The Harvest Principle

Until recently, Lou Ashford was a District Evangelism Enabler in London. She is now a lay pastor responsible for a number of churches and she has a passion for promoting prayer.

Lou has produced a course entitled ‘The Harvest Principle’ which fits closely along the lines of Laurence Singlehurst’s book, ‘Sowing, Reaping, Keeping’. She has also overlaid the four elements of ‘Our Calling’ so that it fits in with Methodism’s understanding of church. As a farmer’s daughter, she has diverted slightly from Laurence’s terminology and split the course into ‘Ploughing, Sowing, Reaping and Keeping’, giving an extra emphasis to the ‘ploughing’ stage which is so important for many Christians.

Ploughing

This section explores ways of connecting with ‘the fringe’ - those people who have some contact with the church but who don’t attend regularly and wouldn’t consider themselves members. The aim is to put across the message ‘God is Good and Christians are OK’. Many people avoid church because of misconceptions and this section helps to address these.

Sowing

This section is all about sharing faith naturally with friends and neighbours with the hope that they might want to know more and would accept an invitation to a church event.

Reaping

This is the stage where most Christians run and hide because it’s about leading people to making a step of commitment to Jesus. Those horrible issues like ‘conversion’, ‘sin’ and repentance’ start to take centre stage. However, Lou rightly points out our reliance on God for this work by saying, ‘If our vision does not require God, then it isn’t of God.’

Keeping

This section deals with the issues of holding on to people and helping them to integrate into church life. It’s all about the structure of your church and whether or not you have a vision for growth. So many churches go through the motions week by week, preaching to the converted, without tailoring their services to new Christians or those on the fringe.

Lou provides a set of Powerpoint slides to help the leaders provide visual aids to those on the course.