Learning, serving, following and aiming to have others join the journey
Author: Richard Bahr
Richard Bahr is a life-long resident of Minnesota having grown up in the Twin Cities area. For 21 years he was President of and partner in a successful manufacturing firm. He now coaches business leaders, helping them find success while leading balanced lives.
Due to his own life experiences coupled with a passion for service, Bahr has been involved with organizations that provide a “second chance” to those in need. In 2013, he co-founded a social ministry with his wife, Carla, called Threshold to New Life. The organization’s mission is to provide both short-term relief to the homeless, as well as to give assistance to those at risk of losing housing, effectively reducing homelessness.
Bahr has personally delivered over 30,000 pairs of socks to his “friends” in the street as a means of meeting the homeless, learning names and establishing relationships. He spends evenings in homeless shelters, under bridges and in camps connecting with, encouraging and helping to meet the basic needs of “the least of these”. He also operates as a volunteer Chaplain at local homeless shelters.
Bahr co-founded The Food Drive Challenge (now re-branded as Corporations Feeding America) which provides tools, tips and techniques for business to conduct staff-drive food drives to support their local communities. He serves at and coordinates the volunteers for 2.4 Ministries which provides a daily breakfast and fellowship a Minneapolis homeless shelter. He also volunteers at Project 6:8 providing a weekly, home cooked meal under the 394 bridge west of Dunwoody College.
In addition, he is a founding member of and served as President of the Hennepin Technical College Foundation for 16 years at which he established the Bahr Family Endowment, he also serves as a mentor to chemically dependent men and has volunteered for Habitat for Humanity.
Richard Bahr is also a published author. Proceeds from his recent book, Amazed: Why the Humanity of Jesus Matters, go towards funding his social ministry. In October 2018, Bahr released his most recent book, Those People: The True Character the Homeless relating stories about his homeless friends while transforming the readers’ paradigms of homelessness.
In Mark 9:22b-24 it reads (ESV), “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus said to him, ‘If you can!’ All things are possible for one who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’”
This father asked in desperation, so wanting his son to be freed from the evil spirits. He made two statements – both bold and remarkable in that he would say these to Jesus face to face.
I believe: Something we are incapable of doing completely, yet this man makes an absolute statement to Jesus. Perhaps it was made out of the desire to have Jesus step in to help his son, totally understandable, or maybe he believes enough to know Jesus could heal him – although verse 22 indicates the doubt he expressed, which Jesus picks up on in verse 23.
Help my unbelief: Now, there is the unvarnished truth. We can’t believe completely and entirely on our own. Too many things in this world that will cause the most faithful person to question. Yet he asks the object of his faith to help him with his faith. I can’t even think of an applicable metaphorical example for this!. We have the same opportunity as this father, to plead with Jesus to help our unbelief. What might be the response?
John 15:4 could be one. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”