Waitin' on the Harvest...

Living in the San Luis Valley has been quite an adjustment.  It hasn't actually been hard...it's just that when you've lived in larger metropolitan areas your entire life you're not used to existing on an agricultural clock.  It's the dead of winter right now; our temperatures nightly are in the negative digits.  From what I've been told spring is still a long way off. 

I had a picture sent to me this week from a friend who owns a greenhouse here in the Valley. The picture was of tomato plants, seedlings, coming in and the caption that accompanied the picture was, "Spring is a comin'".  In the surroundings

of the greenhouse, seedlings can take root because of the consistent temperatures, the controlled environment, and the care of the gardeners who plant, nurture, and protect those young sprouts. 

As a first time pastor one of the difficulties that I am running into is the lack of available help in the nursery.  Our church is definitely made up of a majority older demographic.  This is not a bad thing in any way...with age we have wisdom, experience, and a committedness to the Kingdom that makes our church so much stronger by this older generation's presence.  One of the difficulties with age however is the ability to keep up with three year olds who have enough spare energy and creativity to completely destroy a nursery in less than 20 minutes.  We are in great need of committed people who can handle the unique requirements of the under-five crowd.

I was reading Matthew 9:36-38 this week.  It states, "When (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 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."  I've always thought of this verse strictly in the context of ministry laborers for the mission field of our everyday existence; ministry workers are needed to take the Gospel to the Nations.  But then I began to think about our nursery.  If you have experience with small children you know that sin is a very real thing.  Selfishness abounds and unlearned boundaries contribute to a milieu of me-centered, self-gratifying, belligerent depravity.  Do we need to become the disciplemakers that Christ designed us to be?  Absolutely...the world is in need of enlightenment when it comes to the true teachings of Jesus and our communities need us to model those teachings in obvious ways.  Do we need to be going to the ends of the earth to accomplish this disciplemaking task?  Without a doubt...although "making disciples" is the command there is still a need to go and "as we are going" we must illustrate His Truth.  But my thoughts keep coming back to one thing:  if the harvest is plentiful that means that there is more than enough work and opportunity to go around; we don't have to search far away places to discover areas of lostness.  In fact, it could be that one of the most lost regions in our respective communities is in the nursery of our individual churches.  Little hearts need guidance; little souls need examples; little minds need to know that God's grace is sufficient to satisfy desires even at three and four years of age.  Maybe the priority to assist these little ones is even more important than other needs...maybe these kids need to see the love of Christ shown from the inside of the church-out and to realize that there is a precedence being given to them as a reflection not of what is but of what could be.  These are the future leaders of our communities and are churches.  Our hope begins with "making disciples" of those fresh out of diapers.

As I continue to explore the ideas of Matthew, I am becoming more and more content with the burden to see the pre-schooler not as one who needs babysitting but rather as one who needs Jesus.  I am so thankful for the workers that we have here at Calvary; as thinly stretched as they may be, their heart to minister is stronger than a desire to suppress screeches and separate feuding infants.  Like my friend with the greenhouse, it's time to recognize that "spring is a comin'"; it's time to see the nursery not as an obligation but as another mission field.  It's time to realize that we no longer have to sit waitin' on the harvest, but that the harvest is truly plentiful...it just might be wearing a Rapunzel t-shirt and screaming for more juice.