Church Planting is like Farming
Farmers will tell you the most important thing for any harvest crops is rain. Without it, the ground will be hard and dry, making farming very difficult if not impossible.
In many ways, soul winning and church planting is like harvesting crops. The difference is that new churches need prayer instead of rain. Without prayer, people’s hearts will be hard, dry and unreceptive to the Gospel. Moreover, prayer is critical to spoil satan’s inevitable attacks against the new church. For these reasons, prayer is the most important need for church planting.
What are our prayer needs?
We need prayer in four areas:
Laborers. During His earthly ministry, Jesus said to his disciples, “The size of the harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.” Likewise, the harvest of souls is plenteous in South Dallas too, but we need workers to harvest them. So first please pray that the Lord will send us workers.
Finances. Once the Lord sends the workers, then we need money to train and send them into the fields (neighborhoods) to reap the crop (lost souls). The cost of training and sending these workers can be high. Therefore, pray that God will send us strong financial support. Luke 8:3
Gathering. The next stage of harvesting is gathering the crop (souls). This step involves the laborers using every available outreach means to go into the neighborhoods and spread the Gospel. Hence, pray that the people of South Dallas will be receptive to the Gospel message.
Discipleship. Finally, the ultimate goal of the harvest is discipleship, which is transforming new converts into authentic Christ followers. In fact, the mandate of Jesus for every church is to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20. Therefore, pray that God will enable us to make authentic Christ followers of the souls we gather in South Dallas.