There is a truth that every person in ministry must eventually confront: God may only give you a small audience. He may only grant you a few supporters. He may only bless you with a small team, a short reach, a limited influence. The question for us back then was how would we respond?

“If you can’t be faithful with a few, don’t ask the Lord to give you many.”

I’ll never forget those words spoken to my husband and me by a friend and missionary almost two decades ago. In fact, they’ve run through my mind almost weekly since.

At the time, we were newly married and preparing to go overseas as missionaries ourselves. We were hosting small groups at our church and in our home, trying to spread the word about our upcoming endeavor. We needed prayer and financial support to get us where we believed God had called us to go, so we were eager for an audience.

Our friend, who was almost a decade ahead of us, pointed out a truth that every person in ministry must eventually confront: God may only give you a small audience. He may only grant you a few supporters. He may only bless you with a small team, a short reach, a limited influence.

The question for us back then was how would we respond?

How Do You Respond the the Few?

Would we be grateful for a small team or begrudge it? Would we thank and honor the Lord with the few or demand that he give us many? Would it feel worth it if only a handful of people responded?

And the questions persist. Almost twenty years of ministry later, we still need to routinely ask ourselves this question.

How will you respond to the few? Every Christian must confront these questions because every Christian has a ministry, from the senior pastor to the children’s minister to the lay mentor who disciples young adults over coffee.

When Only a Handful Show Up

Our friend who was just ahead of us in life and ministry was already a seasoned missionary when he said those powerful words. They were actually first uttered to him by yet another man further down the line back when he was new to ministry. Our friend confessed that he had to repeat those words to himself every time he and his wife hosted a ministry event.

Wanting validation from a large crowd, he had to ask: Would he be faithful with the few when they prepared a Bible study for thirty and only three showed up? What about when they invited fifty neighbors for an outreach event and only five came? Or when he personally asked five guys to join a small group and only one responded? Or when he shared the gospel with ten different men and only two showed minor interest?

He said he rehearsed those words every single time he put himself out there. He said the older man’s words straightened his path whenever he wandered. They were a compass, a magnet towards what really matters.

The temptation he faced was the same one he knew we would face and it’s still one we face today.

Defining Greatness

We all face the temptation to equate effectiveness with influence, worth with reach, or greatness with numbers.

Perhaps you wrestle with this tendency too. Perhaps you’re a pastor who measures your worth by attendance numbers, or a small group leader who measures your effectiveness with how many people show up each week. Maybe you’re a missionary who thinks your success is equal to the number of baptisms you perform, or a Christian writer who measures the value of your words with the number of clicks you get.

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