{"id":1103,"date":"2010-01-30T16:30:44","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T21:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"\/news_blogs\/john\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2024-12-23T18:19:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T23:19:52","slug":"a-small-team-doing-big-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2010\/01\/30\/a-small-team-doing-big-things\/","title":{"rendered":"A Small Team Doing Big Things"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My wife’s family was a bluegrass gospel band, and classical music was not part of their repertoire. So when I bought tickets for us to see Die Fledermaus<\/em>, a comic opera by Johann Strauss (in English), she told me this would be her first experience of a live, professional orchestra. To whet her appetite, I played a record (yes, this was 1983) with the Overture<\/a><\/em> over and over again during the weeks leading up to the event. I think this is the most beautiful<\/em> overture ever written! Right up there with the most romantic<\/em> overture ever written\u2014Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet<\/em> (part 1<\/a> and part 2<\/a>). The strings just make your heart soar!<\/em> “Sigh!”<\/em> And, of course, the most exciting<\/em> overture is Tchaikovsky’s 1812<\/em> (part 1<\/a> and part 2<\/a> – complete with pyrotechnics)! There, I’ve just given you about a 45-minute, very delightful concert. But I digress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember that as the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony <\/a>orchestra1<\/a><\/sup> took their seats in the pit, my wife expressed surprise at how small it was (about 30 people I think, a lot fewer than the number in the YouTube<\/em> performance I linked to above). She imagined that unmic’d orchestras must have a lot more people to get the rich sound that was on the record. And then, only a few bars into the overture, she whispered in amazement “That sounds just like the record<\/em>!!!”  Yes, a small group of people produced a very large sound. In fact, they sounded just like a ‘real’ orchestra!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Size and Impact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It’s amazing what a small group can do that is out of all proportion to its size. Think about the dozen apostles. About Paul and his missionary team. A small group can change the world! One of my staff members said that at CCCC “we are a small team doing big things.” I love that thought!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dream of many small ministries, while often not stated, is to become a big ministry. At CCCC, we have close to 10% of all Christian ministries as members, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be 100%! Thinking like this, though, focuses your attention on how small you are now. And then you run the risk of wondering if you are really accomplishing anything as a small ministry. This angst could become an impediment to your current success. I’d like to say a few encouraging words to the smaller ministries of Canada (next post<\/a> I’ll say something to the larger ministries). What I’m going to say could apply to larger ministries too, but they have to work a lot harder than smaller ministries to get these advantages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is that Christian ministries in Canada are very small. Based on the 22,000 T3010’s for Christian ministries that we have in our database at CCCC (and assuming they are correctly filled out):<\/p>\n\n\n\n