How Many Loaves Do You Have?

W HEN I arrived in Phoenix, two hundred people were meeting every Sunday in a twelve-hundred-seat auditorium. To say the least, nobody was crowded in the pews.

After ten months fifteen hundred were attending, and we had gone to two Sunday morning services. That’s significant growth by any standard, but I still felt that the church needed something to get it off dead center. This had been a church that spent most of its time reaching

How Many Loaves Do You Have? inward to feed itself.

With the Thanksgiving holidays approaching, I stood before the church on Sunday morning and announced, “We’re going to do what Jesus did. We’re going to feed five thousand people. I want you all to come tonight, and I’m going to tell you how it is going to happen.”

One of the new converts met me on the way out of church and asked, “Pastor Tommy, where are you going to get all of that food?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m going to take a few loaves and a few fishes. I’m going to pray over them and break them, and we’re going to feed the multitude.”

With wide eyes the young convert said, “Wow, are you really going to do it that way, pastor?”

“No, not literally,” I had to explain quickly, “but you come tonight, and you’re going to see a miracle.”

A GREAT MULTITUDE FOLLOWED Jesus as He went far away from the city seeking a remote and secluded place to rest. He taught many things to those who had come so far with Him. But at the end of the day the disciples were telling Jesus that something needed to be done about all these people and their need for food.

But He answered and said to them, “You give them something to eat!” And they said to Him, “Shall we go and spend two hundred denarii on bread and give them something to eat?”

38 And He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go look!” And when they found out, they said, “Five and two fish.”

39 And He commanded them all to recline by groups on the green grass.

40 And they reclined in companies of hundreds and of fifties.

41 And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the

food and broke the loaves and He kept giving them to the disciples to set before them; and He divided up the two fish among them all.

42 And they all ate and were satisfied.

43 And they picked up twelve full baskets of the broken pieces, and also of the fish.

44 And there were five thousand men who ate the loaves.

Mark 6:37-44

Almost EVERYBODY CAME TO church that night. I told them we wanted to feed everybody as Jesus had, but in our case the menu would be turkey, dressing and all the trimmings — everything we needed to feed the multitude, and we would do it free of charge.

“We’ll need 160 people to bring baked turkeys, sliced and prepared and ready to serve, and have them in the kitchen by 6:00 a.m.” One hundred and sixty stood. We did the same for the ham, dressing, desserts and so on.

Then I said, “The Bible says that when you have a feast, you don’t just bring those who are full. You bring those who are hungry. Where can we go to get these people?”

Different ones began to suggest that we go to the welfare lines, food kitchens, orphanages and convalescent homes. So we had our plan. We would invite our guests to a Sunday morning service and feed them in the afternoon.

Sunday morning came. When I walked into the 8:00 a.m. service, a smell hit me that I had never encountered at Phoenix First Assembly. But it was not the smell of turkey. It was the stench of dirty humanity.

The auditorium was jam-packed that morning. The balcony was crowded with four to five hundred of the dirtiest, filthiest people I had ever seen. They had their backpacks and bed rolls with them. Some of them even brought their dogs.

I could just hear some of the class-conscious members of our church saying, “Since Barnett’s been here, the church has gone to the dogs.”

That morning I preached on how the King has paved the way back with love. I told them the food that day was prepared with love, the buses ran with love, and the way back to God was paved with love. There was a tremendous response.

I was amazed by the visitors in our church that morning. I had never seen people who were dirtier. The regular church attenders were in shock, too. Some would consider these to be the scourge and plague of the city but not God. And the next service had so many people that they couldn’t get them in.

I didn’t realize it but right around our church the parks were full of transients who had come to Arizona for the winter. Our people had gone out and invited the transients, and they had overrun the church that day.

Since we couldn’t get them all in, I sent many of the men into the parking lots to preach to the people in small groups. Then they went through the food line. There were sixty-seven hundred people in church that day.

It became such an event that it made the front page of the local newspaper. Soon after seeing what a tremendous thing had happened, some other churches got together and decided they were going to have the world’s greatest Feed-the-Multitude Sunday. The dinner would be so big that it would be put in the Guinness Book of World Records.

