Riding the Smaller Waves

I used to surf. Not well, but enough to learn something that has stuck with me for decades.

The small waves are where you learn to ride. Most beginners ignore them. They're watching for the big swells, the dramatic sets that lift you ten feet and carry you all the way to shore. But you can't ride those until you've practiced on the small ones. And I kept missing the small ones because I was always looking past them.

I think that's exactly where a lot of pastors are right now.

There are real signs of spiritual awakening happening around us. Gen Z church attendance has surged dramatically over the past several years. Bible sales in Britain rose 87 percent between 2019 and 2024. Young men (a demographic the church had largely written off) are showing up in unexpected numbers, hungry for structure, community, and something worth giving their lives to.

But here's the question that matters: what do we do with it?

History gives us a warning. The Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s was a genuine spiritual awakening. Young people — hippies written off by polite society — were encountering Jesus in living rooms and coffee houses and beach baptisms. It was raw and real and utterly outside anyone's program.

In the places where churches opened their doors, embraced the awkwardness, and built disciplemaking structures around those new believers, movements were born. Calvary Chapel. The Vineyard. Contemporary Christian music. Lasting fruit.

In the places where churches demanded these new believers conform to existing forms before they'd be welcomed — the awakening passed right through. Like a wave under a board.

We face the same choice today.

Awakening is what God does to hearts. Revival is what we do with awakened hearts. The difference — the entire difference — is discipleship, structure, and sustainable community.

Which means: if you're waiting for the big wave before you start disciplemaking, you'll miss both. You need to be riding the small ones right now.

What does that look like practically? Are you personally discipling people, or just running a congregation? Are the people you lead having honest conversations about their lives in light of scripture — or just consuming content? Are you and those you're equipping praying with outsiders, building genuine friendships with people far from Jesus?

The greatest per-capita spiritual awakening in recorded history happened in Hawaii from 1837 to 1843. Nearly the entire population of the islands came to faith. But here's what people forget: the missionaries who were there when the big wave hit had been riding small waves for seventeen years first. Personal salvations, small renewals, people falling away and returning. Seventeen years of what might have looked to some observers like failure.

They weren't failing. They were practicing. They were building the disciplemaking culture that could steward what God was about to do.

You may be in one of those seasons right now. It may not feel like much. A few people meeting in a living room. A handful of young adults asking real questions. Small groups forming in unexpected places.

Ride those waves. Learn from them. Build the structures. Invest in the people. Because the shape of a coming awakening is determined in part by the disciplemakers who are faithful in the small things before it arrives.

The big wave is coming. Are you ready to ride it?