Hello all...
this is Shannon Lewis,
and though I don't mean to spam you so often,
I just had a little bit to pass on. Sod Pottage is FINISHED, but not
yet picked up from the Manufacturer -- I owe them a little over $1000, and am awaiting some VERY IMPORTANT checks in the mail, which should arrive VERY soon, allowing me to go pick up, and send, the 1st batch of Sod Pottage c.d.'s.

Set on Edge, or the current studio incarnation of it, has been semi-professionally multi-tracking our most resent rehearsals as pre-productin tapes, and things are sounding better than I could've imagined...comment from other professionals who were there -- they've never heard anything quite like it. Praise the Lord -- that's what I'm shooting for.

I've also been having a GREAT time recently as a Friday night, and Saturday daytime street musician, though I CLOSE my guitar case so no one can pay me -- heck, you all know that if I could afford to, I'd give away Set on Edge c.d.'s -- I HATE having to charge people for art. Icky.

Also, on a somewhat different note -- keep in mind, God is good, and prayer is powerful -- though I can't go into detail, God has indeed shown this to be the case on many occasions as of late. Keep in mind also -- the word says, paraphrased, Religion that the Lord find acceptable is service to the homeless, the orphan, the widow -- let this challenge you. Ron Sider's book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger has been re-released in a special 20th aniversery edition, which is updated with current stats -- folks, I'm being hit continually with the idea that this is indeed important stuff. Also -- if ya'll have a chance, read Allister McGrath's biography of J.I.Packer, then re-read (or read) Packer's Knowing God -- powerful stuff, and a VERY Godly man.

Lastly, for any who are interested, I was REALLY affected by a sermon @ University Church this Sunday, which really happens to deal with some issues that I've been working over myself -- In the case that some of you might be equally touched by this, I'm sending it to the whole group of you. If you're not interested, feel free to delete it...

Thanks for your attention and prayers, and continue to seek the Lord --

<Sermon starts here>

Dr. Alan Dan Orme, Minister of University Church, Athens, GA Luke 10.2b Pray for Laborers for the harvest 7.26.98 The situation here seems to have been a very historically unique one. It appears that the Lord was telling his 12 disciples to pray that other people would join their efforts ---and those of the 70--- to temporarily spread the news of his messiahship. Verse 2 has from time in memorium been used to request prayer for Christian workers for some aspect of "the harvest" at home or abroad since that time. And, as a matter of fact, I am suggesting that it continue to be used in that way.

I. IT CERTAINLY DOES HAVE AN APPLICATION TO "THE MINISTRY", AS WE CALL IT. (including pastoral ministry and missions and para-church work)

1. I do not say very much about this because it is so universally used and talked about in connection with this passage or its parallels in the other gospels. It has been applied in a thousand sermons --many of which I have sat through-- to say that the people of the audience should pray that people would become missionaries, pastors and maybe para-church workers. But I do think it is useful to mention the balance between those kinds of so-called professional Christian workers needs to be prayed about too. Currently the seminaries are cranking out an enormous number of students who are lining up for pastoral positions where salaries are beginning to edge up from the traditionally poverty-range level that ministers were supported at to a level which is a lot better than they could get any place else.

We ought to pray that God will give grace to these young ministerial hopefuls that they would be willing to go to the hard places with much work and low remuneration and into mission churches and into foreign missionary posts. And while I do not support the idea that ministers should be paid starvation wages as was the case when an elder prayed to the Lord: "Lord you keep our minister humble; we'll keep him poor," I do think that, historically, the Christian ministry has never been of high spiritual quality when workers were paid well.

2. And we should include a negative in our prayer --that God would stop them from entering the pastorate because it is a better job than being a bar-tender, a brick-layer or a McDonald's worker and slightly more secure job than being a politician. Of course everybody hopes for a job with a high salary so he can retire at 35 and because it is a mark of success to parade before all the dolts you went to high school with. But success and prestige really does have a way of being more dangerous than beneficial when it is connected with Christian ministry. Its not a job for enriching the individual. It is a privileged calling to follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus who, though he was the heir of all things on earth and in heaven, had nothing, and in the footsteps of his apostles who seemingly did no better by earthly standards of wealth.

Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send laborers into the harvest and not the thirst for high income, prestige and comfortable lifestyle. Pray this for those from our church who go in this career direction and for those whom you know elsewhere who are headed in this direction. This is a very strategic prayer that may be used for great things in the Lord's church.

II. BUT WHAT I REALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT IS MORE RELEVANT TO THE ORIGINAL HISTORICAL SITUATION THAT BROUGHT THIS EXHORTATION IN V.2 FORTH.

