Mark: New Math

To begin this week I’d like to say thank you to all the volunteers who served refreshments at the Good Friday service, as well as those who braved the chilly wind and helped with our annual Easter Egg Hunt. Both events were very well received. I’m looking forward to following up this week with the families who were out Sunday morning, and seeing how the rest of their Easter turned out. There’s always an opportunity in every conversation that we have.

In saying that, at times it seems like an overwhelming task doing what we’re doing; planting a church, finding ways to care for the South End and then doing them, coming alongside people who are in crisis or in need or simply need a friend. There is always more to be done, more people to be cared for, more people who need to hear about the love of Jesus. It’d be easy to say, “If only we had more people/money/events/time in order to reach them!” But when our focus is on what we don’t have we generally fail to see what we do have. This is what happened with the disciples when they were faced with what seemed like an impossible task — how to feed over 5000 people on short notice! They looked at the task and said there’s no way. They looked at the people and said it’s not possible. They looked at the setting sun and said there’s no time. The only time they spoke to Jesus was to say it was impossible, there was no way! That’s when Jesus told them to look at what they did have — five loaves of bread and two fish — and that was enough. Jesus multiplied what little they had so that there was an abundance, more than enough for everyone to be satisfied!

Jesus + a little = more than we could ever ask for!

That is the equation that we need to have central in our lives. If we try to do everything on our own, we’ll fall short. If we wait until we have all that we think we need in place, we may miss our opportunity. If we try to go forward without Jesus we won’t get to where we need to be. We need to look to Jesus and trust that we He’s asking us to do is possible through Him, but only through Him. There is no other way.

Our gathering this Sunday is at our regular time of 6pm. There will be prayer before the service at 4:30, and this week we’ll be celebrating communion. Hope you can join us.

Pastor Mike