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I just noticed that Jesus raised the widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7.11 – 17) in front of A LOT of people:

Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. (Luke 7:11 – 12, ESV, emphasis mine)

I take two lessons from this observation.

• Jesus gave everyone a chance to know who he was and believe on him. From the feeding of the 5,000, which probably involved more than 15,000 people counting women and children, to this event in Luke 7. Lots of people saw. More people heard because the story ends with, “And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.” (Luke 7.17, ESV)
• Jesus, however, did not trust in the effectiveness of these big events. He continued to spend most of his time and invest most of his energy into training the twelve. “And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach.” (Mark 3.14, ESV)

We know that the “with him” strategy of investing in a small number of people paid way more dividends than attracting thousands to spectacular events because there were only 120 in the Upper Room in Acts 1.15! Where were the thousands who were fed on several occasions? Where were the folks who saw him raise the dead?

Let’s keep doing whatever we can to reach everyone using, even, big events. However, let’s not put too much faith into the spectacular. Jesus didn’t:

During the time he was in Jerusalem, those days of the Passover Feast, many people noticed the signs he was displaying and, seeing they pointed straight to God, entrusted their lives to him. But Jesus didn’t entrust his life to them. He knew them inside and out, knew how untrustworthy they were. He didn’t need any help in seeing right through them. (John 2.23 – 25, MSG)