The Harvester’s Table A Vision for a Church

Introduction:

This vision for a church was birthed out recent prayer times, some significant Words the Lord has spoken in the past, a vision and I had late in 2011.  I take no credit for this, as I believe it is the result of revelation from the Lord.  That being said, I also believe to be incomplete, and probably off in areas (“we know in part” 1 Cor 13:9).  I hope this ‘vision’ is encouraging and bears fruit.

Dream 1 – Thinking Outside the Box:

In my dream I was in a class with several people and our teacher had assigned us several simple tasks.  The first task is the one that really stands out.  He had several bowling pins set-up and spread-out over a large area.  He gave us a tennis ball and asked us to try and get a strike (knock all the pins down with one throw or roll).  All of us tried to throw or roll the tennis ball to knock down the pins but were clearly unsuccessful.  Once we all failed, the teacher stepped forward and said, "Let me demonstrate how to do this task."  He then proceeded to place the ball between his knees, holding it in place, and walked to each pin and knocked it over, simply completing the task.  We were all dumb-struck at the simplicity of the solution.  None of us had thought outside the normal rules of the game of bowling.

At that time I woke up and immediately thought of the verse from Isaiah 55:8, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD."  I thought about how true this was - as a perspective in any of God's actions.  Our perspective is so often limited by our understanding of how God has worked, or the way we think He would work.

Is 43:18-19 says, "“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?"  

Vision 1 – New Wine Skins

I will just give a very high level overview of this vision.  Basically it has to do with understanding the need for a new paradigm, and is based on Matt. 9:17 which reads, “Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."  It’s my understanding that Jesus is speaking about the need to think differently, to not try to apply the old ways of thinking and doing things to this new situation.

Much of this particular ‘vision’ had to do with developing unity in the local church.  The definition the Lord gave me of the “New Wine” was that He was actually planning on making a blended wine, one made from the wine that exists today in the many churches and denominations already.  He is going to take the good (wine) fruit, the areas of strength that He has grown in the many churches and denominations and blend them together creating a totally new wine! (Actually more of a new expression of the Body of Christ) This new-wine requires a new wine-skin, ways of relating and coordination that we have never seen before.  This new wine will expand and if the new wine-skin isn’t ready for it, it will burst, but if it’s prepared, it will hold. 

Vision 2 – Grain Ships be Loaded

In this vision I saw a giant ocean going ship being loaded at a grain terminal with millions of bushels of grain.  I saw the giant conveyor system dumping 1000’s of pounds of grain per second into the hold on the ship.  Feeding this conveyor system are thousands of rail cars, all of which were loaded at grain elevators in communities and shipped to the grain terminal.  Ultimately the grain all came from local farmers that individually harvested the grain and trucked it to the Grain Elevators.

Foundational Scripture – Matt 9:37-38

“Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Pulling it Together:

A day or two after receiving the vision about the grain ship being loaded, I felt encouraged to think outside the box again, and was also reminded of the new wine vision.  I felt like the Lord was encouraging me to be open to something completely new – related, but unlike anything I have seen or heard previously.

As I was praying I started thinking about the fact that so many churches have a tendency to focus on themselves and ‘their’ ministries, thinking that they need to meet all these different needs they see in their communities.  In reality there are often several other ministries that already have existing ministries that are working in the same ministry field.  Rather than starting a new ministry, I thought, wouldn’t it make more sense to come alongside this existing ministry and provide support, resources, people and time into this other ministry? 

In addition, I was meditating on the verse from Matt 9:37-38 and thinking about how they had harvested grain less than 100 years ago.  When it was time to harvest many men would hire themselves out to move from farm to farm, helping bring in the harvest – today we have custom combiners.  These men would stay near the farm they were working, and the farmer’s family would be responsible for feeding them and refreshing them while they were harvesting the families’ farm.  The meals were large, as the work was very demanding.  

As I continued thinking about these two mediations I started to pull them together into a single perspective, that of a church whose foundation values were to 1) raise up workers for the harvest, 2) bring encouragement and resources to the existing ministries, 3) be a place where people could be encouraged and enabled to be effective in walking out their particular ministies.

