Doing Kingdom Work When You Don’t Have a Platform (Or Even If You Do)

A friend and I had a Voxer conversation over the weekend about discipleship and doing small things and where God has given us opportunities to serve. I shared some thoughts with her that have been bouncing around in my heart for a few months now: thoughts that have impacted how I spend my time. Then our pastor’s sermon on Sunday morning echoed some of those same concepts.

What do you think the big work of your life is? Where are you investing your time? 

Those are powerful questions because they shape what we do. This blog- as much as I love writing and hearing from you- is not my big work. The podcast is one of the most fun things I do online but it’s not my big work. I’m speaking to a MOPS group over Skype in November and, as excited as I am about that, it’s not my big work.

My big work is right here in my daily life. My big work is the Sunday school group I gather with before morning church. It’s the d-group I meet with weekly. It’s the two minutes conversation I have with one of my volleyball girls about life. It’s getting face-to-face with my boys and stepping through the Gospel reasons we don’t hit our brothers instead of just shouting at them to stop. It’s sweeping my kitchen floor one more time before I go to bed. The big work is the parts of my life that rarely get accounted for on the internet.

The big work is the small work. It’s saying yes when you are asked to help, even if you’re uncomfortable doing it or it seems like no big deal. It’s volunteering when you see a need you can fill. It’s taking a meal to a friend, texting to tell someone you are praying for them, sending the card in the mail. It’s the prayer list you make and bring before God. It’s the moments in the Word, learning Who God is. It’s the way you live your life when you think no one is watching. Or when you know someone is watching and you have to choose between lifting up yourself or glorifying Jesus.

It’s harder to do life this way. It would be much better on my ego to try to make myself look good. Or build a big platform. But instead, in real life and on this blog, I’m sharing some of the grittier areas. I’m telling you where I’m struggling and how God is helping me or I’m asking a friend for accountability. Because that’s how we get help and how we help each other. We learn to be real with people instead of trying to look good. Last Sunday I texted a friend (during church no less!) to tell her I needed to do something that felt awkward and asked her to hold me accountable to do it. Because this life is not about me.

The real work means putting myself aside and picking up the Kingdom work I’ve been turning down because it’s uncomfortable. Or because I’d rather do something else. It’s choosing the hard way. It’s not about building a platform or having a big Instagram following- though those things aren’t bad. If they happen, great. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter. The internet is a tool. If I walked away from the internet right now, the real work of my life wouldn’t change much. I haven’t built my life around the internet. I’ve built my life around people and the work God has given me here in front of my face. As plain and sometimes boring as it is.

I know a lot of things I “should” be doing for this blog and I’ve shelved most of them. Not because I don’t care. I do actually. That’s why I still write here. But pinterest and google algorithms (as helpful as they can be) move way down the list when the other options are my boys and my husband and the women in my life.

Do I feel like I have a responsibility to use the internet well? Yes, and you should too if you use the internet. You are as much God’s woman there as you are in Sunday school or around your breakfast table. But that’s not the bulk of my real work. It wouldn’t be real there if it’s not real here: when I’m shopping in Aldi, when I’m singing, when I’m chatting with my husband over lunch.

Don’t worry about building a platform. Don’t think God can’t use you because you don’t have Facebook (bless you actually). Don’t think that the work is only being done by “famous” people. We are all doing God’s work- or we should be. You have as much Kingdom work to do as your favorite Christian “celebrity.” (And I’m not knocking them- I love them and the things I learn from them.) But the real work is done in the quiet places, even in their lives.

It’s unimpressive. It’s uncomfortable. And it’s where I want to pour my life out.