Bigger Isn’t Always Better

by Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach

On July 1, 1968, Mennonite Central Committee opened up a small office on Capitol Hill, with one full-time staff person. Forty years later, the number of fulltime staff in the Washington Office has grown to six and we have moved into a larger space.

But, compared to many Washington operations, we remain pretty small. In a city where people talk daily about not just millions of dollars, but billions, our total budget doesn’t have enough zeroes to garner a second glance.

And it’s not easy to point to a lot of “success stories” as a direct result of our work. It can be rather sobering to read through previous editions of the Washington Memo.

Early MCC Washington staffers wrote about many of the same issues—hunger, poverty, civil rights, immigration, Middle East peace, military spending, nuclear weapons—that we write about today.

So if the work we’ve been doing seems small and, by some indications, ineffective, why do we keep doing it?

For me, the simplest way to answer the question is with one word: faith. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

In U.S. society—and especially here in Washington—bigger is seen as better. Fortunately, that isn’t the way God works.

A little faith can go a long way, as my pastor, Rev. Dennis Edwards, recently reminded our congregation. Jesus taught that even a small amount of faith—the size of a tiny mustard seed—could move a mountain.

It’s not a matter of struggling to gain “more” faith. Rather, it’s a matter of making sure we place it in the right person: Jesus.

And interestingly enough, God can take our small acts of faith and turn them into some big actions.

After all, not all of the topics covered in those early years of the Memo are still with us: apartheid in South Africa, U.S. military aid to Central America, and the Cold War, to name a few significant ones.

More recently, we have seen some positive movement in providing debt relief for heavily indebted nations and shifting some military aid to Colombia into social and economic assistance.

Many faithful people acted in ways, large and small, in each of these situations. And many more faithful people continue to act in response to God’s call upon their lives.

Faith provides us the assurance that the yearnings God has placed within our hearts—for a world where children can laugh and play free from violence or hunger, and for justice based on right relationships and equality—will one day be fulfilled.

For now, our hopes and convictions may seem invisible and “unseen.” But be on the lookout for mountains on the move—for a little faith can go a long way.