Gathering and Retention Despite Domestic Violence.

Luke 9:11-17
But when the multitudes knew it, they followed Him; and He received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing.  When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to Him, “Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.”  But He said to them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people.”  For there were about five thousand men. Then He said to His disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of fifty.”  And they did so, and made them all sit down.  Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude.  So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them. NKJV

This goes on to strengthening my previous statements about the church’s role in preventing domestic violence in it’s midst. I pray that the readers will follow my line of thought and reasoning. The church today more than any other time in history has lost touch with the reality of its peoples needs. We are seeing rebellion of the youth and other sections of the church society to the world. The reason being is insensitivity to their needs.

Likewise, the people who are abused everywhere while in the church are leaving because of the double standards practiced there in. Victims feel that the church is insensitive and ignorant of their plight or that it is taking sides with the perpetrators. Preachers preach the message of righteousness, love, forgivingness and yet the members don’t see the same in action among their leaders. What happened to forgiveness that preachers belabor to teach when they take each other to court over this and that? I’ll come back to this later on.

When the multitudes came to Jesus with their myriad of problems, He healed them of all their problems, however before healing them He did something else, He preached to them about the Kingdom of God, it is important to note and understand the order in which He did His Ministry. There is no doubt about the order in which things were to be done and the same is documented for our sake to follow.

When we read Verse 12, we see that the disciples were concerned about the welfare of the multitudes; their concern was a genuine concern for they understood the needs of the people. The people were tired and hungry and hence need to eat but the place was remote. The day was much spent and there weren’t enough provisions nearby or amongst them to cater for the needs of such a multitude, or so they thought and said; “Send them away” they pleaded with the Master.

As always their thoughts and the thoughts of Jesus Christ were completely on different wave lengths, He wanted to teach them that His church should be all inclusive. A church should be equipped to deal with the needs of all its members whether spiritual, physical, psychological or otherwise. Jesus knew that as soon as those people left to get provisions from the world His Word about the Kingdom of God would be held in disrepute. If a church cannot take care of the various needs and problems its members are facing, then the church risks becoming irrelevant in the eyes of the same.

This was a concern for Jesus to address and so it should be for the church leaders today. He wanted to show them that the Kingdom of God capable of catering for their spiritual and physical needs as well. We all know very well that everything Jesus did and taught was for our benefit that should be practiced amongst brethren in church always. Every lesson He taught was and is for a purpose that is relevant to us as it was to the disciples over 2000 years ago. Jesus told His disciples to feed them, from where and with what they wondered; we don’t have enough even for ourselves, how can the Master tell and expect us to feed such a great multitude?  They silently wondered. They felt impotent, inadequate, insufficient and incompetent too. In their reasoning and thoughts they couldn’t see how that request could be met. Maybe they thought that Jesus was placing unreasonable demands upon them, and you could think so too were you in their shoes, right?

The multitude was with Jesus was best part of the day, and most of them had left behind very important businesses they could have been attending to. They had abandoned everything to listen to Jesus Christ, not out of the lack of food but due to the sweetness of the message they so desperately needed for Jesus addressed the human heart problems from a knowledgeable spiritual angle that no Pharisee could. People testified to the authority with which He addressed issues that was not as the Pharisees did.

Just like the multitudes in Jesus’ time, we see people thronging churches from their youth to adulthood; that’s comparable to the day that was much spent listening to the message of Jesus Christ. Men and women who have spared nothing of value before their God and church, coming to a point in life when they expect and need to be assisted within the church fellowship but are forced to have their needs addressed by the world. This is unacceptable before Jesus Christ; the church He founded should be self sustaining in all matters, spiritual and physical too.

This being a month when we are observing and raising awareness to domestic violence, the question that every member and leader in the church of Christ should be asking is, are we doing enough to help victims of domestic violence in our midst? Are we doing anything at all or are we blaming the victim, whether male or female for atrocities visited upon them?  Is the church doing enough to reign in such practices and offer support for those unfortunate to fall into such situations?

It is unfortunate that the problem can not be isolated to a certain class (es) of people, rich or poor, secular or born again; domestic violence is a problem that is committed across social borders. Leaders in the church and society have been accused of participating or condoning this outdated barbaric practice. Now that the problem has crossed the entire social fabric in the world; the church that is mandated to bring awareness, teach and stop the spread of such. Evil is also reeling from the effects; what help is there for our world?

