Ordinary obedience is overlooked

I've continued thinking about the same topic I wrote about ten days ago: what to share during our home assignment. Some friends have been encouraging me to talk about ordinary life-stuff. One of them wrote: 

"...real impact often grows out of ordinary obedience, lived out over time." Just read this sentence in Martyn Iles' intro to his latest "At the Crux" podcast episode....referencing Daniel whose "faithfulness, integrity, and consistency were already visible" from the beginning (not just in the lion's den incident).

It's thought provoking, but also encouraging—that if we are faithfully seeking God and seeking to serve him in the everyday, it will shine through to others, even when we're not specifically speaking about our faith.

Here's an "ordinary" meal we had one 
night. I did make the bun from
scratch, though.

Therefore, I need to ponder: is it meaningful, as a missionary reporting back to supporters, if we talk about the ordinary things we do? Do we actually need extraordinary stories, or is reporting back about our daily life and work actually more meaningful and more encouraging? I'm thinking it might even be more relatable to those we speak to. After all, we're doing work that is more like what the majority of Christians do: working as a teacher and administrator, an editor and team leader, not church planters or evangelists. And on Sunday we're just a part of a church, much like most Christians are on a Sunday.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote this in our monthly news/prayer letter:

Here are some small ways we served others in March:

Wendy drove a car full of people to a women’s retreat. During the retreat she helped her roomie who was sick and held a colleague’s baby while she went to the toilet. She listened to a friend talk about her concerns about her boyfriend. The nights before and after the ladies retreat we hosted a young Australian lady who rode to the retreat with Wendy.

David drove a bus full of students to an athletics meet, hung around all day and into the night, before driving them home again.

We attended our church’s Wednesday prayer meetings, listened to and prayed for various church members.

David led worship on March 22nd and Wendy played. Later in the week one of the other pianists told us that the song “Meekness and Majesty” had been playing through her head all week (it was new to her and most in the church).

We spent several hours with a colleague in OMF leadership, enjoying fellowship and sharing one another’s burdens over food and games.

Wendy baked for our monthly church morning tea (David washed up).

David helped missionaries access the storage facility OMF rents not far from us to help meet the furnishing needs of various missionaries who were moving.

Wendy listened to a lady at church whose husband has recently had significant surgery and another lady who is seeking God’s leading in her career and personal life.

Most of this doesn’t seem all that significant. We’re not bragging about these things and definitely aren’t looking for applause. You have probably done similar things this month. It is good to remember that Paul told us to “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2 NIV). John Stott’s commentary on that verse is, “To love one another as Christ loved us may lead us not to some heroic, spectacular deed of self-sacrifice, but to the much more mundane and unspectacular ministry of burden bearing.” Let’s continue to love another in the small things. 

 Most people can relate to the above fairly ordinary activities. It's not all we did in March and I haven't listed the things that fall under our usual job responsibilities. But these aren't extraordinary and it's almost embarrassing to list them out like this.

What do you think? I'm sure that most of us don't realise how much of Christ is shining through to others and in many ways it's probably good that we don't, otherwise we might think it's because we're pretty special and get big heads! 

But it begs the question: are we metaphorically putting some actions on a pedestal and hiding others away in a drawer? That kind of dichotomy is unhelpful, I think. It encourages us have a dualistic system in our head: going to church and talking to someone about my faith is more important than faithfully serving my friends and family in practical ways. 

And it probably also means that we think of some jobs are more important than others: that a pastor is more important than an electrician, that a worship leader is more important than the church cleaner. And thus "missionaries" are elevated unhelpfully...ah, but now I'm heading into my own hobby horse territory, a topic that I'm writing about in my (possible future) book.

And so, we continue to ponder what we're going to share during our 11 weeks in Australia, when we take on the temporary role of "missionary speaker."