CreatingCommunity is an email devotion to guide your preparation for worship next weekend. Imagine how much more clear and relevant God's Word will be if you have had an opportunity read, reflect, and dwell in the Word prior to worship. You may do this devotion alone, with others, as a family, or over Zoom as a small group.

This devotion is to be done in preparation for this coming weekend's worship.

Please follow these three steps:

1. Read through the text
2. Respond to the questions (select one of the sets of questions)
3. Offer a Prayer
Mark1:29-39

As soon as [Jesus and the disciples] left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
No Experience Necessary Questions:
  1. What scares, confuses, or challenges me in this text?
  2. What delights me in this text?
  3. What stories or memories does this text stir in me?
  4. What is God up to in this text?
Family Questions (for the entire family):
  1. Have you ever been sick? Tell of a time. How did you get well? How were you cured? Was Jesus involved?
  2. Why do you think Jesus heals people? Does Jesus cure all sick people? Do those who are healed ever get sick again? Explain.
  3. Jesus doesn't simply keep curing people, we are told he also "proclaims the message". What message is that? How do you know?
Advance Questions:
  1. Some have said that our modern interpretation of Simon's healed mother-in-law fixing Jesus' dinner is a miss understanding of the word "serve"? What do you think? How would you know?
  2. The story seems to suggest that for Jesus curing people and casting out demons is the same as "proclaiming his message". How could that be? What is his message?
  3. Could this be a "call story"? Could Simon's mother-in-law's "service" be her response to being called by Jesus in her healing? How does her service compare with Jesus'? “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Click here to listen in preparation for Sunday
with this week's CreatingCommunity song
"We Cannot Measure How You Heal | Arr. John Bell"
Say a Prayer of your own or offer this one.

Everlasting God, you give strength to the weak and power to the faint. Make us agents of your healing and wholeness, that your good news may be made known to the ends of your creation, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
Pastor Lutz would love to hear your responses, questions, thoughts about your experience with CreatingCommunity. You can reach him at poppastorpaul@sbcglobal.net