Many will say they don’t have funds for such work, others will say that they don’t have expertise to deal with the same, but I want to draw your attention to the challenge and dilemma that the disciples of Jesus in their time faced. They were not required to do anything but follow the Words and guidance of their master, they could not understand where or what He had in mind, but they stopped wondering and followed His instructions. They were jolted back to the world by His insistence, ‘no you feed them’ yet they could not see with what, but He could see what they could not see.

The church today is reeling from financial limitations across the world and wondering with what shall implement anti domestic violence programmes; just as the disciples of Jesus Christ were in their time astounded by the demand of their Master, church leaders today are in such a position concerning domestic violence. Looking back at the options the disciples had, the church should also realize that it takes the hand of Jesus Christ to do ministry in totality with or without finances for God owns all the gold and silver and will supply whenever and whatever is needed.

The disciples were at their wits end when they were told to feed the multitude; faced by such a big unreasonable request from their Lord they did not know what to do; however they were not perturbed for long because He had a solution for them. We also should come to our wits end and let Jesus help us with this problem, as long as we continue grappling with this problem, sometimes procrastinating and refusing to acknowledge that it exists among our members and ourselves the more we expose our members and ourselves to unnecessary suffering.

Governments and non governmental organizations in many countries have come up with shelters and counselors to help those affected by domestic violence twenty four hours seven days a week, the church with or without funds should take a lead in this if it is to remain relevant among its members who fall victim to this evil problem. The church is standing at cross roads because if its members, who have been in church most of the time of their lives are to seek help from world institutions. If members of the church go out to the world for assistance then their membership in church groups is irrelevant. If the church can’t stop domestic violence in its midst, it must renounce and condemn it with all that is in its power.

The church today is the focal point of the entire world, political leaders and opinion leaders, though not members of the church are looking upon the church to prevail upon a world that is full of evil. The church is the only institution in the whole wide world today that can authoritatively stand against the evil of our day, within or with out. This is the everlasting promise of the Master, that even the “gates of the Hades will not overcome My church” interestingly even non believers do expect that from the church. Whenever something terrible happens, you hear world leaders asking among themselves, what is the church doing about it? Though they are not be believers themselves they recognize that authority about the church.

Among the centers of rehabilitation for violence victims, very few are church based, some are community based others are government sponsored, like in the UK and Scotland they have established help numbers in the UK like 0808 801 03427, info@mensadviceline.org.uk for male victims; in Scotland there is 0845 30 30 900 or 0800 83 85 87 or www.victimsupport.or.uk or www.samaritans.org just to name a few; governments have taken initiatives to publicize its stand on the violence among their people in intimate relationships. I am yet to see enough proactive measures the church is taking to eradicate, end or mitigate the effects and occurrences of such among its membership. People in church need to be treated in the church, many Christian based organizations have built hospitals to address physical sickness and other social ills and lack mitigating centers, and this effort though laudable is not enough.

To avoid fall out among the church members, the church must reestablish touch with its membership; reigning in the errant members within its midst and at the same time regain the confidence of the victims as well. As much as depends on the funding, we should let that be dealt with by God, He has given us an assignment that He only can supply the means to complete. Somebody might say I am out of touch with the facts, I might be I don’t refuse and nor do I claim to know everything there is to know but one thing I know for sure is that ministry can never be done with a man’s thoughts and ways.

The church is losing its youthful members in hordes and the leadership is left to wonder what is wrong; children raised in the church are departing from faith upon attaining their independence from parents, everybody is left wondering what has become of the youth today. The problem is not the enticement and allure of the worldly systems but the lack of consistency in today’s church. Wonder as much as we want, won’t bring them back soon, changing our way we conduct our lifestyle will. This change should incorporate complete obedience to the Word of the Master Jesus Christ. In His wisdom, He taught us many lessons that if and when put to practice can change the world’s perception of the church, its teaching and approach to issues affecting the our world.

I am sure that by saying what I have and am saying does not endear me to many Christian leaders today, well that’s unfortunate but the truth will remain to be truth no matter how much and how long it is hidden away it will surface at one point or another. I’ve been honored to know many servants of God who selflessly conduct and pursue the true ministry of Jesus Christ against many odds try and maintain cohesive congregations to the very end. To all of them I say continue being faithful to your Master for there is a reward at the end of the journey. Challenges are part of our calling and our Lord did not hesitate to say so, therefore any kind of lack or shortcoming should never be held as an excuse to circumvent the truth as Jesus required of us.

