Night Church 2021: Growing Small

I'm starting to wonder if size does matter to God and if small might be His favorite. When the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, I'm pretty certain they had big things in mind- big crowds, big miracles, maybe even a big name for themselves. Jesus responds by saying “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed..." Jesus doesn't say faith as small as a mustard seed. He says faith like a mustard seed. We know a mustard seed is small, but does that mean the faith is small? What is small faith anyway? "I kind of believe this might happen" vs. "I really, really believe this might happen"? Luckily the lesson doesn't end there. Jesus qualifies what "like" means with an illustration. Suppose you walked into a fast food place and the cashier gave you the "just a minute finger" and then proceeded to joke around with a friend for five minutes on his cell phone while you stood there waiting. How would you react? Jesus sets up a similar scenario. A servant hired to work in a field and fix dinner at night wouldn't expect to eat their dinner before his or her master, did. They'd eat after work. "So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

What is small faith anyway? "I kind of believe this might happen" vs. "I really, really believe this might happen"

"Great faith", Jesus is saying can get you amazing supernatural results, as long as it's like a mustard seed and like doing the job you were hired to do. Great faith comes through saying "We are unworthy servants: we have only done what was our duty."

Huh? What does this have to do with being like a mustard seed? Jesus mentions a mustard seed earlier in the book of Luke. He compares it to the Kingdom of God- it starts small and then becomes the largest bush. Great faith = Mustard Seed = Kingdom of God = We are unworthy servants only doing our duty.

In this equation where does the small come in? Where does the great show up?

His second message isn't brought by Roman soldiers, it's brought by his friends and what is the message. "I am unworthy to have you come under my roof... "

There is another story in Luke that includes many of these same phrases. It's the story of the centurion. A man who was esteemed highly in his community. A man who was a master over a hundred Roman Soldiers, who was the big donor for the local synagogue, who had the power of the Roman Empire behind him. He sent his soldiers to Jesus to ask for Jesus to heal his servant. The Jewish leaders, not usually big fans of Jesus, speak up though. They tell Jesus this guy is important, he is one of our biggest donors, make sure to watch over him. Jesus heads in his direction and then the Centurion has a second thought. His second message isn't brought by Roman soldiers, it's brought by his friends and what is the message. "I am unworthy to have you come under my roof... say the word and my servant will be healed." What does Jesus say when he hears this?

“I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Luke 7:9b

Where is the small in this story?

Where is the great?

Where is the power to get results?

“Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.”

We started Night Church last year with a spread sheet and list of emails. We sent out a request to an email list of about 40 people. Could you sign up for a night? Could you pick a hotspot where there is high crime and violence and take a shift. The response was underwhelming, but between about 5 or 6 committed and about as many more who came from time to time people we were able to cover 4 different locations about 5 out of 7 days of the week. Most of the time when we went out there was three to five of us. Many times there was only two or three and many of us did multiple nights. Our theme verse was what Jonathan said to his armour bearer right before they attacked a Philistine garrison and sent the entire army to flight. An incident that foreshadowed David (small) defeating Goliath (big). “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.” We were going out to stop the violence and we knew that it wasn't about the size of the crowd we brought, it was about the size of the God we brought. And some nights it was just 2 or 3 of us. Some nights two of us would show and fifteen minutes later a crowd of 70 would leave with a gentle word form the police.

Perhaps the small in the equation of great faith is the estimation of ourselves compared to the God that we serve. Perhaps the small in the equation is our perception of the size of our problem vs the size of our God. The mustard seed is us- small, unimpressive, with the size of its potential unseen, like the God we serve, a God who will take our sacrifice of obedience we plant and grow it into a Kingdom that even the centurion understood was greater than the Roman Empire.

Have our large mega churches and our Christian media and our packed-out stadium events fooled us? Have we sought to feel big in our own estimation and missed the key to a great faith?

This summer we've made our Friday Night night church, a kind of planting night church. It's a place where folks can come and check it out and then take it elsewhere. We've got more budget for it. We've got more buy-in from quite a few local churches, but interestingly our numbers are still rather small, only ten to twenty people per night. We have yet to create a crowd that draws a crowd. Sometimes, I see a night church visitor or a first time pastor show up and see the size of the turnout and you can see the look of disappointment. You can almost hear the question in their minds "Whatsup with this? Is this even worth it?" But then, we press in. We get our eyes on the size of our God and not the size of the crowd and suddenly our faith increases, our prayers become full of belief, our voices raise, and something in us us starts saying "yes and amen"

I wonder if we had 300 people out would we need to do this. What if we had 3,000? Would we start to put our trust in our size? Would we fool ourselves into thinking we're really doing something? Have our large mega churches and our Christian media and our packed-out stadium events fooled us? Have we sought to feel big in our own estimation and missed the key to a great faith? Does growing small give us a faith that can uproot a sycamine tree and toss it into the ocean. Does growing small help us understand that we are unworthy servants who just need to do what we are told by a worthy God? Perhaps this is exactly where God wants us. Perhaps growing small is exactly how Jesus wants to increase our faith. Maybe Night Church is exactly where he can get this done.