On his blog, Seth Godin writes “If you want to dig a big hole, you need to stay in one place.”
I wonder how this applies to evangelism? He explains that if you take your little shovel all over town, you’ll end up with a bunch of little holes – little impact. As a marketing guru, he applies this to sales: If you make 1000 sales calls, you’re likely to get 1000 rejections. On the other hand, if you work on one person and call him ten times, you might make a sale.
Back to evangelism: I think Jesus understood the “Law of the Little Shovel” pretty well. Think about it. He spent lots of time with the same 12 people (the disciples). He used his shovel digging into the lives of the same folks every day for three years of ministry. Those guys ended up changing the world and bringing Jesus’ message to the world as we know it – big impact.
I think it’s important to realize that when we truly invest our lives in people, (the same people year after year) we will dig much deeper in transforming both them and ultimately, the world around us. We should think in terms of changing a few people greatly rather than changing a great number of people in small ways.
That’s a great quote! It makes me think of my trip to Swaziland, I want to go back so bad….to keep digging in the hole I started, but I think it would be great to do other mission trips in other countries as well…but that would kinda be like digging multiple holes…I know if I concentrate on 1 “hole” I can really dig deep and create relationships in Swaziland, but then again if I choose to go there and other places I don’t know if I’d be more worried about getting the job done or creating even more relationships? Just a few of my thoughts on this….