As we mingle and talk here at the retreat, all of us as leaders are very excited about the recent changes in service times and format and the new classes being offered. The feedback has been positive, and we are encouraged that this will enable us to do a better job of making community accessible in the church and facilitating people connecting to God, the church and to each other.

This morning, Ron, who leads our First Connections and People Ministry shared some thoughts from Mark 9 where a man had brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus’ disciples while Jesus, John, James and Peter were up on the Mount of Transfiguration. The disciples were powerless to help. Ron’s very transparent application was how we are often faced with people who have such serious problems that we are overwhelmed. He also took us down further in the text where Jesus taught that “this type” comes out only by prayer and fasting. Ron had a great thought – prayer is connecting to God and fasting is disconnecting from the world. We are all blessed and challenged by his words.

Here are some of the take-away thoughts that came to my mind as I listened and as we later interacted together about this passage:

• Seeing people with great problems come to our church is answer to prayer! We have prayed to do a better job of reaching those who are not reached. That people are seeing the lives of others transformed and coming to check it out themselves is great! Aren’t these the type of people we are supposed to reach?
• I love Jesus’ response to those who complained that his disciples had not been able to help this father and his son. He said, “Bring them to me.” We don’t have to do something, build something or try ourselves to fix the broken lives of other people. We can’t! We couldn’t even fix our own lives. Our job is to bring people to Jesus, not to us or our church as though we are the ones who have some magic bullet. Our job is to point them to Jesus.
• Here’s what we can do – we can learn to be more sensitive to hurting people, go out of our way to understand what they are dealing with and be patient with them as God begins to work transformation in their lives. We have no power in ourselves to solve people’s problems, but we can sure do what we can to keep the pathway to Jesus cleared from obstacles. Too often churches put obstacles in the pathway to Jesus instead of clearing them out.
• We can be a safe place and a non-judgmental environment for fallen people to connect to God, but we never have to compromise the truth of scripture, the power of our own choices and their consequences, both good and bad. Who we are is a combination of God’s sovereignty, our environment and genetic makeup, and the choices we make. The only element over which we have control is our free will to make choices. We don’t have to go through life as victims.
• Because of that same power of choice, not everyone is going to be made whole. Some people want a magic solution but don’t want to make the right choices to allow God’s power to work transformation in their lives. Not even all those who came to Jesus came away fixed. The rich young ruler, for example, went away sad because he was not willing to follow the counsel Jesus gave him. It’s also interesting to observe that Jesus didn’t chase him and beg him as he walked away.
• Balance – God is answering prayer by bringing us people with great problems and great needs, but he is also bringing some absolutely wonderful and amazing new people to our church who simply have it together! That’s great, because we need all of them to help us reach out to those who need help.