Let’s face it, a lack of leaders is demoralizing. How many times have you thought, if we only had more leaders we could …
Reach more kids at this school.
Start a team to go to another school.
Begin a new ministry like WyldLife. Or Capernaum. Or YoungLives. Or Young Life College. Or Young Life ONE.
This is not a problem unique to Young Life. Or to 21st-century ministries. It’s a challenge even our Savior acknowledged during his time walking this planet. He had an answer for it, but first we need to consider the context of his answer in Matthew 9:35-38.
“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’”
Seeing Precedes Feeling
In this passage we see the three main components of Jesus’ ministry: Teaching, preaching, and healing. Jesus is in the thick of it here — towns and villages filled with people desperate to be healed both physically and spiritually. It may sound obvious, but being among them, Jesus sees them, and the pain they’re enduring. Seeing precedes feeling.
In Love Walked Among Us, Paul Miller writes, “As I studied how Jesus loved, I was surprised by the number of times that Jesus looks at people. Altogether the Gospels mention Jesus looking at people about 40 times. I was particularly struck by how often his compassion for people was preceded by his looking.”
Miller continues, “Compassion is the emotion most frequently attributed to Jesus.”
The word compassion comes from the Latin cum: with; passio: suffer; “suffering with.” As Jesus is suffering with these people, he immediately addresses the need with his disciples.
Discrepancy
Just because Jesus was walking this earth, it didn’t mean leaders weren’t needed. In fact, the Savior readily acknowledges the discrepancy — the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. This breaks the Savior’s heart.
It breaks ours too. There are so many helpless and hurting kids, and yet so few leaders to reach them. It can certainly leave us with a feeling of hopelessness.
So, what’s the solution?
First, let’s take a look at what’s not the answer. Let’s see what Jesus doesn’t say. Jesus doesn’t encourage us to first tell prospective leaders …
Exciting things are happening in the ministry!
The numbers are up!
You’re soooo critical to the work!
(Things many of us have uttered in our zeal.)
In fact, in trying to find new leaders Jesus doesn’t say anything about how to talk to the leaders!
It’s all about talking to God.
Why?
Matthew 9:38 tells us that he is Lord of the harvest and it’s his harvest field. The Lord knows we’re lacking laborers, and he cares far more about the harvest than even we can. Just as significantly, he cares far more about the workers (you and me!) than the results he will bring about through them (us!).
Maybe we need to stop and read that last sentence again.
So in Jesus’ eyes, the number one way to recruit new leaders is to begin with prayer. If God is the Lord of the harvest, then he can raise up the laborers (staff and volunteers) he’ll use to reach this harvest field of adolescents. Maybe one reason he calls us to pray is so we’ll have that same heart of compassion for them as he does.
Prayer is a conversation. We’re having a conversation with our superior, the one who owns the harvest. He’s well aware of the need. We’re not informing him of anything! In prayer, we’re coming alongside the Father and seeing the situation as he sees it. Young Life’s first priority is to pray.
Not plead nor convince people. Make no mistake …
There is a place for marketing.
There is a place for presenting the need to qualified brothers and sisters, who might fill the void.
There is a place perhaps to advertise on social media the need for more leaders.
It’s not that purposeful engagement with people is wrong, it’s just not the first (nor the main) thing to do. Yes, we can call, ask, etc., but it’s the Lord who moves the heart.
So first and foremost this need, like every need, must be laid at the feet of the Father. This blog post was not titled “How to Get More Leaders,” as if we can just add water and stir. Perhaps an equally appropriate title could be “How to Join the Heart of God.” Prayer is not a clever technique to get what we want or need. It is an honest conversation, both speaking and listening to our loving, kind Father.
So how should we pray?
Jesus tells us to ask the Father to send out (literally, to thrust out) workers into his fields. Our job is to call on the Lord, his job is to compel hearts. This is nothing new when we reflect upon our history.
Praying for leaders is a seminal moment in the birth of Young Life. In fact, it’s how our mission started. In case you’re unfamiliar with the story, here’s the account from the book, Made For This: The Young Life Story.
In the small Texas community of Gainesville, Clara Frasher had a front-row view of the town’s teenagers. Every morning and afternoon, the elderly woman sat on her front porch directly across from the local high school and watched the crowds of students pass by. From her rocking chair she observed a newly emerging youth culture, complete with its own slang, music, fashions, and attitudes.
She was also aware of another trend among 1930s teenagers — a growing disenchantment with organized religion. As a churchgoer herself, she saw firsthand that their interest and participation in church was waning. How, she wondered, would these kids ever hear the good news?
Seeing these lost students was more than Mrs. Frasher could bear, so she prayed, “I don’t know what I can do, but I pray that someone will rescue these kids. They don’t know where they’re going. They’re just wandering back and forth, and going where, nobody knows.”
Mrs. Frahser soon invited a small group of women to meet on Monday mornings and pray for the kids at Gainesville High School. The answer didn’t come in a few days. Or weeks. Or even months. For six years these friends faithfully called on the Lord’s help. And when the time was right the Lord moved in a way that would prove to be more than they could ask or imagine.
Like Jesus, Clara Frasher saw the need of these students, and she too was filled with compassion. She was forced to her knees to beg God for an answer. The idea of praying for six years before a laborer arrived might sound terribly impractical, but the ladies understood the Lord’s timing may not be their timing. And what they hoped for — a person to come and care for the teenagers at Gainesville High School — ended up being far more than just that.
They had no idea that God would answer the weekly times spent on their knees with a man by the name of Jim Rayburn, who would soon found a ministry called Young Life, and expand the work beyond the small town. Today Young Life is an international ministry in over 100 countries.
Consider this: if you are, or have ever been, on staff, a volunteer leader, a committee member, or prayer warrior, you are an indirect answer to Clara Frasher’s prayer!
Praying Matthew 9:38
What might it look like to join with other areas around the world in praying this foundational verse? Often Young Life folks stop in their tracks at 9:38 a.m. or p.m. and ask the Father for workers. They do this alone. They do this in groups. But they do it.
And the Lord smiles, for their hearts are aligning with his.
And here’s a friendly suggestion: every time God does, in his own timing, thrust out a laborer for the work, let’s make it priority number one to thank him, the Lord of the harvest.
It’s just one more reminder to us that the source of all leaders will only ever be THE leader, and this is always how he intended it to be.
