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Another gem from Seth Godin, whom I’ve quoted and recommended before:

It’s the blockbusters that get all the hype. The home runs, the viral videos, the hits. It’s the sudden shifts, the ideas that change everything, the fell swoops. Fell swoops seem like they’re worth chasing, but a hit isn’t a strategy, it’s an event. Nice work if you can get it, but hard to plan on or build on. It takes patience to avoid planning on swoops. It’s more productive to live in a house that’s built out of bricks, one at a time, day by day. (May 22, 2019)

The application to ministry is obvious, at least to me! I’ve written before about the folly of relying on big events. This is just another word picture on the same thing.

I was encouraging a young man yesterday on the importance of investing in others, just one person at a time. He’s beginning to get the picture and to think about doing that himself. He asked me, “How long do these mentoring relationships last? I expected just one conversation with you (by phone) when we started nearly a year ago and here we still are!” I replied that I was honored to invest in him, a 33-year-old, who will be doing ministry long after I’m gone.

The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office. (Hebrews 7.23, ESV)

None of us is going to be here forever: that’s as good a reason as any to invest intentionally in the next generation, brick by brick, one day at a time-building blocks, not blockbusters!

He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach. (Mark 3.14, NIV, emphasis mine)

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)