She Did What She Could

SERVING & GROWING

"She hath done what she could."
(Mark 14:8)

We Can't Do Everything

Small churches can have big hearts.

We see people who are lonely. Families struggling financially. Young people who need
encouragement. Older neighbors who need companionship. People dealing with illness, grief,
addiction, broken relationships, and uncertainty. There are children who need mentors,
community organizations that need volunteers, missionaries who need support, and neighbors
who may simply need someone to invite them to dinner.

Then someone asks: What should our church do?

The easiest answer is: Everything.

Unfortunately, it is also an impossible answer. A church—especially a small church—cannot do
everything for everybody. However, perhaps God never asked us to. Maybe the better question is:

What has God placed before us that we can do particularly well?

Jesus once said something remarkably simple about a woman who understood that. "She did what
she could." Mark 14:8

An Extravagant Act

Mark 14 tells us that Jesus was in Bethany, eating in the home of Simon the leper, when a woman
entered carrying an alabaster jar of expensive perfume. She broke the jar and poured the perfume
over Jesus' head. Some of those watching were indignant.

What a waste! The perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor.

On the surface, their argument sounded reasonable. There were certainly poor people who needed
help. There were countless other needs around them. But Jesus defended her.

"Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me."
— Mark 14:6

Then comes a remarkable sentence:

"She hath done what she could."
— Mark 14:8

She didn't feed every hungry person. She didn't heal every sick person. She didn't solve every
problem in Jerusalem. She recognized the opportunity God had placed immediately before her—
and acted. There is wisdom in that for us.

Faithfulness Requires Choices

Choosing one thing usually means not choosing something else. That can make Christians
uncomfortable. If we help seniors, what about children? If we support a food pantry, what about
homelessness? If we focus on people living nearby, what about missions overseas? If we invest our
energy in three ministries, what about the ten other good ideas we could pursue?

However, “good" and "God is asking us to do this" are not necessarily the same thing.

Jesus Himself encountered more human need during His earthly ministry than any one person
could possibly address. People wanted His attention. Crowds searched for Him. The sick came to
Him. His disciples sometimes had their own ideas about what He should do next, yet Jesus
regularly withdrew to pray (Luke 5:15–16). He moved from one place to another. He chose where to
go, whom to teach, and eventually whom to prepare to continue His ministry.

Even Jesus' earthly ministry demonstrated focus. Focus isn't a lack of compassion. Sometimes
focus is what allows compassion to become action.

A Small Church Has Particular Gifts

This is where being a small church may actually help us.

• We don't have unlimited people.
• We don't have unlimited money.
• We don't have unlimited time.
• We probably cannot create a program for every need we encounter.

But we have something else. We have our own people.

• People who know how to cook.
• People who can repair things.
• People who pray faithfully.
• People who teach; people who can sit across a table from someone and listen.
• People who make music and art.
• People who have accumulated decades of wisdom.
• People who understand grief because they grieved.
• People who understand hardship because life has not always been easy.

Those aren't small resources. Those are Kingdom resources. Perhaps strategic planning in a
church begins not by asking, "What are other churches doing?"

Perhaps it begins by asking: "What has God already placed in our hands?"

Living It Today: What Should We Do?

As our church thinks about outreach, we could begin with three questions.

1. What needs do we actually see?
   • Not every problem in the world. Our community. Our neighbors. The people God has placed near us.
     Who is lonely?
   • Who needs encouragement?
   • Where are families struggling?
   • What organizations are already doing good work that we might strengthen rather than
     duplicate?
2. What has God placed in our hands?
   • What are we genuinely good at?
   • What do people in our congregation care deeply about?
   • Where do we already have relationships, experience, credibility, or unusual gifts?
   • Sometimes the best ministry isn't something entirely new.
   • It is something God has quietly been preparing us to do for years.
3. What can we do faithfully?

This may be the most important question.

Not: What could we start?

But: What could we sustain?

One meaningful ministry done consistently may accomplish far more than six exciting ideas that disappear after three months. A small church doesn't have to imitate a large church.

• We don't need their staff.
• We don't need their programs.
• We don't need their budget.
• We need to discover our assignment.

From the Church Archives

The Early Church and the Ministry of Ordinary Christians

Faith Through the Ages Timeline

This article connects Jesus' affirmation—“She did what she could”—with the focused, practical
service of the earliest Christian communities.

✓ Apostolic Church (A.D. 30–100)
✓ Apostolic Fathers (A.D. 70–150)
✓ Ante-Nicene Church (A.D. 150–325)
○ Imperial Church (A.D. 325–590)
○ Early Medieval Church (A.D. 590–1054)
○ High Middle Ages (A.D. 1054–1517)
○ Reformation (A.D. 1517–1648)
○ Evangelical Awakenings (A.D. 1648–1900)
○ Modern Church (A.D. 1900–Present)

Reflection

There will always be more needs than we can meet. More good ideas than we can pursue. More people
than we can personally help. That doesn't mean we have failed. The woman at Bethany didn't do
everything. Jesus said:

"She did what she could."

Perhaps that is a pretty good description of a faithful small church. We cannot do everything for everybody. But we can notice the people God places around us. We can discover the gifts He has already placed among us. We can choose a few things that matter. And then we can do them extraordinarily well—with consistency, generosity, and love. So as we think about what comes next for our church, perhaps our prayer should not be:

"Lord, show us everything that needs to be done."

We already know that list is endless. Perhaps our prayer should be:

"Lord, show us what You have given us to do—and help us do it faithfully."

Our Commitment to Faithful Adherence to God's Word

We seek to present Scripture as the final authority for faith and practice while drawing upon the best available historical scholarship to help readers understand how Christians have interpreted and lived out biblical truth throughout the centuries. Historical sources illuminate the Church's witness but never supersede the authority of God's Word.