Bashan Ministries - A small beginning

Though your beginning be small, In the end you will grow very great.
Ask the generation past,
Study what their fathers have searched out—For we are of yesterday and know nothing; Job 8:7-9

If you have stood beneath an old, aged English Oak tree and marveled at its majestic stature, you may find it hard to understand that this specimen started with a humble acorn. The Mustard Tree seen above is also a large tree and it began life as one of the smallest seeds in nature.
As we start to delve into this topic, it would be good to remember that a small beginning is still a beginning.
We believers like to see growth in our churches and ministries as I do, but I am acutely aware that we are not all alike.
We are not all “Oak Trees” or “Mustard Trees”.
It may be a foolish analogy perhaps but I hope this sets the stage for our message.

I suppose that we like to have big churches with all the activities that occur in them and I have had my share of those things.
They all start small, with an idea or dream and I hope as a result of the Lord’s bidding.
That stately oak may have taken 30, 40 or 100 years to reach that stage. Its roots go down deep to weather storms and the branches and leaves provide shelter for the birds and shade for animals, but the Oak Tree has very slow growth.

Fruit bearing trees may take many years before the fruit starts to appear, so there is more to all this than meets the eye.

As for churches, I planted quite a few. Often times it was just me, in a home meeting with a few families, then a venue was hired.
More people started to come and the numbers grew, 30, 40, 50, 100 and the last time I checked, several had purchased their own property and built churches seating hundreds. I did not cling to “my church” because it was not mine, but the Lord’s. I never claimed the sheep, because He is the Good Shepherd and they are His sheep. When we can let go it may be considered as planting a seed and the Lord of the harvest is permitted to do what He desires. I’ve been in churches of 2 to churches of 20 thousand and the principle remains the same.

My present ministry started with just the three of us, my wife and me and the Lord, for a very long time. There were times when we wanted to quit for a variety of reasons. We received opposition from other ministers and from family. We were lied to and lied about, had property stolen from us, had no financial support and wondered if we had heard from the Lord or if it was all a figment of our imagination. But we had a word from Him and a promise that was confirmed in amazing ways from others like visiting preachers who were prophets indeed.
Some described in great detail part of the vision that the Lord had given me but kept mostly in my heart. Now, we reach into 28 nations with the unadulterated Word of God and have had an impact on some 1730831 people. It is Tuesday May 12 as I write and already this week there have been 1093 visits to this existing web site. I am building a new and better one and God alone knows that might happen.

My dear friends in the ministry, I am only sharing that to illustrate that with God, anything is possible. If we get on side with Him, listen to His voice and do as He says, what might seem small and insignificant to you, does not seem to be achieving anything, you feel alone and no one else cares is not necessarily so.

If God asked you to do that thing, that little mustard seed you have can become something big and important to God.
It might not be big by comparis0n to large ministries and mega churches but big to Him
Some of the “big ministries” are actually small in His sight. Read what Jesus said about churches in the first few chapters of Revelation.

I’ve been in many such places and believe me, they are not what they portray on the outside. Stay faithful to the call that God has placed on you and don’t envy them or try to emulate them.

You see, things are not always what they appear to be. In Matthew 13:11, Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed.

It was profound teaching, yet so very simple we may easily want to look for some “deep meaning”. It is brief, almost understated and at first glance it appears to offer a simple observation that something small grows into something large, but its very simplicity conceals a far more demanding vision of reality.

The term He used is kokkō sinapeōs. The word kokkō refers to an extremely tiny grain, something so small that it can be overlooked without a second thought. There is nothing impressive about it at all. There is nothing that would draw attention, but what is remarkable is that this is where the Kingdom begins.

He was talking about a principle, or the way God does things. We sometimes get the term kingdom mixed up between God’s rulership and the physical place. Heaven is a physical place. I’ve been there and we shall all be there soon but the Kingdom refers to God’s domain, His throne of authority, His Kingdom dominion and thus the way things work. We tend to look at things differently. We want to align everything according to our human expectations and whilst there is nothing “wrong” with that approach, such an attitude can fall short of the mark. I suppose this is why Paul encouraged us to grow in the Lord, to reach full maturity, to learn how to plumb the depths, the length and breadth and height of it all and prayed that we would have understanding, or as I like to put it, revelation knowledge.

Kingdoms in the ancient world were associated with visibility, strength, order, physical power or materialistic prosperity.
They announced themselves through power and scale, but the Kingdom of heaven is likened to something nearly invisible, something that enters the world quietly, without fanfare or spectacle. A “seed” , (zera) is never merely a small object. It is a bearer of future, a contained promise, a beginning that already holds within itself what is yet to unfold.

