A Wee Luke 10 Nugget

I like to read books about how Jesus is building his church around the world.*

I am finding a recurring theme of people (Western and especially international, educated and illiterate, men and women) applying Jesus’ words in Luke 10:1-12 to see what happens today.

Some stories are so jaw-dropping they are suspicious – like 500 churches planted in a year**. Some stories are atypical in other ways – like a wheelchair-bound grocer who is dying of a degenerative disease seeing numerous churches bubble up throughout his relational network and beyond.

But should we really be surprised? After all, Jesus promised to make his disciples fishers of men if they followed him. And Jesus showed on at least two occasions that He definitely knows how to fish abundantly (John 21:4-8, Luke 5:1-11). It makes sense that we’d find church-net-breaking-abundance through obedience as well.

Anyway, here’s just one of my take-aways from studying Luke 10: The harvest is not only abundant (10:2), but it’s also urgent.

I conclude “urgent” largely because, among other things, Jesus essentially tells his disciples to keep moving if they are not received (10-11). There are more “persons of peace” in other towns waiting. It makes sense to focus your limited time and energy on people who want to know God…

…and respect those who don’t / aren’t ready. Is not this “person of peace” approach a loving contrast to battering-ram evangelism where you don’t stop till “your convert” relents?

So what are some of your observations as you read Luke 10:1-10? Anything goes.

More importantly, who of your friends would pair up with you to try this yourself? I’ll keep you posted how it goes with me…

*As examples, I’m currently reading Church Planting Movements (David Garrison) and An Army of Ordinary People (Felicity Dale) – both fascinating and encouraging.

** But to top that, here’s another one I read just yesterday about 4,000 churches in 3 years coming out of East Africa. If it weren’t for personal verification from personal friends on some of these, I’d most likely dismiss them as nonsense