Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.

- (1 Corinthians 12:14-18)

In the most scenarios, the larger an organization gets the less significant you become. You sit in increasingly smaller cubicles. You receive more and more specific job descriptions. Their reliance on you shrinks and, in turn, your passion for the job decreases. It is easy to feel like another face in the crowd. Another easily replaced cog in the machine. But this isn’t so in Jesus’ kingdom.

In the kingdom of God, the sum of all the parts is what makes the sum so beautiful. The one who designed you and built you puts you in a specific place in his organization. And the mystery is this: no matter how large and complicated his movement gets, your significance never shrinks.

God never does anything without purpose. Without a destiny in mind. He hasn’t placed you haphazardly into the church you serve. He has carefully and deliberately place you where He wants you. He has carefully and purposefully filled your church with the people He intended to.

And beyond this, each church carries great significance. The church of fifty-five people meeting in a small, steepled building carries the same significance as the megachurch in a major city. In the body of Christ, each community of believers is unique and built for a specific purpose in the greater movement of Jesus. And in God’s economy, the hierarchy of significance is leveled. Not every church makes the same impact when it comes to numbers, but every church carries the same significance when dealing with individual lives.

Not every church makes the same impact, but every church carries the same significance.