The Mustard Seed Kingdom: Why Small Faithful Churches Will Conquer the World
“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” — Matthew 13:31–32 (ESV) We live in an age obsessed with size, metrics, and visibility. Mega-churches boast attendance numbers in the tens of thousands. Influencers measure success by followers, likes, and viral clips. Meanwhile, the little country church with cracked pews and thirty faithful souls on a Sunday morning is dismissed as irrelevant, dying, or “not doing enough for the kingdom.” Jesus begs to differ . Three times — in Matthew, Mark, and Luke — the Lord tells the same parable. The Holy Spirit thought it important enough to record it thrice. This is not a cute illustration about “having big faith.” This is a divine prophecy about how God’s kingdom actually advances: through what the world counts ...