Alright, I admit it: I am a Lord of the Rings Junkie. I have the books, the movies based on the books, and the books based on the movies based on the books. In case you don’t know what I am talking about, let me explain. The Lord of the Rings is a set of three books published in 1954 and 1955: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. These three books were transformed into three movies, released in theaters over the last three Christmases. Combined, the movies have made an obscene amount of money, over a billion dollars worldwide. Yet, in my opinion, they have remained mostly true to the author’s original intent.

The author of the books was a British university professor named J.R.R. Tolkien, a Catholic believer and a contemporary of C.S. Lewis. He never intended the books to be allegorical – that is, a direct one-to-one reference to something else. His books were never a direct re-telling of the Gospel story. But his Christian world-view can be seen time and again.

Frodo Baggins is a hobbit. Hobbits are a pleasant, care-free group, only ¾ size of humans, and fairly insignificant in the big scheme of life in Middle-earth. A ring comes into Frodo’s possession. This Ring, forged by the dark lord Sauron, would give virtually limitless power to its wearer. If this Ring ended up in Sauron’s hand again, Middle-earth would be undone.

The only hope to defeat Sauron, once again rising in power with his hordes of goblins, is for Frodo to take the Ring to the fires of Mount Doom, from which it was forged, and throw it into the blaze. It is a journey that would take months, and would require facing frightening wraiths, ravenous wolves, fire demons, treachery from friends, and Gollum, a creature who himself had been like Frodo but had been twisted by the power of the Ring. Add to all this the fact that the Ring has a mind of its own and actually wants to return to Sauron, and the odds of Frodo’s success decrease significantly.

To say Frodo succeeded is to minimize what actually happened at the fires of Mount Doom, but I dare not give the scene away either. The fact is, the Ring is destroyed, Sauron is defeated, and peace once more reigns in Middle-earth.

What I find engrossing is the fact that Tolkien chose a hobbit, of all things, to carry out this mission. He could have chosen the wise and benevolent wizard Galdalf. He could have chosen the king-in-waiting Aragorn. He could have chosen the strong and moral elf Elrond. The fact is, almost anybody could have been better to destroy the Ring than Frodo Baggins. On second thought, perhaps not. Frodo was not chosen for his great abilities but for his great qualities: faithfulness, persistence, goodness… His innocence and child-like faith in others made him the perfect candidate for the mission.

Sometimes pastors feel like hobbits. We battle feelings of insignificance. We question our mission here on earth – not necessarily God’s mission in general, but our personal mission specifically. What does it matter what I do? Who sees me? Isn’t it silly to think that someone else can’t do the job better than me? Do those people need one more well-planned Bible study if they are not already living out the one I preached last week? Who am I to be here?

Perhaps God chooses us for the same reasons Tolkien chose Frodo Baggins: because we say yes. Because we are willing to be here, plugging away in this place. Because we are good people.

Someone once said we know that God must love small churches because He made enough of them. And each one needs someone to love it. That means that pastor must be willing to be small. That is, he or she must be willing not to be known by all the masses, to be known by only a handful of people in the community, and to be obscure.

Is that a reflection of the person’s gifts and abilities? Some would likely say yes, citing the parable of the talents, concluding that faithfulness in a small church leads to opportunities in bigger churches.

Personally, I draw strength from Francis Schaeffer, who wrote: "There are no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people… But if a Christian is consecrated, does that mean he will be in a big place instead of a little one? The answer, the next step, is very important: As there are no little people in God’s sight, so there are no little places… We all tend to emphasize big works and big places, but all such emphasis is of the flesh. To think in such terms is simply to hearken back to the old, unconverted, egoist, self-centered Me."

Could it be that pastoring small churches is not a punishment for lack of abilities or unfaithfulness to use those abilities? That as a result of more talents or more faith, I’d "move up" in the world? I’d like to think not. I’d like to think that the Author knew exactly what He was doing when He put me where I am. Romans 9:20 asks: "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’"

Small-church pastors need to spend less time thinking of other fields, and spend more time caring for their own. Like Frodo Baggins, we small-church pastors need to remain faithful to our mission, despite our size. Zechariah 4:10 asks the question, "Who despises the day of small things?" God doesn’t.