Kingdom Building in Small-Town America

I ‌pastor ‌a ‌little church in a little town. I used to be embarrassed by this. Somewhere along the line, I think I picked up this notion that I was supposed to be a “world changer.”

It is tough to be a world changer in a town of 300 people. No matter how much time I spend crafting sermons, I know that, at best, 100 people will ever hear them. I will probably never be the pastor of a megachurch. And I don’t expect to be making headlines in the national conversation.

When I first went into ministry, I wanted to help people. I wanted to share my love of Jesus with other sinners. Then I got all fascinated by the idea of a big platform. Bigger platforms = bigger impact. Right?

I made the success of my ministry a law. A law that would accuse me every July Sunday as the forty “faithful saints” would make their way into the building. The rest were at the lake … “depraved sinners” as they are.

I have only recently been able to enjoy the freedom of self-forgetfulness. I don’t have to be a world changer. Whatever platform I have or don’t have is not my responsibility. I no longer allow it to serve as an indicator of my faithfulness or self-worth. I am to love the people that Jesus brings in front of me. Nothing more, nothing less. I am seen and valued by God, and that is enough.

This week I felt all those same old feelings bubble up. They bubbled up because I was grieving for a woman who suffered from the exact same affliction I was once plagued with.

I recently came across a two-year-old article in the Atlantic by Stephanie McCrummen entitled “The Woman Who Bought a Mountain for God.” It a masterful, eminently sympathetic piece about a woman named Tami Barthen. While reading it, I saw my own weary pursuit of a platform reflected back at me.

Tami was hurting from a nasty divorce when she found something she hadn’t experienced in her traditional church: the radical, unconditional love of God.

But ‌then, ‌things ‌go sideways.

Tami gets sucked into a movement obsessed with “spiritual warfare and dominion.” They believe in the “Seven Mountains Mandate.” This is the idea that Christians are called to conquer culture and politics. Tami isn’t satisfied with resting in grace anymore. A prophetess tells her she is called to raise a $120 million “spiritual training center,” so she uses her divorce settlement money to buy a 350-acre mountain retreat in Pennsylvania.

This is the heresy of glory that Luther talked about. We hustle right past the cross and start trying to conquer things for God. The group Tami belongs to believes in something called “convergence.” You have to connect coincidences and dreams and political elections all together to find your “divine assignment.” In their view, it isn’t just that their candidate lost, it is that you have a demonic stronghold.

Honestly, it just sounds exhausting. You are always trying to decode God’s secret will to try and figure out what he is calling you to do next. I know that feeling well. Everything ends up depending on whether you heard him correctly, interpreted the sign correctly, and if you obeyed quickly enough. You are always on the hook.

“I’m Sorry”

What caught me most in McCrummen’s piece came near the end. After all this talk of angelic armies and Kingdom treasuries, Tami is seated quietly in her office looking at the mountain of bills she can’t pay. The millions she was promised didn’t materialize.

She doesn’t blame her prophets for leading her astray. Instead the law does what it always does, it accuses and turns on you. She wonders if she missed a sign or didn’t obey God correctly. She thinks her individual lack of faith might be single-handedly delaying the Kingdom of God. Finally, looking down at her desk she simply says, “I’m sorry.”

My heart is broken for her. She started with the dizzying freedom of God’s love but ended up carrying the hope of America on her shoulders. What is scary to me is how familiar that movement feels. My mountain was much smaller, but I had my own version of a mountain. Somehow the grace that first welcomed Tami fell off and became another thing she could fail at. I know how easily it can happen.

Whether the law is telling you to build a $120 million mountain training center for God, or whispering in your ear that you are a failure for having only forty people in your pews on a July Sunday, the lie is the same. It’s up to you.

The good news is that God doesn’t need us to be world changers. He has already changed the world. And in the shadow of that finished work, Tami can drop her mountain. I can drop my platform. We can both finally just be loved.