Putting the “Mini” back into Ministering

I came across a brother recently who mentioned that he lived in a rural area and had 13 families to minister to. He felt like this was a heavy burden to bear and was laden with guilt.

I’ve been overwhelmed at times with having many people to minister to in various callings and assignments. Sometimes you feel like you have no idea what to do and there can be a great deal of guilt.

What came to mind though are these words from Jesus that may be of help:

“What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.”

Matt. 18:12-13

When the man was out searching for the one lost sheep, guess what he wasn’t doing? He sure wasn’t tending to the ninety-nine. He left them up on the mountains and put all his energy into just one.

Maybe there is a lesson for us here. Perhaps we get overwhelmed because we are too focused on “everyone” instead of just “someone.”

What if we dropped our burdens of guilt and decided that we were going to think of something incredibly simple we could do to interact with just one person in our ministering list.

I definitely overthink things and make stuff too dang bloated and complicated. Intellectually, I know there is power in the small and simple but my actions indicate that I don’t seem to really believe it; I want to start believing.

Maybe it is time to put the “mini” back into “ministering.”

Discipleship is in the details but it probably shouldn’t be detailed.