I recall a t‑shirt sold by a local punk rock band when I was a teenager. 

The front said: 
PLAYING FOR 25,000 FANS.

The back:
25 AT A TIME.

It was funny because it was true. But if you were among the 25 at one of those sweaty church basement shows, you were glad it wasn’t 25,000. There was a connection there between artist and audience that isn’t possible at scale. Those small gigs require bravery from the artist. As any experienced musician will tell you, playing for a few is harder than playing for a few thousand. Because a small crowd isn’t a crowd; it’s Kayla, Steve, Lisa: individuals with whom you’re either connecting or not.

On the front cover of The Message, Eugene Peterson’s popular paraphrase of Scripture, the publisher sometimes adds a starburst sticker: ​“Over 15 million copies sold.” I smile and think of that old t‑shirt. 

“This is a kingdom of life we are living,” Peterson once said. ​“It has to do with salvation. It has to do with justice. It has to do with compassion, and you can’t do that wholesale. You just can’t.”

Author and pastor Winn Collier—the guest this week on the Renovaré Podcast—spent a good amount of time with the Petersons while preparing to write Eugene’s biography. He discovered that over the years they had hosted hundreds of people in their Montana home, pilgrims invited to stay for a few days and experience the rhythm of their lives. Life at home can’t be faked, at least not very well or for very long. And what Winn and these guests found in Eugene wasn’t a perfect life, but a well-paced life with integrity and beauty — a Jesus-oriented life that blessed millions by ministering to the few right in front of him.