I was immediately reminded of Eph 4:11-13 which reads, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,  to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”   Specifically the section about building up the overall Body of Christ, not just the local congregational expressions of it, was what really caught my eye.  I started to see a congregation whose focus was the encouragement and building up of all their sister and brother congregations in the community.  This congregation would not be trying to reinvent the wheel by ministry duplication, but would rather be focused on equipping, strengthening, and encouraging others.  They would draw from what is already good out there and serve it up almost like a buffet line.  The goal would be to minister to the overall Body of Christ, endeavoring to give everything away!

As I started thinking about these scenarios, I felt the Lord lead me to start laying the foundation of thought and culture out on paper.  What follows is my first draft of this:

What Does it Look Like – Practically?

A Church with minimal financial commitments

·         Bi-vocational pastoral teams

·         No building, monthly rent of a school or other facility for weekend services

·         Primarily home group based

·         No full-time staff

·         Makes full use of the technologies available – podcasts, blogs, email, Youtube, etc

·         Encourage individual tithing to God not tithing to this church

A church who diverts the tithes and offerings into resources for edification and growth

·         Have a book store with a large lending or give away section

·         Host training courses and offset the costs as much as possible

·         Welcome all members from the community and other congregations

·         (Buffet line of books and resources)

·         Give away all teachings on line

A church of participation and responsibility

·         Not primarily a pastor and staff church, but all volunteer

·         Always outward focused

·         Small group / home group based

·         Ministry responsibilities  shared across all

·         Not about building ministries, but about ministering actively, finding other ministries to plug into and support

·         Believe in the Kingdom of Priests – and personal priesthood

·         Servant Leaders

·         Body is equipped and trained so that everyone can minister, even children

·         Actively pastoring new moves of God

·         Training and raising up leaders and pastors – people who are responsible, not seeking recognition or advancement

A church focused on the presence of God and outflow of His life

·         About God’s presence – more important than anything else

·         Real people loving God passionately

·         Ministry that matters – putting people before programs

·         Intentional and focused on allowing  God to be God

·         Embracing the value of impartation and anointing – pursuing what God is doing around the world and bringing it back home

A church Focused around 4 main pillars of the early church

·         Teaching of God’s Word

·         Fellowship

·         Prayer

·         Lord’s Supper

A Church with clear Core values and Focus

·         Relationships

·         Intimacy with God

·         Advancing the Kingdom

·         Character

·         Compassion and mercy

·         Integrity

·         Humility

·         Accountability

·         Celebration of what God is doing

·         Families – children are encouraged to participate and not separated out

·         Whatever the Lord imparts to us that is unique

A church committed to restoration

·         Believing there is more, continuing to pursue God for greater outpouring and restoring what was lost or stolen

·         A culture that supports adventure in the Lord – pursuing Him in new ways

·         Believing God for Miracles, signs and wonders, healing in the fullness that was experienced in the early church

A Church committed to Truth

·         Clear biblical teaching

·         Clear guidance on revelational and word giftings

·         Guarding what is being fed to the Body

·         Valuing questions and discussions of faith and doctrine

A Church committed to Connecting with the Body Of Christ

·         Value relationships in other congregations

·         Encourage relationships outside the local congregation

·         Encourage participation in other ministries

·         Blessing and encouraging all other streams of the Body of Christ

A church committed to multiplication

·         More interested in the quality of relationships than size of the church

·         Not about numbers – but about fruit

·         Recognition of leadership and callings within the body – leading to church plantings

A church committed to the connected generation

·         Recognizing the responsibility and opportunity to reach globally

·         Using technology for the furthering of God’s Kingdom

·         Freely give away everything possible

A church committed to honor

·         Recognition and support for those that were instrumental in our growth and maturity

·         Maintain connectivity with families and friends – honor parents, relatives

·         Honoring others in the Body of Christ that have imparted and poured into the body

·         Honoring the Lord in everything….

Summary:

This is a 'vision' for a church, much of it tied to personal insight, dreams, words and perspectives.  Hopefully this is encouraging in some way.  This is clearly just one perspective on how to do church and not meant to be a commentary on any existing church.

May God continue to raise up and restore His bride as He prepares us all for His second coming!