harvest - Next Generation Ministry

Field of Dreams game to return to Iowa in 2022 | FOX 2

A few weeks ago, in a cornfield out in Iowa, Major League Baseball put on a real Field of Dreams game between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox. The game lived up to its billing, providing three home runs in the last inning, not to mention a walk-off home run that gave the White Sox the victory. Fantasy became reality as a movie came to life.

Jesus once spoke about fields, but he didn’t have baseball in mind. Jesus talked to his disciples about the fields being ripe for harvest (Matthew 9:35-38). Now, a cornfield is getting closer to the picture Jesus had in mind. The only difference is the corn would have represented people. If you plant corn, you know you have to wait and pray, hoping the corn seed you planted will be met with the right conditions so that one day you can pick real corn off the stalk.

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus talked about sowing seed and the different types of soil that the seed falls on. Jesus said the seed was the Word of God (Matthew 13:1-23). If we are not careful, I think we might confuse these two different accounts. In the latter account, Jesus is talking about people’s reactions to the gospel seeds that we sow. Some people will receive the gospel and some people will not.

But Matthew 9:35-38 is different. Jesus is saying that the fields are ALWAYS ripe for harvest. There are people right now who are ready to receive the gospel, if only we will share. It is true that we will sow gospel seeds and sometimes have wait to wait many years before we see the fruit of it in people’s lives. But it is equally true that sometimes we will sow gospel seeds and see immediate fruit. Not everyone receives the gospel the first time they hear, but some do. At the same time, sometimes we reap what others sow. You may share the gospel with someone who has heard it a thousand times, and you just happen to be the one who leads that person to the Lord. That’s what Jesus is saying in this account: Look up, There is always corn ready to be picked!

Many denominations and churches have lost their way. They wonder why their numbers are plummeting. The answer is rather quite simple. They’ve stopped harvesting. A church or denomination that stops winning people to the Lord will eventually die in the same way that a crop will die without water. We must share the gospel with everyone everywhere everyday so that all the gospel seeds that have been planted by us or others will continued to be watered.

Most church leaders agree that the church has at least five purposes, which are mandated from Scripture. Though given different names by different leaders, those five purposes are Worship, Ministry, Discipleship, Fellowship, and Evangelism. I would add Prayer to that list. However, of those five, I would consider one to be essential or primary. You might think it to be Worship because after all, didn’t John Piper say that missions exists because worship doesn’t. Piper’s analysis is correct, but glorifying God is the end-result. Without people being won to to the Lord, Worship, Ministry, Discipleship, and Fellowship simply cannot happen.

My dream is that struggling churches would return to following Jesus by being “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). That Jesus would open their eyes so that they would see corn as far as their eyes can see (a trip to Iowa in the middle of harvest season might be a good place to start). That they would once again “seek and save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10).

If I was a lost person, the last place I would want to go is to church. I would have no desire and would feel out of place (kind of like a fish out of water). But, if I had just come to know the Lord, the first place I would want to go is to church. I would crave the exhortation, edification, and encouragement from being with other like-minded brothers and sisters in Christ. The culture we live in has changed. The church needs to stop inviting people to church and start inviting people to Jesus. Cultivate relationships with lost people on their field. We’re the road team now. Go to their homes and do things with them that they enjoy doing. It might be going to a ballgame. Then, initiate gospel conversations. If you are then able to pick some corn, don’t leave them out to dry. The first thing you should do is invite them to attend church with you. After all, you’re already friends.

Share Jesus Without Freaking Out series post 6/8

Principle 6: Expect people to be open to the gospel, and learn to share Jesus where they live.

Two years ago, I started next generation ministry work at The Heights Church in Commerce, GA. When I began working at the church, I was told by a church elder that the harvest was ripe. What does the expression “the harvest is ripe” mean? Speaking evangelistically, the expression means that souls would be saved if the gospel call were to go out. The elder firmly believed that people’s hearts in the area would be responsive to a move of the Spirit.

In other words, our church elder was living out principle six because he had great expectations that people in the northeast Georgia region would be open to hearing the gospel. Sharing Jesus with others in conversation on a daily basis is great and is why Dr. Reid wrote his book. However, evangelistic events still have a place in church life. Remember, it’s not either-or, but both-and when it comes to church members having everyday gospel-centered conversations and churches hosting evangelistic events.

About the same time I started working at my church, I attended a local wrestling event in the area that took place in a high school gym. It was at this event that I met wrestler and evangelist Nikita Koloff. Through a series of events, I was able to line Nikita up for an evangelistic event that will take place at my church this Sunday. Much prayer and supplication has been poured out for lost people in the community and for the highly anticipated event itself. Much planning and preparation has went into hosting this evangelistic event at the church.

When the seeds have been sown and the right conditions exist, harvest time is just around the corner. When corn is produced on a stalk, the farmer grabs a basket and fills it up. Likewise, when people come to the Lord for the first time, discipleship begins. After a harvest of souls has been reaped, it is the responsibility of the local church to come surround the new believers and disciple them. I am thankful that my church and next generation ministry itself allows for a simple discipleship process.

At The Heights, our mission is Loving God – Loving Others – Serving Both and our discipleship process is aligned through disciples actively participating in corporate worship, life groups, and ministry teams.

Thom Rainer, President of Lifeway Christian Resources, recently stated that in the future, evangelism would be done by churches “more out of necessity than by commission” or desire. Rainer estimates that 10,000 churches are dying every year. American churches will once again focus on evangelism or die at their own peril.

Both the individual church member and the corporate church at large have a responsibility to reach their community for Christ. Though my church is bringing in an evangelist, we as members are all called to do the “work of an evangelist” (2 Tim 4:5). Gospel presentations still work too. Try this at your next evangelistic event: Before and after the gospel is presented by the evangelist or your pastor, have church members share Jesus with others in conversation with all who attend (you will need to train members first). Talk about a powerful witness! The community you are trying to reach will leave believing that you and the church care about them, believe in what you’re talking about, and have been “endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). And even more important, hopefully they leave with a newfound relationship with Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior!

The harvest was ripe in Jesus’s day (John 4:35, Luke 9:37). With over 7 billion people on planet earth today, how much more ripe is the harvest in our day? In Revelation 14:15-16, the harvest of the earth is ripe and is reaped with a sickle. There is some irony surrounding our evangelist Nikita Koloff, “The Russian Nightmare” as he often wrestled wearing an outfit with a sickle on it because the sickle represented a soviet symbol. Today, the sickle means something totally different to Nikita as he himself is God’s sickle used to reap a harvest of souls. I am claiming Matthew 13:8 as our event verse and expecting a hundred fold crop!