Nobody should put Jesus in the Corner

When I was called to be a Regional Minister, I spent some time asking God what he wanted to say to his Church.

As I did this, I began to think about Jesus calming of the storm and I was remind that during the storm that Jesus was asleep at the back of the boat (Mark 4.35-41). Everything changed as the disciples cried out to Jesus to wake up and then the miraculous peace that had allowed Jesus to sleep in those conditions was unleashed to bring calm to the storm.

Nobody should put Jesus in a corner but is that what we do?

Do we cry out to God just when we need him? At times, is he only found in the corner of our lives and churches or is he at the centre where the peace and presence of God can flow out?

As I travel to different churches each Sunday, this is the message I have been sharing. If you have 16 minutes to spare, you can watch the video I have made about this where I talk through the passage and explain these things using storytelling and visuals. For fun, we have added five Easter Eggs (hidden references) to the video, four are visual and one is verbal. See if you notice them if you watch.

This is one of the visuals that I use in the video as an illustration. Peace is only found naturally in some of the pictures but it can be found miraculously in every single one of them. When we are feeling overwhelmed by life and stress, there is a peace that passes all understanding that we can receive.

Questions to consider:

1. Do we ever put Jesus in the corner of our lives? What leads to this happening? How could things be different?
2. Do we ever put Jesus in the corner of church life? Jesus is the centre of attention in our worship but is this true in the rest of church life? In running a church, do we just give Jesus a quick hello and then get on with things ourselves? How could things be different?
3. Think about the story that I share in the video about God acting in miraculous power. This all came about because I was stuck and as a result I called Jesus out of the corner to help. How can we change our thinking so that we realize that we are supposed to be joining Jesus in his work rather than calling him in to bless our bright ideas?

Nobody should put Jesus in the corner!