Pressure

Popularity can be overwhelming.

Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him;  hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon.  He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, "You are the Son of God!" But he sternly ordered them not to make him known. He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. - Mark 3:7-19a

Mark gives us a potentially frightening picture of the popularity of Jesus.

He has been curing people and word has spread.  People from all over are coming to him in great numbers, and though he is struggling to deal with their needs, he is afraid he will be crushed by them, so he orders his disciples to fetch him a boat.

Then he decides to train others to do what he is doing, so there will be more who can deal with the crowds. 

When word spreads that you have something better to offer people, they come, so you need to be prepared for success.  You could argue that Jesus wasn't prepared, but he had selected apostles to follow him, people he could rely on to control the crowd and do what he was doing.

So, we might gather from this that we need to be ready for the abundance of need that surrounds us when we start doing God's work.

It can be overwhelming.

There is a limit to our capacity, so we need to recruit help, to train others to be by our side, to build a team for God.

This is how we should approach our ministry, not as individuals forging out alone, but as the Body of Christ, working together to deal with the vast number of souls that need to know God's love.

If we aren't prepared for the onslaught, we will be overrun.  And we will burn out.

That, I think, is today's lesson.  Build a support structure for your ministry so it can survive its own success.

More to come...