‘Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.’ John 4:35

As this copy of What’s On goes out we will be having our Harvest Service where we give thanks for God’s good provision throughout the year and for the harvest having been gathered in. It is always wonderful to see the church at harvest with all the different foods and produce that fill the front of the church. It is a very visual reminder of God’s goodness and faithfulness over another year and we also give thanks for all the hard work, early mornings and late nights that have been endured to bring us what we can enjoy at our tables.  Yet in it all we also remember that there is another harvest that as believers we need to be concerned about. The Bible talks of the harvest not of food or grain but of people won for the kingdom of God. Many seeds were planted at the beginning of the growing season and we saw the fields ripen and mature ready for the gathering in of all that God watered and gave life to. We pray that as the seed of the gospel is planted and scattered in our own day and in our own town it will bear fruit, that we will see people come to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. As I was recently reminded at a conference, during the harvest season there is no room for idleness. In days past whole communities were involved in the work and everyone had to do their part so that people did not starve. It was literally a matter of life and death and so it is with the kingdom of God and the great harvest that will endure not for a season but for eternity. The whole body of Christ, the church, must work together as one, working in sowing the seed of the gospel in our own places and spaces as God waters and blesses this work. We pray that as we see the fields as white as snow in our own community that people might come to the foot of the cross and lay down their burdens and sins as they rise in Christ and go forth as new and redeemed people. Let us all enter into the work as labourers for the kingdom and recognize it as a matter of life and death and so do all that we can to share the good news of Christ with others. We long to see people who are spiritually starving in these times be filled with the bread of life, the Saviour himself who alone can satisfy. May the Lord bless you in your labours.

Every blessing

Gordon