Harvesting requires intentional investment with those who, often on the surface, have no interest in the good news of Jesus, or at least in the cultural assumptions they have about Him and His church.
The biblical concept of “harvest” seems to have fundamentally shifted in the minds of many contemporary disciples. Once it had an evangelistic connotation of incarnational selflessness emulating the example of the Master who became nothing and gave all for the sake of the lost one (Lk 15; Phil 2:1-11). The harvest was the selfless mission of redemption, designed to run hard after those who were far from Christ and His church.
We now live in an ecclesiastical era where, it seems, that the biblical concept of “harvest” has shifted from a self-sacrificing all-consuming priority to, at best, a hopeful and somewhat theoretical byproduct of that mission. For many, the terms of “harvest” and “growing churches” have become synonymous ideas. But as evangelism rates decline, many are quick to assign blame in numerous external directions; but few seem to be asking a more introspective question.
The primary question that consumes our attention is whether or not the church is growing. Implicit in our theory of growing churches is an assumption that increasing the bodies exposed to our preaching ministry parallels to an increasing Kingdom harvest. But why does the “harvest” seem to be little more than a greater share of the Christian market? Does a realignment of the saints, whether in a new church plant, or in a newfound dynamism in an existing assembly have any correlation to the harvest mission of Jesus? Therein rests the difficulty with the new harvest—we are shuffling believers from one location to another and not really working in the harvest fields at all.We are acquainted with the messaging required to attract the easy harvest. It, too, is a simple recipe to memorize …