Think Big, Start Small, Go Deep
We serve a God who delights in using the small to confound the great.
By Clint FISHER, Dean of Students and Families
At Perimeter School, we often use heavy-weight terms: change the world, global impact, eternal significance. To the casual observer, these phrases can sound like spiritual embellishment. Can a middle school student really shift the trajectory of a city? Can a single family’s influence actually reach the ends of the earth?
If we look at the world through the lens of modern "event-based" metrics, the answer is often a discouraging "no." But when we apply a biblical framework, we discover that the most "outrageous" visions are achieved through ordinary, small-scale purposeful faithfulness.
Think Big: The Principle of the Magic Third
We often believe that to change a culture, we must first capture the masses. However, in his "Magic Third" principle, Malcolm Gladwell suggests that once a third of a culture adopts a new behavior or perspective, the shift becomes easy, natural, and inevitable.
When a student impacts his or her friend group, they are not just "being nice"; they are reclaiming a sphere for the kingdom. If that influence reaches a third of the class, the class shifts. If it reaches three grades, the school shifts. This isn't just social engineering; it is the "leaven" of the Kingdom of God working through the dough of human society.
Start Small: The Math of the Kingdom
The world is obsessed with the "Colosseum-style" gathering - the big event, the viral moment, the 20,000-person conversion. While we celebrate every soul brought to Christ, the math of "big" is surprisingly slow.
Consider the three models of growth:
The Daily Evangelist: One person led to Christ every single day. To reach the world, it would take 23 million years.
The Weekly Colosseum: 20,000 people per week. To reach a world of 8.5 billion, it would take 1,165 years.
The Discipleship Model: One person invests deeply in one new believer for a whole year. At the end of the year, there are two. The next year, those two each invest in one more, making four.
At first, the discipleship model appears to be a failure. After ten years, you have only 512 people. Today’s "influencer" would look down on such a meager "return on investment." But discipleship is the math of the kingdom.
By year 13, the discipleship model passes the daily evangelist. By year 26, it surpasses the weekly Colosseum. By year 34, the entire population of the Earth would be reached if God did not slow the process.
Go Deep: The Theology of Life-on-Life Investment
Why does this work? Because, as J.I. Packer and John Owen emphasized, true spiritual growth is not merely the transmission of information, but the "mortification of sin" and the "vivification of the Spirit" through deep, communal life.
Timothy Keller often spoke of "Center Church" - the idea that the gospel changes the heart, which changes the community, which then changes the culture. This is the "start small" mandate. We are not called to save the world in our own strength; we are called to be faithful to the person right in front of us.
When we invest in one student or one neighbor for a year, we participate in spiritual compounding interest. We are following the pattern of Christ, who spent the bulk of His ministry not with the thousands on the hillside, but with the twelve in the upper room.
The Vision for Perimeter School
Our students are experiencing a different type of leadership development because we aren't just teaching them to be "leaders"; we are teaching them to be disciples who make disciples. If they can change their friend group, they can change their grade and their school. If they can change their school, they can impact Northeast Atlanta. Eventually, through the quiet, compounding potential of discipleship empowered by the Holy Spirit, they truly can change the world.
We serve a God who delights in using the small to confound the great. Let us not despise the day of small beginnings, for it is the seed of an eternal harvest.
"For who has despised the day of small things?
Zechariah 4:10
We serve a God who delights in using the small to confound the great.