Why God Is Raising Up Partners In Harvest

By Timothy Potter, MA (Tulsa Harvest Church, Tulsa, OK, US)

Forward
Lessons From Church History
What About Today?
The Celtic Model
This Present "Darkness"
Bibliography

Forward

The intent of this paper is to provide to the leadership of the local church a rationale for joining the Partners in Harvest affiliation. My goal is to persuade the reader that God, and not human agency, is raising up Partners in Harvest to attain mutual and desirable ministry goals.

First of all, I should explain that this paper does not attempt to prove its point biblically. I take the hermeneutic position that the Bible is primarily a sacred book that tells the story of how God rescued humanity from its estranged condition and brought us back into His family. Jesus is the central figure of this story, and His story is the most important of all stories. It is in the telling of this story, in the hearing of this story, and in the obedience of the faith that this story awakens in its listeners, that we have any hope at all.

If the Bible is a story book, then it is not a manual that instructs us on how to express ourselves in worship, or how to structure the leadership of our local church, or how to create inter-church relationships. The Bible, especially the book of Acts, does provide examples of how the early Church organized itself and carried out Jesus' commandments. However, these examples function as models, not as mandates. That is why it is possible to read rationales for different, and seemingly diametrically opposed, forms of church government which include quotations from Scripture to provide a Biblical basis for choosing a particular organizational model.

Therefore, I have chosen to make the case that God is raising up the Partners in Harvest affiliation using a strictly rhetorical method. After reading and prayerfully considering my arguments, if it seems good to you and to the Holy Spirit, then by all means partner with us to plow the barren fields, plant the seeds of the gospel, water them with the Word, till the soil and pluck up the weeds, and then reap the harvest, according to the will of the Lord.

Lessons From Church History

To begin my argument, I turn to Church history. A cursory look at the history of Christian missions shows that God raises up strategic partnerships in order to channel the energies unleashed in the Church during periods of revival.

Stephen Neill, who spent twenty-six years as a missionary in southern India, who held Professorships at the University of Hamburg and the University of Nairobi, and who held offices in the Anglican church as Bishop of Tinnevelly and Assistant Bishop in the diocese of Oxford, wrote A History of Christian Mission. In his attempt to record the whole history of Christian expansion, Neill makes two interesting observations.

First, Neill credits the Evangelical Revival, which produced John Wesley and the Methodist movement in Britain, with sparking a vigorous expansion of Protestant missionary activity in the Church of England, among French and Swiss Protestants, and in the national Church of Norway (Neill 1986, 213-214).

Ruth Tucker, in her book From Jerusalem To Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions, concurs with Neill's assessment. She observes that the eighteenth-century evangelical revivals that began in England with Whitefield and Wesley played an important role in awakening Christian leaders and laypersons to the Church's responsibility for the propagation of the Christian faith. The rediscovery of the truth that the Church and not the State was responsible for world-wide evangelism launched the modern missionary movement with William Carey in England and Samuel Mills in the United States (Tucker 1983, 110).

Neill also notes that when the movements unleashed by the Evangelical Revival were dying down, the Second Evangelical Awakening crossed the Atlantic from America to Britain in 1858. Neill credits this second great revival, which was undenominational in character, with producing the interdenominational or nondenominational missionary society (Neill 1986, 214), which is a primary agent in the "Great Century" of Christian expansion.

Tucker believes that the missionary society was the vehicle that God chose to turn beliefs about mission into action. The volunteer missionary society, whether independent or denominational in character, transformed Christian missions and opened the way for lay involvement at an unprecedented scale. Never before had so many individuals given themselves to full-time missionary work or contributed voluntarily of their means to assist the spread of Christianity (Tucker 1983, 110). Thus, as a direct result of the two Evangelical Revivals, by the end of the nineteenth century every nominally Christian country and almost every denomination had begun to actively participate and share in the missionary cause (Neill 1986, 215).

From these brief examples I conclude that a principle is at work here: When God sends revival, He subsequently raises up strategic partnerships to channel the unleashed power of the Spirit towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the particular vehicle God chose to use was the missionary society.

What About Today?

These observations lead me to ask the following questions, "Are we currently experiencing revival?" and, if so, "What structures is God raising up to channel the energies that He is unleashing through this revival?"

I know that many of the leaders of the churches flowing in the current move of the Spirit take the position that this present outpouring should be called a renewal rather than a revival. I take the opposite position, for which I am indebted to the writings of Richard Riss. In such documents as A Survey of 20^th Century Revival Movements in North America, Riss claims that what is now happening conforms to the vast majority of all of the characteristics of true revivals over the centuries (Jauhiainen n.d., n.p.).

Therefore, since I advocate the view that the Church is currently experiencing a true revival, I conclude that God will surely raise up new strategic partnerships designed to advance His Kingdom and purposes in the earth. Is the Partners in Harvest affiliation one of these God-ordained structures? To answer this question, let's briefly look at some of the characteristics of the missions societies that God raised up following the first and second Evangelical Revivals.

