Our values are revealed by the words we do not use. I’ve seldom heard a message or participated in a discussion featuring these three words.
These three words describe life in God’s Kingdom; they are words and ways that should mark the life of every disciple. These three words are peripheral to our culture’s picture of success. These three words are rooted in the church’s heritage but absent in today’s practice. The words are secret, silence, and small.
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them . . . so that your giving [praying, fasting] may be in secret.
Matthew 6:1-18
Jesus excoriates self-promotion – doing to be seen — in practicing the disciplines of praying, fasting, and giving. What does He commend? Jesus exalts the person who does these practices in “secret.” “Secrecy” is hidden obedience; obedience not intended for public recognition.
Self-promotion still marks the human condition. It dominates our business lives, social media, and sometimes our church life. As early as 1961, author Daniel Boorstin in The Image documented the rise of the “pseudo-event” or “photo-op” — an event planned for the immediate purpose of creating images that are “studiously crafted personality profiles.” Through these “images,” Boorstin writes, “we hope the world will be attracted to, or dazzled by them.” Boorstin prophesized today’s social media; the promotion of an artificially crafted self-image to enlist on-line followers. Self-promotion is not Kingdom living; secrecy is what Jesus values.
Wherever I travel, I find men and women serving God, often in difficult situations, tucked away in a community’s corner, secretly living in obedience without the thought of public recognition. They do not appear on Facebook, their stories are not featured in newsletters, and they do not promote themselves with hyperbolic statements like “impact,” “transform,” “influencer,” or “branding.” They are secretly serving God without public notice.
The next time you begin to think about your “brand,” your “influencer” profile, or how to “market” your ministry, consider this kingdom value of secrecy. What would life and ministry look like if we held to the value of secrecy and not self-promotion?
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life . . . to work with your hands . . . so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders.
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
My parents led quiet lives. My dad was a meat cutter — a butcher — all his life. My mom worked in the school cafeteria. They were everyday people who lived with God in what I call the “quiet” or the “silence” of everyday life.
The dictionary defines silence as “the complete lack of sound.” My parents were not silent people — dad was a boisterous person able to charm a room. Mom fearlessly voiced her opinions if she felt injustice was being done. How did they capture the Kingdom value of silence?
Paul exhorts us to live a “quiet life” – one with little or no noise. This life is about the routine, the ordinary place where people “work with their hands.” It pictures people noiselessly yet obediently going about their everyday routines and responsibilities of raising families, working hard, paying the bills, serving a church or community. Obedient people do not make a lot of noise, but they are influential, winning the respect of those outside the faith.
Let’s disciple people to value the quiet life of faithful and silent obedience where they live, work, or play. Let’s teach that this silent life will influence people more than our current evangelism programs or techniques.
The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed . . . It is the smallest
of all seeds.
Matthew 13:31-32
Books on smallness seldom appear on the New York Times best seller list. When was the last time you were exhorted to “go small?” Our churches, our ministries, and our businesses are driven to “scale up,” to always expand. Sometimes it’s good to be small.
Smallness speaks to influence over time as opposed to impact. Impact is a concentrated force in a short period of time. I think the Bible speaks more often of influence — of smallness — than impact. The value of smallness shows up in the Bible’s record of “oneness” — one man or one woman making a difference. Hebrews 11 is a record of smallness.
The Kingdom emphasizes smallness because smallness is relational. I can’t have a quality relationship with one-hundred people, but I can with one to six people. Smallness helps me concentrate, the smaller the relationship the greater the influence. Choosing smallness moves us from “how many” to “how deep” — a value that seems to reside only in the Kingdom these days.
What leader today would leave the opportunity to scale up his on-line following to reduce it to a handful of people? Jesus did (John 6:66-68) because small was important to Him. Discipling one, two, or three people is an act of thinking small. If Jesus started small maybe we should as well.
Practicing these three words will put us in opposition to our culture. They will make us the “peculiar people” Peter talks about in 1 Peter 2:9 (KJV). When we value secrecy, silence, and smallness, we become strangers to our dominant culture. That’s a good thing! Let’s move these three words from the seldom to the everyday language and life of people in the Kingdom.
secrecy, silence and smallness. Powerful & Memorable! One guy whose wisdom I value a LOT is Karl Vaters who I would call “the guru of the small church.” He has a fantastic way of valuing and encouraging small churches and small church pastors who surely need it in the era where those churches and their pastors are virtually worshipped or idolized by the church today. Who gets the publicity and conference speaking invitations? Not the small church pastors. That’s one reason why I value Eugene Peterson’s and Gordon McDonald’s books as they exalt those three words and the people who embody them (and Bill Mowry’s books too!). Thanks! Will ponder these words again.