by Reid Matthias

It’s when darkness sets in and the stars begin their nocturnal swim through the night sky thatI remember I am not living on the plains of the Midwestern United States.

When I look up, as if in a snowless snowglobe the sparkling balls of burning gas billions of kilometres distant remind me how tiny I am and how far away I live from the memories of my youth. The beauty of the southern constellations reminds us that the vastness of God’s creation is immeasurable. I feel small and incurably insignificant — not an uncommon event when looking at the stars — and I am reminded that everything in existence seeks to be big (or bigger).

Unfortunately, we’ve been duped into thinking bigger is better. I’ve been pondering the things that are getting bigger but not necessarily better. Take, for instance, fast food. In previous decades a hamburger, fries and softdrink would suffice for the average hungry consumer. Now, if I walk into a restaurant that welcomes me with golden arches, as if welcoming me through the doors of heaven, I can’t even get a normal size burger. The advertising for the ‘super-size’ — which, I believe, is larger than my stomach to start with — seems to tell the consumer, ‘You’ll be more satisfied with the biggest. If you have the biggest, you’ll have the most pleasure.’

Some would offer the same thing about churches. Unless you are part of the biggest, with the most technological gadgets; unless you are part of an ecclesiastical multi-cellular organism, which divides and grows and takes up more and more space until ... until you must purchase more land for a bigger building; until this happens, you will not have joy. This is the kind of talk that Jesus wanted to change. Often his object lessons were about the smallest things — the mustard seed, the faith of a child, children themselves — because in the midst of smallness is great beauty.

Perhaps that is why I’ve been called to the Lutheran Church of Australia. There is nothing wrong with ‘big churches’ or ‘growing churches’ but some of the most faithful people in the world inhabit the realm of small church at 8.00 am on Sunday mornings. At my little church on the prairie, Green Pastures Lutheran Church, Lockrose, Queensland, I find a great treasure every Sunday morning, standing in the midst of faithful people who reach out with their spiritual arms, stretching for the gospel, like the hungry reaching up for food. I am one of those reaching out in the midst of ‘smallness’, longing to connect to the God who has created the beauty of the stars and the love for all people, in the littlest of places.

Even a little church on the prairie.

Reid Matthias is pastor of Green Pastures Lutheran Church, Lockrose, Queensland.