Accessible

Ac·ces·si·ble
əkˈsesəb(ə)l/
adjective

(of a place) able to be reached or entered.

At one point in Jesus’ life he was sitting in a home in his hometown of Capernaum teaching people.  According to the author Luke, religious people came from all over the place to hear Jesus teach.  So many people were in the house that they filled the house, and even blocked the entry ways.  

At the same time 5 men were desperately trying to meet Jesus, 4 men were carrying 1 man who couldn’t walk.  According to Luke, the man on the mat was paralyzed. We don’t know his story, other than he couldn’t walk.  In that culture though, if he was paralyzed he most likely was unemployed, he and his family had to rely on the generosity of others to pay bills, eat, live etc.  It’s remarkable that these 4 other guys carried this man throughout the village finding where Jesus was. Jesus had a reputation of being able to heal people, blind people were seeing, mute people were talking, paralyzed men were walking, Jesus was able to fix broken things in people’s life in ways like no one had seen before.  

When these 5 men finally found where Jesus was they went to the house, but couldn’t get because religious leaders and religious people were in the way.  They didn’t even get out of the way… These religious people were so enthralled with hearing Jesus speak.  So, instead of turning back or waiting these 4 guys carried their friend up to the roof of the house.  This was pretty easy because there would be staircases on the outside of house in that part of the world.  They removed the tiles and lowered their friend down to encounter Jesus.  When they did this Jesus had a conversation with them, and in that conversation Jesus forgave the man of his sins, and fixed his broken body.  He walked out of the house carrying his mat.  

This quick event has shaped one of our values at RE.THINK Church.  We want to be as accessible as possible.  We never want to be the obstacles in the way for people to encounter Jesus.  Our personal preferences do not matter when it comes to someone encountering Jesus. Even my personal preferences are up for grabs.  We do our best to make sure the mission wins.  

We know the message of Jesus is a pretty big obstacle for most people to overcome.  So we do our very best to remove as many other obstacles as possible for people who are seeking to have an encounter with Jesus.  
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We see obstacles as irrelevant music, unclean buildings, non-engaging environments, unsafe environments, and yes even people at times.  We’ve had several conversations with people from other churches hoping that RE.THINK Church will be a church where their personal preferences can be lived out.  So, we’ve explained this value in a gentle, yet firm manner knowing that if we don’t do it now we will eventually compromise our mission.  

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