Then Jesus said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest." (Matthew 9:37-38)
Jesus himself tells us that the harvest of souls for salvation and Kingdom is huge, and we trust that God will call, equip, and send gospel workers to go out in mission and by evangelism and by teaching bring people to Christ.
It is the experience of many in ministry today in the UK that we have a wonderful opportunity to win people for Christ. After thirty years in ministry, I see a new openness to the Gospel in the UK. When I was a young man, there was a general opposition to the Gospel among those of my generation. Christianity was seen as old-fashioned, unhistorical, and unscientific. But today, among younger people and ethnic minorities, there is a spiritual hunger. Now people want a sense of identity. Many want to create their own self-chosen identity, but some are looking for an identity that is anchored on spiritual truth.
Yet, if many are hungry for identity, meaning, and values, the church needs to train up a new generation of Gospel workers to meet the need. As well as seeing a new openness to spiritual truth in my ministry as Director of the North West Gospel Partnership, I see a great need for training and equipping the next generation.
The number of young men believing God has called them to full-time ministry is dropping. This is not merely because of the current problems in the Church of England but across the board. This is a profoundly serious situation. If there no new generation of gifted Gospel workers, then the church will not grow.
What needs to be done? First, the Vicars and pastors need to invest time in discerning the gifting and calling of young people for Word ministry. Secondly, pastors must preach and teach not merely on the costs of full-time ministry and but the nobility of the task in God’s eyes (1 Timothy 3:1).
Thirdly, young people should be encouraged to test out their gifting in the local church by serving in various ministries.
As for those of us whose job is to train the next generation, we need to focus key matters. First, to get students to understand a passage of Scripture within the context of the whole Bible, In my ministry, I urge my students to understand the big story of the bible, from Genesis to Revelation, with Christ at the centre.
Secondly, I teach the students to “be skilled in teaching” (Titus 1:9; 1 Timothy 3:2) and communicating that message in their context. Then I teach the students to focus on the main or major theological theme or centre of a passage, then to ask why the biblical author wrote this passage to his original audience, and, lastly, the main application for our context today (which should be derived from the main purpose of a passage). It is really no good if their audience think at the end of the talk “what was all that about?” or “I need to do ten moral things on Monday morning.” The thrust of the talk must be on meeting the Lord of Scripture and seeing his grace.
Lastly, it is important for the students to understand that ministry is primarily a character business. All gospel workers must be mature Christians living godly lives, especially since in recent years there has been adverse publicity about the moral failures of leaders. So, I go through the pastoral epistles to show how important it is to “watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:6).
Above all, to train the next generation of Gospel workers to go out into the harvest of our nation, we need to “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest." (Matthew 9:38).
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