Back in the 1980s there was a missions video entitled, “The Harvest,” about a farming family in North Dakota, https://vimeo.com/275754822. That video has always made a huge impression on me in regard to the urgency of the harvest and the necessity of everyone’s involvement in the harvest.

In Luke 10, as Jesus sent out the seventy disciples to where He was about to go, He informed them that, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest,” (Luke 10:2). This is a very similar prayer and perspective that Jesus provided his disciples earlier while in Samaria.

He said, “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors,”

John 4:35–38

In the Mid-South, there truly is a harvest, but the laborers are few. What is your church doing this summer to engage the harvest around them? What about helping a sister church engage their harvest area? What about adopting an area or a people whom no church is currently engaging with the gospel The beauty of our association is what we could not do alone, we can do as we come together and engage the harvest together.

John Charping – pastor, Cornerstone Baptist Church of Germantown