Matthew 14:13-21

James Galloway

I love prayer.

Seriously.

In fact prayer and fasting are not only regular personal disciplines of my own but also as a church, BCC is actively engaged in both, with a focus especially on stimulating the 'Google generation's' interest. The reason this interest must be stimulated is primarily because prayer seems to have been hijacked by the 'weird & wackos'. A younger person really doesn't want to be 'weird & wacko' and thus stays away.

Prayer doesn't have to be weird and wacko. Especially when following the model of Jesus.

It's not just the 'weird & wacko' that hijack prayer. The church pastor does too!

Obviously, I'm aware that I may be causing a little controversy here so I had better explain.

Read the story of the feeding of the five thousand again.

There is a very small thing that Jesus did that reveals to me that prayer is only one, yes an important one, but only one of the dynamics that a leader has to work with.

Matthew 14:13-21 tells of a story where Jesus initially offers the disciples an experience to show there entrepreneurial skills when he says, "You feed them."

Oh, for sure the people were hungry. Absolutely it had been a long day listening to Jesus preach. The crowds would have been ready for a meal or at least refreshments. The disciples were very quick to point the issue out to Jesus but less quick to do something about it.

Right here is the lesson that I think this passage can reveal to a church leader. We are very good at pointing out what is wrong with society, what is not biblical and needs rectifying in a certain community, even what is not working in our churches. We talk to Jesus about it often, but Jesus actually gave the disciples the opportunity to do something about it and it totally freaked them out.

If the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us then I am of the firm opinion that merely talking to Jesus about the issues we face so that He can sort them out is not enough. Jesus is giving His Church the opportunity to spring into action and feed the crowd, solve the problem or deal with the issue at hand.

Evidently Jesus has to step in and show the disciples how it was done.

After discovering what resource was available, five loaves and two fish, Jesus did something so simple and yet so profound. The Bible says that he ordered the people to sit down.