Try getting smaller

We look at a huge task–reaching a nation, reaching a people group, reaching a city–and we say, “It can’t be done.” Primarily because we don’t know how.

All we can see is us, going, spending ourselves, crashing-and-burning, perhaps even getting martyred–and for what? How will the little that we can do make a difference?

Instead of considering how you might reach a nation, let’s consider something a little smaller–how will you reach a person?

Rather than trying to reach Somalis everywhere (or Pashtun, or Kazakhs, or…) try thinking about how you might reach a Somali nearby. Just one.

The key here is to get from “zero” to “one”–something many mission teams have difficulty doing. Yes, what you do at the very beginning might not scale very well. This is something to “hold in tension” creatively. Regardless of whether it scales, it is at least a beginning (albeit a small one).

Once you have reached out and made contact with one, you can start thinking about how to add another zero to that number, and reach 10.