"Useless for God" - the Holy Gift of Irrelevance

‘…the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God’s Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life. - Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus.

Completely irrelevant? It’s a line that can stop you mid-page. Surely the Church has enough problems with irrelevance already. But Nouwen was not calling for leaders to withdraw or be passive. He was speaking about a different kind of leadership, one that begins not in usefulness, but in love.

Go on a spiritual exercise with me for a moment. Imagine you are in a chair and surrounding your chair are bookshelves. Each book on the shelf celebrates a moment of success in your ministry. What are the titles? What would people say when they read the titles? Be in this place for a moment.

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Now imagine the shelves are empty and it’s just you, sat on a chair. How do you feel? What is your posture or facial expression? If people saw you and your empty shelves, what would they think or say?

In many ways, rural ministry is already fertile ground for this lesson. Those serving in scattered parishes and small communities know the quiet humility of work that often goes unseen. There are no crowds and no social media platforms clamouring for updates. The measure of faithfulness is rarely success as the wider world or even church see it. It is presence, turning up, listening and loving.

And yet even here, the temptation to prove our worth never disappears. We want to be effective, to show growth, to fill pews, to demonstrate that our efforts make a difference. But Nouwen reminds us that the deepest form of Christian service comes not from relevance or achievement, but from vulnerability. To be “irrelevant” in this sense is not to be useless, but to be free: free from the illusion that we must earn God’s love, or anyone else’s, through what we produce. There is a gift of freedom when we go under the radar.

It is profoundly countercultural. We live in a world where identity is built on output like how much we do, how well we perform or how essential we appear. But God’s kingdom works on a different economy. The good news of the Gospel is that love precedes usefulness. “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Before we do anything for Jesus, we are simply loved.

In rural ministry, this truth can take on a particular tenderness. When congregations are small and resources are few, it can feel as though what we offer barely registers. But perhaps that’s exactly the point. God’s presence is not confined to the visible, the measurable, or the impressive. It is revealed in the hidden corners and forgotten places of our everyday care and love for one another. These are the vulnerable places, the places where it’s just us, before God and before our neighbours. These quiet encounters in hidden prayer and a cup of tea.

To stand before God “with nothing to offer but our vulnerable selves” also acknowledges that it's God who does the work. Our task is not to manufacture holiness, but to be our vulnerable selves and walk in the Spirit.

Of course, this doesn’t mean giving up on action. The irrelevance Nouwen speaks of is not laziness, but honesty. The kind of honesty that knows our limits and trusts that God’s love can work even through them. When we lead from that place, something shifts. We become less anxious about results, more attentive to people, and more open to the surprising ways the Holy Spirit chooses to act through weakness. Perhaps rural ministry, in its very obscurity, is a living parable of this truth. It reminds us that faithfulness, not visibility, is the measure of discipleship.

Nouwen’s call to “irrelevance” is, in the end, a call to freedom from the exhausting need to justify our existence. It is the freedom to rest in the love that made us, redeemed us, and will not let us go. So, the next time you feel small, unseen, or unnecessary, remember this: in God’s eyes you are seen and loved.

Jo Allen

Joint CEO, Rural Ministries