In 1973, Ralph Winter gave a landmark address to the All-Asia Missions Consultation in Seoul, Korea. His address was later published as The Two Structures of God's Redemptive Mission. In his essay Winter argues that God's plans and purposes have been carried out via two primary structures: modalities (the local church), and sodalities (mobile, task-oriented missionary enterprises). He claims that both structures are ordained by God, that both are "legitimate," and that both are necessary for the progress of the gospel (Metcalf April 1993, 146).

The differences between a modality and a sodality can be summarized in the following table (Bond April 1993, 154)

God seemingly blesses the creation of task-oriented mission structures because sodalities have: 1) vision and a narrow, task-oriented focus; 2) personnel with career commitments who are more than volunteers; 3) selectivity with personnel; 4) quick decision making and the ability to respond rapidly to opportunities; and 5) expertise and professionalism in accomplishing tasks and achieving goals (Metcalf April 1993, 147).

A quick look at its characteristics indicates that Partners in Harvest will be a structure designed to function as a sodality. Therefore, it cannot become a denominational structure, since denominations are, by definition, large and complex modalities. According to its stated purposes, Partners in Harvest will be a strategic partnership (sodality) of local churches (modalities) organized to provide relationship support and accountability, pastoral care, resource sharing, and training for its members. Its overall vision is to advance the Kingdom of God through evangelism, church planting and missions (Partners in Harvest n.d., n.p.).

Therefore, since Partners in Harvest is a second level commitment, and it is designed to complete a specific task, and it is governed by vision, this affiliation is by definition a sodality, which, as I stated earlier, is the type of structure that God raises up to channel the energies unleashed by revival.

The Celtic Model

If I turn again to Church History, I find a model for an affiliation like Partners in Harvest in the Celtic Church.

In contrast to the Roman Church, the Celtic Church never developed a centralized governmental (denominational) structure. It was comprised of local churches that were autonomous and which were structurally linked to clan units. The Celtic Church could be characterized as a Charismatic church in the general sense of the term (there is no clear evidence for the phenomenon of speaking in tongues). The most prominent of the Celtic monks had ministries that were inaugurated by a dream or a vision, the impact of which caused them to be dedicated to spreading the gospel at all costs. Missionary endeavors were undertaken by local churches who pooled their resources together to plant new monasteries over all of Central Europe and as far north as Iceland. Thus, the vehicle which God ordained for the Celtic Church to utilize in their quest to evangelize the world was the sodality. The success of this task-oriented type of second- level structure can be seen in the fact that during the time period of the Celtic Church (400 AD to 900 AD), the history of Christian Missions and the history of the Celtic Church are practically synonymous.

This Present "Darkness"

Today we find ourselves in a challenging time period. Many voices are being raised up in a cry of alarm because the Church in North America is being marginalized (Regele 1995, 182-183). Many people hunger to return to the Christendom paradigm in which the State and the Church are one and their is no demarcation between the community of believers and the social environment in which they live (Regele 1995, 187-191). But the world is changing and we must forge new ways to proclaim the Gospel in this changing world.

The Percept Group believes that the road to "life" will be marked by three principles: 1) authentic storytelling (telling the Gospel in terms that make sense); 2) a reordering of priorities so that the primary unit and agent of missions is the local church; and 3) a shift from a focus on the institution to a focus on the community (Regele 1995, 215-223).

Local, independent churches are being shaken and awakened by God. They are becoming aware of the need to be community-based entities, instead of organization- or denomination-based entities. They are accepting the call to reach out, both to their local communities and to the world. They are telling the Gospel to whoever will listen in terms that make sense to the hearers. Partners in Harvest can help each local, independent church to fulfill its calling as an expression of the Body of Christ. In partnership, local churches can do mighty exploits that would be impossible to achieve alone.

Remember, the early Church existed as a marginalized church from its inception until Constantine's decree in 313 AD. Just think of what this marginalized church accomplished and the many signs and wonders that must have been part and parcel of the daily experience of those anonymous missionaries who were responsible for the rapid penetration of the Gospel into virtually every sector and strata of the Roman Empire.

If Partners in Harvest seizes the day and remains true to its purpose as a sodality, then active participation in Partners in Harvest will surely enrich each local church that chooses to partake of membership's benefits and rewards.

Bibliography

Bond, Stephen. "Can The Local Church Send Missionaries?" Evangelical Missions Quarterly. Vol. 29, No. 2 April, 1993: 152-155.

Gilbert, Margaret, and Potter, Timothy. The Celtic Church. Unpublished Paper: 1992.

Jauhiainen, Marko. Renewal or Revival? http://www.tpu.fi/~mark/Christian/Renewal/terms.html, n.d.

Metcalf, Samuel F. "When Local Churches Act Like Agencies." Evangelical Missions Quarterly. Vol. 29, No. 2. April, 1993: 142-149.

Neill, Stephen. A History of Christian Missions. 2^nd Ed. London: Penguin, 1986.

Partners in Harvest. Preliminary Draft. Toronto: Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, n.d.

Regele, Mike, with Schulz, Mark. Death of the Church. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995.

Tucker, Ruth. From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1983.

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