1. That is, I want to talk about praying that God, the Lord of the Harvest would send into the harvest workers---what we call "lay workers" which these 70 others in v.1 surely were. These people got a place to stay and a plate of food but that is probably the total extent of their "wages" as it says in v.7. They may have gotten a little token remuneration from various individuals but it certainly wouldn't have been real payment for their time and effort. Remember that in N.T. times the distinction between paid workers and volunteers was much less distinct than it is in our culture. The Apostle Paul, who was the most significant person in the Faith apart from the Lord himself, was seemingly self-supported. We are amazed that no church sent him a monthly pay-check or money order (or the ancient equivalent of such conveniences) but it appears to be so.

O pray that the Lord will send workers---not employees, but workers into the harvest--- people who sense that they are called of God who receive no remuneration for their long and difficult service other than the wonderfully rich and rewarding and eternally enduring voice of the Lord: "Well done! WELL DONE! WELL DONE thou good and faithful servant!" O pray that more and more of the Lord's people will see the challenge of volunteer Christian service, prepare themselves for it and go into the great harvest that is uniquely harvestable by this sort of people.

2. This my friends, is a great lack in American Christianity of the establishment variety. Look at the Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses and their lay workers. They are indeed a perverse example because they think they are earning their salvation with their giving out their pulp-paper heresy. We do not want to imitate them because of their legalistic motive for service. But they are an example of what might be done out of a motive to serve God in a sprit of grace, simply in order to please the Lord. Youngsters after high school or college might take a year off to give themselves to Christian ministry in various situations. There might be people who would retire early and give themselves to ministry or people with family money who would give their life to Christian service. Imagine if we had a half-dozen such people begging to serve full time at their own expense as Mormon youths do. One year we had Tim Lane, who is now a distinguished P.C.A. minister, as an intern for the summer. He did the preaching and taught a class and one day a week did physical work of digging out the Nursery down below the back parlor which has been such a blessing to the ministry of our church. He also was an excellent preacher and teacher of the Bible study that summer. Now, wouldn't that be wonderful if this were a common occurrence?

Pray! Pray! Pray that the Lord of the harvest will send labors into the harvest.

3. But there is a more localized application of this passage and it is a very practical and legitimate application I think. Pray that in this congregation right here, the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers into the harvest that is here--- Laborers right out of our own congregation--- and that God would send us qualified people to live in Athens who would share in the future preaching, teaching and counseling to join George, Bud, recently Jack, and sometimes Dr. Pelletier in preaching the Word and all of the above plus Lee and Leslie and all of our children's Sunday School teachers in the great work of representing God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ in a preaching and teaching ministry

Pray that the Lord of the harvest would send these kinds of laborers into the harvest for the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. We have the situation here where we might become a model for a new kind of church that is not a fanatical sect with some weird interpretation or a heretical cult but a church, faithful to the gospel and committed to historic reformational Christianity in which people are mobilized in a way that has not been done since the first couple of centuries of Christianity.

And, too, pray that those who are involved in such ministries will not grow weary in well-doing but that the Lord of the harvest will bless them so abundantly that they will be refreshed by the realization that they are the servants ---not the "employees" --- of the Lord Jesus Christ.

4. Some say that this cannot be done. A head guru of a national para-church organization once told me that you could never run an organization on volunteer help because if you don't pay them they won't be faithful. "You just can't count on them," he said. I am alarmed at the evidence that is often true. What does this say about the motivation of at least most of those who are paid and about the strength of the motivation of the average potential volunteer? This is probably the reason for the rapid professionalization of the church with paid staffers doing everything from the janitor all the way through a staff of 12 underlings to the Senior Pastor who sits like the CEO of a big corporation. You have to sympathize with this because of the considerable truth of what my friend told me about non-paid service?.

Pray that the Lord--not our cajoling, not our manipulating, not our motivating skills, not fanatical commitment----but that the LORD would send forth and maintain laborers in the harvest and that they will be satisfied ---indeed, revel in --- the reward of the harvest which is the anticipation of the voice of the Lord, the Master of the harvest saying: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!

About 45 years ago as a new Christian, I sensed that more than anything else I wanted to actively serve Christ as his servant in his harvest. I have never made any big money at it, often not enough to pay expenses but the Lord has always cared for me by secondary means. And now, 45 years later, my desire is no less intense ---that I might be about the Lord's work. One can only hope that he will hear the Lord, the Master of the harvest, the Lord of the church, one day say "Well done thou good and faithful servant."

I think that this text urges you to pray for such things. Pray it for me; pray it for your neighbor; pray it for faceless persons whose name you will only know when you recognize that the Lord has provide them. Pray it for yourself. "Pray that the Lord will send forth laborers into the harvest."

Amen,

shannon lewis