’m reminded of Thomas Carlyle’s statement that silence is “the element in which great things fashion themselves together.”

It’s one thing to cultivate this “theology of the mundane” in our own hearts, but it’s another altogether to incorporate it into our leadership. Leadership books often coach readers to evaluate all of life through the grid of “How does this activity contribute to our five- and ten-year goals?” Instead, try accepting that all of life doesn’t have to be driven by the next big moment. Enjoy this present ministry.

We do this in a few ways. First, model in your schedule the kind of healthy spiritual rhythms you’d like others to develop. Second, take the long view of church ministry, where the Spirit of God slowly changes the hearts of his people, rather than making every Sunday “the big Sunday.” Third, work to balance your desire for growth with a commitment to pastor the people in front of us, rather than the people we wish we had.

The mundane isn’t meaningless

Sometimes our well-meaning impulse toward missions and evangelism reduces the mundane to meaningless. We need to recall that God’s Kingdom means he rules over all the earth, not just over what happens on Sunday. It isn’t always the big moments—the dramatic altar calls, the big donations to fund a project, the talented new hire on the church staff—where God is working. The daily, obscure work that fills ministry life matters too. Painting a nursery wall, stuffing bulletins, conversations with neighbors, cleaning up after a potluck—this too is Kingdom work.

For years as a staff member of a big and influential church, I would drive past small churches and think to myself: What even happens there? As if God is only present in mega-ministries.

Pastoring a small church changed that for me. Early on, a young person wrote me a heartfelt note about how my recent sermon series helped them understand the power of forgiveness. I remember thinking, Those sermons, at a church nobody has ever heard of, were somehow used by God in that young person’s life. On another occasion, a confused and recently divorced man stumbled into our tiny church parking lot to speak with one of our elders after everyone had left church on Sunday. That conversation led to this man’s conversion.

God is at work in all kinds of churches in all kinds of different ways. The spirit of Christ is drawing people to himself and changing lives through the church of 100 just as he is in the church of 10,000. He is working in the mundane, the everyday life of the church, even when it seems nothing is happening but an occasional whisper.

Daniel Darling is vice-president of communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Activist Faith.