The “Small Things” of Pastoral Care
If you asked a pastor or elder to describe how he tends the flock, he’d likely mention phone calls, coffee conversations, prayers, hospital visits, text messages—a lot of small, ordinary things.[1] The simplicity of these activities sometimes calls into question their effectiveness, and the repetition of doing them year after year can make us weary. After yet another visit, another phone call, another Scripture shared, what has changed? Are these things helping at all?
Often, caring for people spiritually is simply about helping them take the next little step. Usually there’s a larger goal that they (and you) want to reach—reconciliation, forgiveness, sobriety, restoration—but that can seem many years distant, maybe altogether unattainable. Yet we begin today with small steps like these:
- Urging someone who thinks they have lost their faith to start reading the Bible again—even just one psalm a day.
- Persuading the man enslaved by his addiction to pick up the phone and have the first conversation with an addiction counselor.
- Inviting a straying member to come to worship again, even though it has been years.
- Challenging a combative husband and wife to show each other one act of Christian love each day.
These are small things. The idea of rebuilding a marriage or restoring a wandering member can overwhelm us, but we simply need to start somewhere and trust in God to bless our efforts.
Encouragement from Zechariah
Centuries ago, Zechariah encouraged God’s people with this promise: “Whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice” (Zech. 4:10). The prophet was addressing Judah’s dismay over the insignificant progress that they had made in rebuilding the temple. The stones of the foundation had been laid, but there was so much more to do.
During Solomon’s golden age, God’s house had been magnificent. But then the Babylonians pillaged it and razed it to the ground. Decades later, the reconstruction could never hope to match the temple’s former grandeur—and the people knew it (Ezra 3:12). It seemed like an impossible task: rebuilding a house for God in a time when human and material resources were sorely lacking.
However, Zechariah reminds us that small beginnings should never be despised—not when God is working by His mighty Spirit. For God can always give great reason to rejoice again. With his help and strength, there’s no telling how blessed the outcome of “the day of small things” will be.
So it is for our work in the church. The most glorious, everlasting foundation has been laid, and that foundation is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11). If pastors are building on him, they need not despair. Christ can make something of this little gesture toward repentance. He can bless this new beginning. He can cause the smallest seed to bear abundant fruit. We believe that Christ can do it, and we plead with him to do so.
This makes another word from Zechariah so encouraging for those who serve the church: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6). It’s a profound reminder about whose help we need to be faithful and fruitful servants of Christ. In ministry, there are moments of proud self-reliance when we must hear this humbling truth: No matter how capable we are, the results aren’t up to us. But also in times of worry, in seasons of cynicism or weariness, we can gain great strength from this promise: the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts is still moving among His people.
Pastor, do not despise the day of small things, but always depend on the mighty Spirit of Christ.
[1] For more on this theme, see Reuben Bredenhof, The Ministry of Small Things: Wisdom for Those Who Serve the Church (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2026).