The emphasis is not on size, but on its potential.

What appears insignificant is, in fact, already complete in its essence, even if its fullness is not yet visible. In agriculture, plants can be propagated by seed that when placed in the ground, by some mysterious process, immediately starts a reaction that does not happen otherwise.

Jesus said:

“The reign of Elohim is as when a man scatters seed on the ground, then sleeps by night and rises by day, while the seed sprouts and grows, he himself does not know how.

“For the soil yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the completed grain in the head.

“And when the crop is ready, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

And He said, “To what shall we compare the reign of Elohim? Or with what parable shall we present it?

“Like a mustard seed, which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth, and when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all plants, and forms large branches, so that the birds of the heaven are able to nest under its shade.”
Mark 4:26-32

He revealed that there is a gradual unfolding, an order of progression that starts with a seed, a time of waiting, a time of the first signs of life, a period of growing and then at harvest time, the reward arrives.

The seed, the species according to its kind has life and potential hidden inside it.
On some occasions, the fruit is not produced for a considerable time afterwards.
My mother planted an avocado seed that grew into a tree, but no fruit came on it for seven years. Plant nurseries can hasten the process by grafting of course. I learned tissue culturing and it is a fascinating thing but the plant still has to grow and mature in real life later.

The growth of the mustard seed is described in a way that subtly disrupts expectation. What begins as something negligible develops into a form so expansive that it is spoken of as a “tree,” a place where the birds of the air come to rest.
Great trees symbolize kingdoms that offer shelter and stability, as seen in texts like Ezekiel and Daniel, but the comparison in this parable is deliberately unexpected.

The Mustard was not a majestic cedar.
It was a common, fast-spreading plant, known for its tendency to grow rapidly and beyond control. Today we have certain plants that are termed to be noxious. We go to great lengths to eradicate those things.

This mustard seed did not fit neatly into cultivated order.

It reframes the nature of the Kingdom. It does not emerge according to human categories of beauty, structure, or predictability. Its growth is real, but it does not always take on the appearance we like to associate with church activity.

We should consider what “growth “ really means.
The Kingdom does not expand merely through visible strength or organized form. It moves through processes that are often hidden, gradual and at times even disruptive to established expectations.
What begins quietly does not remain confined to its point of origin.
It does not follow a pattern that can be easily managed or anticipated.
Remember that Jesus said that the Spirit blows how, as, where and when He listeth, not in the set, rigid, predictable and planned formats often seen.

There are moments when what we carry feels too small to matter.
It may be a prayer that seems unnoticed, a decision that feels insignificant, or a beginning that lacks visible confirmation.

The parable does not dismiss such moments. Instead, it reframes them. What is hidden when planted in obscurity may already contain more than it appears to hold. What seems limited at the outset may, over time, extend far beyond its initial form.
The modern impulse is to try to accelerate results, but this often leads to premature births, or deformities.

Growth, in the biblical sense, is not forced. It unfolds according to a rhythm that cannot be hurried.

Seeds do not strive to become trees—they remain within the process that allows transformation to occur. There is a scriptural rhythm of promise, waiting, transformation and, finally, fulfillment. Each stage is necessary and none can be bypassed without distorting the whole.

What this means to us is that we don’t need something impressive to begin, because what is small, when placed in His hands, already carries the promise of becoming. In fact our entire salvation is like that. We are saved. We are being saved and we shall be saved.
We are becoming what we already are.

The parable does not offer us any dramatic conclusions. Instead, it leaves us with a reoriented perspective.

Smallness is not a sign of absence or a lack of “success”.
Being hidden is not a sign of inactivity.
Delay is not a sign of failure. What begins as a seed may already be carrying the fullness of what it is meant to become and for that reason, what seems ordinary, or even negligible, should not be dismissed too quickly. It may already be in the process of becoming something far greater than it appears!

I just want to remind you of something simple, but easy to forget—not everything important in your life needs to feel big right now.

Some things are still seeds. The small steps you’re taking, the quiet decisions, even the things no one else sees matter more than they seem and even if you don’t feel growth yet, it doesn’t mean nothing is happening.

A journey of few meters starts with the first step. So too a journey of a thousand kilometers starts with the same first step.

Sometimes and perhaps more often than we think, the most meaningful things begin slowly and quietly.

Don’t pressure yourself to see results immediately, or allow anyone else to do that to you, but instead trust what is already there.

Allow yourself to grow at your own pace, without rushing it and remember that what might seem small to you is not small in God’s eyes.