They rented a football field and got all the major hotels to donate chefs, food and equipment. That Thanksgiving the local media gave all the publicity to the Feed-theMultitude Sunday, which was OK with us. We still fed our ill-smelling mob.

But they ended up having only about three thousand people. Why? They were trying to feed the people that had already been fed, while we were feeding empty ves

sels. They ended up giving us their food.

We’ve kept on feeding the multitudes every year since then. At our last Thanksgiving dinner we had over seventeen thousand people feast on the meal and hear about the love of Jesus Christ. Every year we have more than we need. The church members bring so much. We take all the leftovers to soup kitchens. Those who get the meal appreciate it, but it is the church that always gets the biggest blessing.

In THE NEXT TEN years there is going to be an abundance of needy people in our society — and not just with financial needs. There will be divorce; broken homes; incurable diseases like AIDS; all kinds of abuse, addictions and emotional problems; a growing number of older people who need help; and many with a general emptiness from not knowing Jesus Christ as their Savior. What a great time and a great opportunity for the church. That’s our mission — to show the love, grace and power of Jesus to a hurting world.

However, some look at the growing critical needs and conclude that they are more than the church can handle. The church says we don’t have enough to feed the multitude of problems.

But that’s not so. We have all we need already, and it’s in our house. The church has all the resources it needs to show the love of Christ to the world, and those resources are already sitting in the pews. Maybe there aren’t many sitting in the pews in some places, but if those who are there begin to pour, God will miraculously multiply your pouring and your pourers.

We were instructed to pray for God to send laborers, but it is our responsibility to compel the hungry guests to come in. It was the widow’s responsibility to gather the empty vessels, and it was the Lord who multiplied what she had to pour into them.

When faced with an overwhelming need and a limited

supply, the disciples went to Jesus and recommended He do something. Their suggestion was to send the hungry crowd away. Their needs were too great. Jesus’ response to them was “You give them something to eat!”

How could they? There were only twelve of them. Jesus continued: “How many loaves do you have? Go look!” All they could find was a little lunch, and that was borrowed. What good would that do when the needs were so great?

Constantly people talk to me about “what the church ought to do.”

“But there’s nothing more I can do,” I say to them. And like Jesus I frequently tell them, (< You do something!” or “You give them something to eat.” Many times they have accepted the challenge and offered what little they had, and the miracle of multiplication occurred. That’s how all those ministries in our church began.

One night we were to have a communion service. As is our custom on those occasions, spotlights shone on only the front of the church while the houselights were dimmed. After the elements had been distributed, I said as I usually do, “Has everyone been served?”

I had prearranged for three or four people to respond to my question. The first one stood and said, “Pastor Barnett, the people who live in the park — they have not been served.”

Then someone from the wheelchair ministry said, “There are those hurting people in wheelchairs; they have not been served.”

After the few I had prearranged stood and spoke, others in the congregation began to stand and identify those who had not been served.

Several new ministries were birthed that night out of the realization that hurting people were out there who had not been served by the church. Some of these ministries are highlighted in a later chapter.

Ellen Dodge stood and said the victims of crime were not being served. I really didn’t think there would be

many people in that category. So I asked the congregation, “How many of you have been a victim of crime in the last year?” Over half of the people raised their hands. A large segment of our society has been victimized, and it leaves a mark on them.

Today Ellen has a ministry to victims of crime and to those who have suffered great losses. She sends out letters to people who have been in serious accidents, to those who are getting divorces or dealing with a death in the family. We check the newspapers for those who have been through tragedies, and we let them know we feel for their hurts and would like to do anything we can to help.

Are there people in your community who have not been served? Go and see what you have, even if it seems insignificant, and then give them something. That’s how miracles begin.

Is THERE ANYONE OUT there who feels as if he has dried up as a Christian? Is there anyone who has lost the joy of salvation and whose worship has become rote? Are there people who feel deep in their hearts that they are slipping away from God and realize they have become at best only lukewarm Christians but don’t know how to be hot again?

Yes, there are millions.

Keith Green had the ability to express both the heart of God and the heart of people in song. He wrote:

My eyes are dry, my faith is old.

My heart is hard, my prayers are cold.

And I know how I ought to be,

Alive to You and dead to me.