The Ordinary Person God Uses
There is a version of the story of fulfilling the Great Commission that makes it sound like this requires a certain kind of person — exceptional, anointed, and larger than life. Someone who prayed for three years before anything happened. Someone with a calling so dramatic it could be a movie.
I have been privileged to work alongside people who have catalysed genuine disciple-making movements on multiple continents. And the thing that strikes me most about them is how ordinary they are.
Not ordinary in the sense of unimportant, but ordinary in the sense of available, regular people. You would never pick them out in a crowd. They are the exact opposite of the kind of people often seen on mega-church stages.
What God Seems to Be Looking For
Look at the pattern in Scripture and you find it quickly. God chooses the younger son, the one with the speech impediment, the fishermen instead of the rabbinical scholars, and the woman at the well. The pattern is consistent enough that Paul names it directly: God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27).
This is not false modesty dressed up as theology. It is how God actually works. The person He uses is not always the most credentialed. It is the person who is most yielded to Him, and often the one who would never even imagine that God would use them.
I have watched this play out on multiple continents over three decades. The people who catalyse movements are usually not the ones I would have picked.
They are the ones who said yes and obeyed when others were still calculating the cost. They heard and did what they learned, and they were not content with simply knowing the content.
The Disqualifications That Do Not Disqualify
I hear it from both sides of the world. A pastor in a Western context says, “I do not have a pioneering personality.” A house church leader in South Asia says, “I only studied to class five.” A movement trainer in East Africa says, “I am too young for God to use me powerfully.”
Imagine sitting in a room where those voices are all part of the same conversation — each one convinced that their particular limitation is the reason it cannot happen through them. Now imagine Jesus in the room with them. What would He say to that?
These feel like disqualifications to these dear ones, but they are not.
What actually keeps people from being used in multiplication is not a lack of gifts. It is an unwillingness to be inconvenienced and to take action. Sometimes it comes in the form of an insistence on controlling outcomes or a preference for being served rather than serving.
Ordinary people who are willing to be disrupted by God — that is the profile of the kind of people I have seen God use to reach the unreached. These people are incredible, not because they are extraordinary in themselves, but because they are available to God.
The Question Worth Sitting With
If the ordinary person is the one God uses, then the question is not whether He could use you. That question is already answered.
The question is whether you are willing to be the ordinary person — not waiting until you feel ready, not waiting for a platform, not waiting for permission — who says yes to the person in front of you today. And if you are a leader, the question is whether you are willing to equip and release that kind of person.
Movements do not start with exceptional people having exceptional experiences. They start with ordinary people making ordinary obedience a habit. And then they grow.
If this is stirring something in you, I would love to have you join us in the Dare to Multiply membership community — where we go deeper into exactly this kind of practical, reproducible discipleship and encourage one another toward it. You will find friends and other disciple-makers there to share ideas, prayer needs, and meaningful discussions around these things.
Some Questions to Think About and Discuss
- What “disqualification” have you been holding onto that might not actually disqualify you?
- Who is the ordinary person in your context that God might be wanting to use — someone you never thought about equipping?
- What would one act of ordinary obedience to the Great Commission look like for you this week?
Membership support is also a meaningful way to partner with and contribute to Godfred Kyere’s ministry as his work continues to expand.
