Your Community–Stretcher or Coffin?



Does your community, neighborhood, school need a coffin or s stretcher– that’s up to you…and at least 3 of your friends.  One of Jesus’ encounters found in Mark chapter 2 gives us some great guidance about how to bring healing to our communities.

After a few days, Jesus returned to Capernaum, and word got around that he was back home. A crowd gathered, jamming the entrance so no one could get in or out. He was teaching the Word. They brought a paraplegic to him, carried by four men. When they weren’t able to get in because of the crowd, they removed part of the roof and lowered the paraplegic on his stretcher. (Mark 2:1-4 The Message).

There are some prerequisites.  There has to be honest realization about the need in our communities.  Churches cannot stay internally focused, and community leaders can’t believe all the press the chamber puts out.   The situation in many of our communities and their key institutions is just like this paralytic; they are  too sick to help themselves.  The story in Mark 2 recounts the reality faced by a paralytic who was  helpless, dependent, suffering, and entirely non-productive.  He couldn’t get to healing on his own.  In order to get paralytic communities some healing, it will requires some friends.

Our communities are only going to get healed when we have at least 3 friends  working with us to carry the load.  That means that we are going to have to cooperate with other leaders from various sectors both inside and outside the community.  I have seen many church planters and pastors attempting to carry the wounded institutions of their community all on their own.  It reminds of an old western in which the wounded person is drug down the trail behind a horse, or bounced along behind just one struggling stretcher bearer.  The damage inflicted from that ordeal just makes the wound worse, and the one trying to pull that stretcher to help  ends up exhausted and frustrated.

You need three friends who can each pick up one side of the stretcher.  They might be fellow pastors, community leaders or business people.  All they need is the same attitude that we see in Mark chapter two– Desperation for their friend, and faith in Jesus that moves them to do whatever it takes to get their community to healing.  You need three friends who are determined to carry your paralyzed and sick community to the only place that can bring real healing.

I am seeing these kinds of friends work together in schools and neighborhoods all over the country.  It is never a one man operation. The best place to find those friends is among those who are already connected to that community.  They are people who are available to help and who have the resources and strength to lend a hand.  In many communities this can be seen by the shared efforts of pastors, community leaders, business people and those with enough personal resource to lend a hand.  I have the privilege of being a stretcher bearer with a number of leaders and it is a great joy to help carry their community, not to a burial, but to new vitality that changes the future for tens of thousands.

Once you have friends, you have to do what the guys did in Mark chapter two– get past the obstacles. In Jesus’ encounter with the paralytic, their were lots of things in the way– a large crowd of people all competing for his attention and a solid building around him.  We face the same obstacles, crowded priorities and structural barriers that keep communities from getting healed.

Sometimes we can’t wait our turn in line– we have to bust through the roof. We may have to bust through the structural barriers that keep our communities wounded, bring practical change to regulations, resource availability or established patterns of commerce or lifestyle.

We don’t know if all four of these friends had faith that Jesus’ could heal.  But they were at least willing to come along– some of them may have had just a little faith, and at least one knew where they were going. If at least one of you knows that healing for communities comes from addressing both the practical and spiritual condition, you can take the journey.  When you arrive, not only will communities regain their capacity to function, standing and walking home, but they will regain the freedom in their soul.  This is a journey toward holistic renewal.

Are you desperate for your community?  Are you willing to do whatever it takes?  Just one question then,  “who are your friends?”