Taking off "four months more" lenses in church planting

Today, Reggie McNeil spoke about living missionally at the Texas District LCMS Professional Church worker's conference in Austin. Reggie talked about John 4:35 where Jesus tells his disciples "Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." (NIV) The disciples were used to thinking of fixed and unchangeable times between sowing and reaping, so it was normal for them to look out at the fields and say "four months from now, the harvest will be ready." But Jesus is trying to get them to open their eyes to see that God's mission doesn't have a fixed, unchangeable mechanistic pattern of sowing and harvesting. He is telling them to see that the time to live missionally is right now because the fields are ripe for harvest.

Reggie said the "four months more" becomes code for not living missionally. It also seems to be code for why many churches never get around to church planting. The "four months more" lens causes churches to say things like We'll get around to planting a church when we

• get our new sanctuary built
• get a little larger
• complete the staff additions we have been planning for
• get our finances and stewardship in order
• have more spiritually mature members
• get past a few conflicts we are dealing with
• fill in the blank_____________

To those churches I think Jesus would also say "I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." The truth is that Satan does not want to see new churches planted. He hopes leaders keep wearing those "four months more" lenses. Those lenses always lead folks to conclude that church planting is something which should come later...or even never for some churches. Those lenses have got to come off!

How can we start seeing mission opportunities through "ripe for harvest" lenses? What do you think?



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