A Challenging Abundance

It's interesting to me that when Jesus got his 'staff' together to train them and send them out to advertise His event, (and they say Jesus didn't do advertising, or that we should not be 'event' driven!) that His first concern was what they were thinking about people's openness to His message.

"There is just so much harvest out there", he told them, "and it's ready now". (Lk 10:2)

I wonder if I am seeing even a little of what Jesus saw when He saw the harvest so plentiful. Are my eyes seeing people everywhere who wish to crowd into The Kingdom, or do I see it as "hardly anyone wants to live for God these days"?

God help me see the abundant harvest today, so that I can bring some of it in.

Yesterday as I was waiting for an appointment to show up (they were stuck in traffic and I waited 90 minutes), I did a little unscientific research on the net. I found an atheists site that was trumpeting that 74% of America does not go to church, so we can no longer be called 'a nation under God.' Some of the presumably Christian sites said that number is too high- that only about 12% of Americans actually attend church at least monthly.

Which got me doing a little simple math (it's all they taught in Amish school, okay?). If there are something like 13 million people here in Penn-Del, does that mean there are maybe 9 million left to reach?

We have such a huge, exciting job to do. And I am so pathetically small at getting it done. I sure hope that when I stand before my hero at his judgement seat, that he can find it in my little life to say "well done good and faithful servant". I pray that between now and my retirement, that somehow, but God's grace, we can see maybe a 5 or 10 percent growth in the number of people in PennDel attending church, and a little momentum in God's direction. 5% would be an additional half a million people in church, right? 10% would be over a million!

How can we get this done in the next 20-30 years?