Peter and John’s lack of education or formal training didn’t hinder them from healing and speaking the Word of God to the temple officials including the high priest after crucifixion of Jesus Christ, in fact it gave them more power and credibility than before. Borrowing a leaf from them, we should not entertain or offer excuses before doing what we are supposed or expected to do, our fellowships should be equipped to cater for our members needs as they arise. There are mechanisms offered by the church to cater for physical needs of its people but we are yet to put in place enough and adequate mechanisms to deal with domestic violence.

Back to what I spoke about in paragraph two of this devotional. When the world witness preachers and other church leaders taking each other to court over matters that could be resolved amicably to sooth their egos, or to settle scores within themselves; when the members of the church go to court to obtain restraining orders for this and that leaders makes them a laughing stock; will the world take the church seriously, when it teaches others to forgive an offending brother as many times as our Lord taught?

Relevance or irrelevance of the church’s and its teaching will be attained or not when the leaders will cease to satisfy their appetite for the worldly things and possessions. Many leaders are going to court over control of church money and properties, plain greed according to me, while the world is in the spectator’s gallery. Surely the world cannot take the church seriously when leadership wrangles are prevalent as being witnessed around the world as we do today.

The church through a few leaders continue to suffer great loss of its place in the societies of the world, the standards of the world concerning the church leaders are higher and stricter than those of other types of leaders world over. When a politician is accused of misappropriation of public funds people shrug it as way of life; when an opinion leader is accused of adultery people will say what else is new, but when a church leader is accused of sexual violence and other forms of impropriety the world is shocked because the church is the last place they would expect such things to happen.

Somebody might ask, what leadership wrangles have to do with violence we are witnessing, well it has everything, because when the other party is denied or perceive to have been denied their rightful ownership or control through the legal means, they result to violence. Another day the world was treated to a spectacle in Kenya as members of one church traded insults and hurling stones at each other over who the true leader of the group was. Some members were in support of their pastor who had been transferred to another church while the other group was supporting the incoming pastor.

This was a shameful thing to do. I know that this is just the tip of an iceberg that is not localized to Kenya alone, it is world over. Not many church leaders want to acknowledge the fact that there are inconsistencies and failures in the church leadership, sad as it is the facts cannot be wished away. All human beings are fallible although led by the Holy Spirit are subject to error like the rest of the world, therefore to deny existence of failure and error in the church is only delusional.

Psalm 19:12, 13

Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and I shall be innocent of great transgression. NKJV.

Acknowledgement such as this is important to church leaders of today, people who know very well that they can’t be perfect. God is not looking for perfect people to serve Him for they don’t exist. David is counted as one of the great men of faith, yet he was quick to acknowledge his inadequacies publicly before God and before man. This is a very important aspect of servitude that should be embraced by all church leaders before and after assuming office. Never at any one time is a man (no gender implied) expected to operate outside these parameters, ministry otherwise would be sheer hypocrisy.

Only God can keep His servants from committing presumptuous sins before Him, therefore keep in mind as you serve you are subject to all conditions of this world. Acknowledge your inadequacies and let God lead you in tandem with His knowledge of you. The church leadership should come out of denial and actively participate in eradication of domestic violence as expeditiously as possible without any excuses whatsoever.

I am saying that we should stop pretending to be saints and face the problem head on, stop pretending that all is well within the church while people within are hurting badly out of the decisions we make or fail to make. Remember even with God as in the law ignorant is no defense at all. We can retain our congregations by doing what is right. Provide our people with adequate guidance and have in place infrastructure to cater for their overall welfare. God has put together people with different skills, talents and experience, such as have knowledge and experience as in dealing trauma and post trauma situations should be encouraged to help affected members with their expertise. The church should initiate programmes that will tap such talent as God intended, God did not send them into such congregations for nothing; He did it for a purpose.

Whether finances are available or not, let’s have the will to help and God will provide the means at His own time. We have seen big magnificent buildings come up for the purposes of worship, a noble idea it is and yet there is no mechanism to deal with the intimate crimes as domestic violence. The church needs to wake up from its deep slumber and deal accordingly with the menace. Those churches that have such mechanisms in place, I say may the Lord remember you in His day of remembrance, those that don’t have I say pull up your socks and offer quality service to you Master. God bless you all.

This devotional was written by Bishop Joseph Koburu Mukiira of Maximum Victory and Joy Worship Centre Nairobi, Kenya and brought to courtesy of Journey 2 Joy International Ministries Inc. USA

©All rights reserved by Bishop Joseph Mukiira