There’s a growing ache among many of us, a quiet yet unsettling recognition that the ways we’ve tried to broker good in the world often feel hurried, fragmented, and unsatisfying. In the age of the machine, we’re drawn to identifying what makes us human. More human. More aligned with the patient and steady patterns of God’s Kingdom, and more committed to simply showing up well.
For generations, well-meaning efforts of charity and mission have borrowed their imagination from the marketplace. We’ve talked about scaling, impact, pipelines, outputs, and ROI (return on investment).
But the Kingdom doesn’t move at the speed of markets. It moves at the pace of roots.
The Kingdom moves like seed in soil, quietly, organically, sometimes unseen for a season, yet full of divine potential.
In the industrial, then computer, then smart phone, now AI tech movements, we’re freshly drawn to a more humane pace. Modernity moves at the speed of gigabytes. The Kingdom moves like seed in soil, quietly, organically, sometimes unseen for a season, yet full of divine potential.
When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom, He didn’t describe efficiency or expansion. He told stories of farmers scattering seed (most of which, notably, fell on ground that couldn’t hold lasting fruit), of leaven working through dough, of hidden treasure slowly uncovered. The life of God is generative. It multiplies through relationship, trust, and time.
From dependency to interdependence
The gospel’s invitation is to... interdependence.
Our modern challenge is that much of what we call “mission” or “aid” still operates within a welfare imagination, well-intentioned but fundamentally flawed. When we operate out of a welfare mindset, either personally or collectively, we often start with need and end with dependency. And yet, the alternative isn’t rugged independence either. The gospel’s invitation is to something far richer: interdependence—a covenantal way of being human together where generosity and dignity flow both ways.
Wise charity is patient, relational, and catalytic.
In this posture, generosity becomes wiser, not in a mechanistic or managerial sense. Wise charity is patient, relational, and catalytic. It begins not with problems to solve but with people to know: listening before acting, learning before leading, and recognizing that God is already at work within every community.
Rather than creating dependency or centering the giver, wise charity strengthens what is local, cultivates what is already present, and invests in long-term flourishing. It shows up as servants, not saviors.
Generosity becomes... an act of participation in God’s patient, generative work in the world.
Wise charity moves at the pace of trust, resists the urge to control outcomes, and seeks to empower others as co-laborers rather than recipients. In this way, generosity becomes not an act of rescue, but an act of participation in God’s patient, generative work in the world.
Rebuilding our models
Recently, my colleague Andrew Scott and I sat with Pastor Deo in Kampala, Uganda. He told us that when he planted his church, his measure of fruitfulness wasn’t attendance or budget size. It was a community transformation. Was the neighborhood changing? Were relationships being restored? Were people experiencing dignity and hope?
Metrics for the gospel at work.
Deo is one of countless leaders God is already raising up in communities worldwide. Our calling isn’t to import a strategy, but to become the connective tissue, brokering globally connected resources and relationships in service of local expressions of God’s goodness. Those were his metrics for the gospel at work.
In the West, we often do not measure in this way. Many of our models still operate like factories. We count conversions, build campuses, and measure our success by budgets and attendance rather than community transformation. We reduce a local church to its four walls instead of recognizing the ecclesia (the called-out, scattered people of God) as the living presence of Christ in the world.
An invitation
At Scatter, the organization I work with, we believe it’s time to rediscover generative Christianity: a faith that multiplies through cultivation. It’s why we long to cultivate a collective that brokers good in the world.
Measure fruitfulness differently: by the flourishing of people, the dignity of communities, and the transformation of systems that reflect God’s peace and justice.
This kind of ecclesia values quality over quantity, formation over speed, and fruitfulness over fame. It’s more like tending a garden than managing a brand. We don’t demonize numbers or growth, but we measure fruitfulness differently: by the flourishing of people, the dignity of communities, and the transformation of systems that reflect God’s peace and justice.
As we move beyond welfare models, we’re invited into generative participation: showing up with humility, investing in good soil, and trusting God for the increase. Our generosity becomes catalytic rather than controlling. Our presence becomes a partnership, not paternalism. And all of it bends toward the peace and prosperity of the community (see Jeremiah 29:7).
We can build a more flourishing reality, together. This flourishing, in the Kingdom, is never mass-produced. It’s cultivated. And in due season, when we scatter good seed on healthy soil, God gives the growth: thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.
Originally published by Scatter. Republished with permission.
David Schmidgall loves shaping multi-lingual, multi-cultural, spiritually integrated spaces and people—through roles as executive director, pastor, spiritual director, trauma therapist, teacher, and artist. David earned his Masters in International Policy and is completing his residency in Psychotherapy. As an artist trained in Spiritual Direction, he's passionate about going deep as much as thinking wide about cultural transformation, solving intractable problems, and cultivating environments of human flourishing.
Scatter is committed to showing up well in the world and helping others do the same. They exist to inspire fresh thinking around God’s original intent for living and being in the world. They believe every Jesus follower has a role to play in God’s plan for the world—in every city, country, and sector—acknowledging that too often and for too long current paradigms of ministry, mission, and even business, implicitly bias the West as superior in theology, knowledge, means, and expertise in solving intractable problems. Scatter practices and encourages the practice of decentering oneself as the hero in the story of God in the world.
