If you and I could walk the Jericho Road today, we wouldn’t see one man half dead in a ditch. We’d see an entire highway of humanity.
The mom quietly unraveling in the school pick up line. The young leader smiling onstage and collapsing off it. The couple in row four whose marriage is hanging by a DM. The road between “Jerusalem” and “Jericho” now runs through our neighborhoods, newsfeeds, campuses, and church lobbies.
And the question Jesus asked 2,000 years ago still stands.
Who will stop?
Who will kneel?
Who will pour out healing?
In The Road We Must Travel Again, I call this the oil and wine moment of the Church. It’s where compassion stops being a sermon illustration and becomes a lifestyle.
When Heaven’s First Aid Kit Hits the Street
Jesus says the Samaritan “went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.”¹
In the first century, you didn’t carry oil and wine on a trip unless you planned to use them. This guy didn’t stumble into compassion. He packed for it.
Oil soothed, softened, and anointed. Think comfort, presence, the healing touch of the Spirit.²
Wine cleansed the wound. It stung, but it killed the infection. Think truth, honesty, and the necessary confrontation with what’s broken.³
One comforts. One cleanses.
Together they paint a picture of the Gospel: grace that holds you, and truth that heals you.
We tend to pick sides, don’t we?
“Oil-only” Christians hug everybody, cry with everybody, and never say the hard thing.
“Wine-only” Christians always say the hard thing, usually online, and forget the person bleeding in front of them is not a theological case study.
But the Samaritan carried both. So does Jesus.
And if we’re going to live where people are, we don’t get to choose between hugs and hydrogen peroxide.
The Church cannot afford to be a drive-by institution. We must become the healing house Jesus designed us to be.
A Wounded World Is Not a Marketing Problem
Let’s name what’s happening beneath the surface.
The U.S. Surgeon General has said loneliness and isolation have become a public health crisis, with major health implications.⁴ And the CDC’s national youth data paints an equally sobering picture: around 40% of U.S. high school students reported persistent sadness or hopelessness, and about 20% seriously considered attempting suicide.⁵
Pastors, leaders, parents, and congregants, that means your city is bleeding.
Not metaphorically. Not eventually. Now.
The Church does not exist to host spiritual content for people who are doing fine. We exist to carry Christ to people who are not.
And here’s the hard truth: people do not only need better information. They need healing.
When Leaders Run Out of Oil and Wine
Let’s talk about the part we don’t put on conference flyers.
You can’t pour oil and wine if your own pouch is empty.
For me, that realization hit between 2020 and 2024, pastoring in Portland. Imagine trying to lead a prayer meeting in the middle of a riot while also troubleshooting your livestream and answering emails about masks. That was just a normal Tuesday.
COVID. Racial tension. Political venom. Zoom church. Night after night of protests outside.
I led a cohort of twelve pastors from our city in that season. We cried, prayed, processed. Two years later, only four were still in full-time ministry. Not because of secret sin. Because of soul exhaustion.
Barna found that 42% of pastors had seriously considered quitting full-time ministry.⁶ That number is not just a statistic. It’s a story. It’s leaders who wanted to help and discovered they were carrying more trauma than training.
If you’re a pastor, leader, or faithful volunteer who feels numb, hear me:
If you’re tired, you’re not a failure. You’re human.
If your oil feels low and your wine feels dried up, you’re not disqualified. You’re due for a refill.
The world is bleeding and the Church is bandaging itself. No shame in needing healing. There is danger in pretending you don’t.
God’s Original Design: The Church as Hospital
Before there were social services, counseling centers, or benefits packages, the Church was the ER of the city.
Acts tells us they devoted themselves to teaching, prayer, shared meals, generosity, and caring for anyone in need. And “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”⁷
Daily salvation was the byproduct of daily healing.
Somewhere along the way, many of us swapped the emergency room for a spiritual event center.
We perfected services but neglected scars.
We built systems but lost sight of souls.
We measured attendance more than wholeness.
And yet, the blueprint hasn’t changed. God still intends His people to be a healing house.
So How Do We Put Oil and Wine Back in Our Hands?
Let’s get practical. What does “dispensing healing oil to a wounded world” look like on a Tuesday?
1) Let God Refill You First
Before the Samaritan could pour anything on the man, he had to carry something in his bag.
For leaders, that means reprioritizing presence over production. Your private worship is not extra. It’s oxygen.
It means giving God your actual pain. Don’t just preach about burnout, bring Him yours. David prayed, “restore to me the joy of Your salvation.”⁸ That’s a legitimate prayer for pastors too.
It means letting safe people in. Counselors. Mentors. Peers. Who is checking your pulse?
Numb leaders build numb churches. But burning hearts reignite entire communities.
2) Re Imagine Your Church as a Healing House
A friend of mine built a wall in his church lobby filled with handwritten names of people who’d come to Christ. Before every service, they pray over that wall, and over the empty space still waiting to be filled.
That’s what a healing culture looks like.
Stories of restoration are front and center.
Small groups become recovery rooms, not just Bible classrooms. Confession and prayer, not just curriculum and chips.⁹
Every ministry knows its ditch. Kids, youth, worship, outreach. Each one should know which wounded people they’re uniquely positioned to bandage.
Healing is not a department. It’s a culture.
3) Choose Healing Over Efficiency
Oil leaks. Wine stains. Real ministry will mess up your calendar.
Stopping for the person who corners you in the lobby with real tears might mean trimming your next meeting. Flexing a service plan because the Spirit is clearly drawing people to respond might cost you some polish.
But Jesus rarely healed anybody “on schedule.” Why should we expect revival to fit neatly into our run sheet?
Trend Alert: Mercy Is the New Church Growth Strategy
We’re all watching trends. AI, hybrid church, digital discipleship.
I’m all for innovation. I lead a tech company now. But here’s the trend I pray sweeps the Church:
Compassion as our competitive edge.
Not slicker branding. Not better coffee. Not tighter services.
What if the most disruptive thing we did this year was to feel deeply and respond sacrificially?
What if we measured success not just by who showed up, but by who got bandaged?
We won’t change the world by going to church. We’ll only change the world by being the Church, bottles of oil and wine in hand.¹⁰
Final Call: Pick Up the Bottle
The Good Samaritan story ends with a quiet mic drop: “Go and do likewise.”¹¹
Not “go and think about it.” Not “go and preach on it.” Go. And. Do. Somewhere today, someone in your world is bleeding. You may not feel impressive or fully healed yourself. But if you have the Spirit within you and the Gospel in your mouth, you’re carrying more than you think.
Pick up the bottle. Walk across the room. Kneel in the dirt. And begin the healing.
The Road We Must Travel Again is now available. If you haven’t ordered yet, go to marcestes.com and grab your copy today.
Let’s travel the road… again.
Endnotes and Sources
- Luke 10:30-37.
- Psalm 23:5; James 5:14.
- Luke 10:34; Matthew 26:27-28.
- U.S. Surgeon General Advisory on Social Connection, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation” (2023).
- CDC, Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2023 reporting on persistent sadness/hopelessness and suicide risk indicators (MMWR).
- Barna Group reported on pastors considering quitting full-time ministry (early 2022).
- Acts 2:42-47.
- Psalm 51:12.
- James 5:16.
- Paraphrased from Craig Groeschel, themes from The Christian Atheist and related teaching.
- Luke 10:37.