About Being Faithful in Small Things
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This week, we have a guest writer hailing all the way from Tilbury, Ontario. Kevin Wiebe, a fellow EMC pastor of New Life Christian Fellowship, is with us to share a little about the experiences in his life that ultimately led him to write a book on poverty entitled Faithful in Small Things: How to Serve the Needy When You are One of Them, which will be published Tuesday, March 16th, 2021 by Herald Press.
Many from MEMC know pastor Kevin. We tackled his series, POV.ology, three years ago in our small groups ministry. Our two churches have prayed for one another on numerous Sunday mornings. Pastor Kevin has even attended our church Christmas party back in December 2019, when such things were still a possibility! So, it is with some excitement now that we get to hear about this new project of his that will soon be released.
I hope you enjoy what Pastor Kevin has to say!
The smell of freshly baked pizza filled the room, and I was worried that the sound of my groaning belly could be heard by my team. I was so hungry that it hurt. My high school basketball team was sitting around a table at a Boston Pizza restaurant, having just finished our first game in a tournament. While my parents allowed me to be on the team, and the school paid the cost of busing and hotels, we all had to pay for our own food for trips like this. My parents couldn’t afford to pay for the many trips and away games, so I worked evenings and weekends as a cashier to cover the costs. This time, however, I only had enough money for a few meals, so I just sat with my team as they ate, reminding myself that I would need to save my money to pay for breakfast the next day if I wanted to make it through the games. A few friends offered to buy me food or to share their own, but my pride prevented me from accepting even a single bite, as I did not want to be thought of as a charity case. I told them I wasn’t hungry, though I suspect the noises from my stomach did little to help anyone believe me. I thought about how there would have been food in our kitchen if I stayed home, but reminded myself that I had chosen this—I had done this before and could do it again.
My parents worked hard, but there were many ways I knew that our family didn’t have as much money at our disposal as most of the others around us. At one point we even lost our home and had to move hundreds of kilometres away to stay with family while we got back on our feet.
Yet I was always keenly aware that we were greatly privileged as well. For longer than I have been alive my parents would let folks live with our family who had nowhere else to go, who experienced even greater hardship than we did.
There are many stories of the financial difficulties in my life growing up. I also have many to tell of my own as an adult, having served in full-time ministry for over a decade, with the many lean times we have had to face as a result. Between my own experience and watching stories unfold in the lives of my many roommates during my upbringing, poverty has never been “just theoretical” for me.
So, imagine reading the words of Jesus that say, ‘he has no place to lay his head’ when you know what it’s like to be scared about where you will live over the days to come. Imagine reading about Jesus miraculously feeding thousands of people when you know what it’s like to be hungry. Imagine hearing Jesus proclaim good news to the poor, knowing what it’s like to not have enough yourself.
This is a huge part of the reason that the Gospel is so profound for me. It is also one of the reasons that drove me to dig into the topic of poverty as deeply as I have, first with my small group study series Pov.ology, and now with my book, Faithful in Small Things: How To Serve the Needy When You’re One of Them.
Something that I find so profound about my parents and many like them, is that they never let their own lack of worldly possessions become an excuse for not living out their faith; serving others. If we view poverty as only a lack of money, then those without that will not be able to help reduce poverty. Yet I know instinctively that this was not the case. A lot of folks that were labelled as “poor” around me as I grew up, my family included, were often incredibly generous and hospitable. This truth led me to explore alternate definitions of poverty. Once I started exploring this thought, I found that I was not disappointed.
Bryant Myers defines poverty as, “a series of broken relationships,” and this definition resonated with me on a very deep level. Such a definition of poverty made sense of so much of my life, of the reasons why we had financial difficulties, yes, but also how so many people who are considered “poor” also did so much to help one another. It provided me with a very practical framework for how all of us can help others in ways that look more like the ways of Jesus.
Faithful in Small Things is an examination of the topic of poverty and what followers of Jesus can do to address it, whether you have large amounts of money to give or not. It’s a book about a topic that is so much more than just theories and frameworks; it is about people with names and faces. For me, as I wrote Faithful in Small Things, I was exploring a topic that was and is deeply personal, and it can be this way for you as well.
My hope with Faithful in Small Things is that those who read it will come to see the image of God in those who are in need just as easily as they can see it in those who are not, and as a result, learn to serve them as if they were serving Jesus himself. I hope this comes to pass because according to Jesus when you serve others, you are also serving him.
