The planter, the waterer and the harvesters

 I heard an alleged evangelist recently talk about culling down the distribution of their periodical magazine on the ground that the church wanted "readers, not subscribers".

I was immediately shocked by that statement, and it has been bugging me. The church I'm speaking of certainly isn't the only one that culls their mailing lists or does periodic checks for inactivity. It's not just churches, nearly all businesses do that... but SHOULD a church do that?

The argument is often made, 'well, it's God's tithe money and He wouldn't want it wasted, or something ideologically similar. It's nearly always a decision based on money. (I could rant for a long time on that subject, but let's assume the predominate doctrines about the intersection of the church and money are all correct)

For decades, I have heard ministers and lay-members alike share stories of coming to the truth by means of a discarded magazine or booklet or tract. Often in a relatives' house, or a thrift shop in a stack of unwanted magazines. This alone should be enough to give pause, but there's a bigger issue or two  in my opinion. 

Firstly, the assertion that sending out too many publications is wasteful of God's resources, and the idea the He wouldn't do that. I would like you to recall the parable of the sower. In this Parable, Christ Himself spreads seeds over the whole ground. Christ Himself is described as throwing seeds out for the purpose of growing a crop, and He is not depicted as being discriminate as to which type of ground He sows. He could have, in this parable done soil samples and isolates the best fields for production and only seeded them... obviously He didn't. 

Second, and this quickly becomes a much larger subject, seeds take time to grow. We read the apostle Paul describe a process where one man sows, another man water's, another man harvests and God receives the produce. Why should any church or person think that they could do all three at once? Do people become converted over night? Of course not. It takes time, it takes instruction and it takes the alignment of difficulty with sound advice to 'make things click'. Too often churches are acting as planter, waterer,harvester and quality control inspector. There are several directions this argument could go from this point, but here's the one I'll focus on. The churches do not love or understand people. I believe this assertion that they have to control the finished product is proof that they do not love their fellow man. In a very real way, they are not focused on making many disciples, but rather, having the most disciples. What about not understanding people? The idea that there are prime demographics for making converts. What about the notion that so many churches share that you should focus on preaching to religious people. If I remember correctly, Jesus came and brought a good-news message to everyone... if memory serves, a good portion of converts were people who weren't religious... quite frankly, a good portion of the converts of the 1st century were people the religious Jews of the time considered heathen, pagan, sinners. 

Churches are free to control their output, and I have no means nor desire to stop them. I do, however believe that it should be talked about and considered openly. Just because someone claims to speak for God doesn't make them infallible. The contemporary Christian idea of the role of the church is out of hand, and we the lay-people have blindly followed along down a dead end path. 

We have to sow seeds, we must individually be sowing those seeds, and it is not our responsibility to do soil samples before we sow these seeds. The seeds are our interactions with our fellow man. The way we act, the things we talk about, whether or not we act hypocritical, our convictions, our love for one another. These things as well as the conversations we engage in about small concepts of truth and religion, these are seeds, they take time to grow. We know the sayings, 'don't count your chickens before they hatch, and 'don't judge a book by it's covers. Maybe we shouldn't attempt to count fruit before the seed germinates. Make disciples of ALL men.