Chris Scott serves as Mennonite Mission Network’s Facilitator for Emerging Faith Communities and pastor at the exchange church. He works to build new faith communities and equips others to build churches where peace matters more than power.
He publishes a weekly blog, Missio Menno, covering everything from his Sunday sermons to current events. In this piece, originally published on Missio Menno on May 13, Scott reflects on the daily interactions that leave an impact, and the ones that seemingly fall out of view immediately.
Way too often, being a pastor feels like throwing seeds into the wind. And realistically, the sermon is the part everybody sees, but is probably the smallest part of what actually matters.
I do work at it. You stand up on Sunday night and say the truest thing you know how to say. You wrestle with the text all week. You scratch out notes on napkins. You delete half of what you wrote because it sounded too polished and not nearly honest enough. Then you get up in front of people and offer what you’ve got.
And by Monday lunch, you wonder if anybody remembers a word of it.
Did it land anywhere?
Did something I said help someone breathe a little easier when the week got hard? Did I help them to see something in a new way? Did one sentence stick with them while they drove to work? Or sat in a waiting room? Or stared at their ceiling at 3am?
Or was it gone before the leftovers were put away when they got home?
And yes, I know it ain’t about me. It is about the work of God. But still.
Sometimes, it feels when you protest and march and speak up for justice, the world just keeps turning the same way it always has. Like nothing you said ever changed anybody’s mind. Capitalism rolls on anyway.
I do think about all the little things that make up a life in ministry. The hospital visits. The funerals. The weddings. The coffee meetings where somebody finally tells the truth about what’s going on. The prayers whispered when there aren’t any words left. The texts that say, “Just checking in.” The advice given, sometimes good, sometimes not nearly as profound as I thought it was at the time. The nights spent listening. The moments of just being there.
Truth be told, that is the real work of being a pastor anyway. The sermon certainly is the visible part, but the day-to-day stuff is where most of the ministry happens.
And then there are the smaller things. The jokes. The songs shared. The TV shows recommended because they helped me make sense of my own life.
How many of y’all watched Ted Lasso because I told you to? Anyone?
Or did my recommendation get lost in the same place as every sermon and every carefully worded prayer?
That is the hard part. You rarely get to know.
You offer pieces of your life to people, week after week, year after year. Words. Time. Attention. Hope. Sometimes all you have to give is your presence and a lukewarm cup of church coffee.
And then you send it out into the world.
Some of it probably vanishes. Some of it maybe takes root.
Years later, someone may remember a sentence you don’t even recall saying. A prayer you spoke when you were tired. A conversation you thought was ordinary.
You may have helped keep someone alive and never know it. You may never hear about the night they sat alone in the dark and remembered one small thing you said, and decided to stay.
That thought undoes me sometimes.
Because most of what matters in this life happens quietly.
A word spoken at the right time. A sermon remembered past lunch on Monday. A story shared. A kindness repeated.
Just being there. And maybe that is enough.
Because I can still name people who changed my life and likely have no idea they did. Harvey. Sam. Cindy. Anna. Sara. A pastor. A teacher. A friend. A classmate.
They stayed on the phone, talking longer than they needed to. Or maybe even wanted to. They honestly probably went to bed that night thinking it was just another day. Maybe that is how grace works. Quietly. Slowly. Through words we barely remember saying, and kindnesses that seemed too small to count.
We keep showing up anyway.
We preach.
We pray.
We drink too much coffee.
We recommend TV shows.
We tell the truth as best we can.
And we trust that somewhere, somehow, grace gets through. And somewhere, in ways we may never see, it mattered.
