I love our vision at Southeast to
unleash the full force of the church to love people one at a time because we truly believe that Jesus has called each of us, right where we are, to live lives of intentionality, purpose, and mission!
The Bible often uses agricultural language and metaphors to help us understand this mission we’ve been given as followers of Jesus. Geographical locations are described as “fields,” God is referred to as the “Lord of the Harvest,” and the Gospel is the seed to plant and water. This makes us the planters and the field workers.
While we no longer live in an agrarian society, this metaphor of mission is vital for us to hold on to, because it’s in the field that we are unleashed.
In Luke 9, we read the phrase grip the plow. It comes out of a section of Scripture titled “The Cost of Following Jesus,” where Jesus is challenging His followers to grip the plow, stay focused, stay steady, and don’t look back. The image is not of a businesswoman or man who sits behind a desk—it’s of someone who gets dirty and sweaty working the fields, and does it with grit, determination, and resolve.
Grip the plow isn’t a call to a comfortable and relaxing existence. Grip the plow is a call to each of you—to us—to engage in the work of this church. It’s a call to radical commitment, to personal sacrifice.
So, our prayer is that we would be less focused on the size of the crowd, and more focused on our level of commitment. That we would be less concerned with our seating capacity and more concerned with our sending capacity—that we would send into this world people of radical commitment, engaged in the work of the Church, who are embracing a call to personal sacrifice.
This issue is filled with people who are gripping the plow and letting God do what only He can. My prayer is that it would take you on a very personal journey of asking God what He may want to do in you, so that He can do His work through you!
TIM HESTER
Senior Executive Pastor
Southeast Christian Church