Gathering In 

I wonder what harvest means to you. I still remember harvest assemblies, and being envious of school friends whose parents had covered bigger boxes with foil and filled them with more stuff than mine! I was even more envious of those who had little baskets that I looked at longingly, but now realise were just mushroom boxes! When I was at school, harvest was all about the fruit, veg and ‘we plough the fields…’. Maybe because I was a child, I didn’t question it, but today this feels far removed from reality; most of us don’t live in sight of fields, and our shopping is usually from supermarkets, or even delivered to our door.

Harvest is about thankfulness, recognising where things come from with gratitude; and ‘gathering in’. It harks back to the time when produce was seasonal, and was gathered in at the end of the summer to last through the winter, until the next growing season.

This phrase ‘gathering in’, is something I’ve been pondering recently. Nowadays, we can have strawberries at any time of year, but I wonder if we’ve lost the spirit of ‘gathering in’ seasonal produce. We no longer need to wait with eager anticipation for scrumptious summer fruit!  One could argue that we don’t have the same awareness or gratitude for how food is gathered and delivered into supermarkets. You could say the same about Amazon Prime – have you ever stopped to think about the steps taken for your item to be gathered into your arms, in just a matter of hours after clicking ‘buy’?!

In our house we gather no end of chargers and cables for the multitude of electronic devices we have (but typically, we can never find the right one when we need it!). As I write this, my family seem to have gathered in a vast quantity of Pringles! Tubes of various flavours which have appeared in my cupboard from the recesses of bags!

 

‘God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks.’

Please don’t misunderstand me – I’m not suggesting we become hoarders who gather into their home a vast array of items (including pringle boxes and device cables)! But I am asking the question: what do you gather in? Sometimes, the things we gather in, whether that’s busy lifestyles or the ‘stuff’ in our homes, can hold us back from what God wants us to gather in and harvest. There is something quite powerful about waiting until the right time to gather in the fruit of our labour (Psalm 128:1-2). Perhaps God wants us to gather in faith, storing it up as an anchor for hard times. A faith that’s fuelled by prayer and dwelling in his word. A faith that can look forward with hope, just as a full barn would fill a community with hope in ages long since passed. The waiting can be hard, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

Ultimately, I think God longs to gather us in as his children. He wants us to know who and whose we are: dearly loved children of a heavenly father.

Of course, we can only gather in and reap, what we have sown. So, what do we sow into our lives? To paraphrase Aristotle;

‘We are what we most frequently do.’

What then, do we do so frequently that we are sowing it into the fabric of our lives…for good or ill? (Maybe we’re back to the busyness, electronic devices, and Pringles!) Here on the estate where I live, a small group of us have decided to sow missional rhythms into our day to day. We feel called to be dandelions! Maybe your first thought is of pesky weeds that grow in your lawn. It was mine too. But God has been teaching me certain things about dandelions which help to frame my approach to local community mission. I love how dandelions break up new ground and are often the first to grow in hard and damaged ground. I love that dandelions recognise what’s missing from the ground and put it back, feeding the soil to support new growth. I love that dandelions open to the sun during the day. And of course, I love that they are windblown.

And so our small group, ‘The Clockhouse’, are sensing a call to:

• Break up new ground through prayer.
• Feed the soil to support new growth through intentional relationships and a missional lifestyle.
• Be open to the Son and in so doing to point others to him as well.
• Be wind-blown, joining in with what God is doing, following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Life is busy (back to the diary and devices analogy again!) so rather than doing a new thing or adding yet another thing, it’s about developing a posture of intent around how we already live our lives. For us, the intent starts with seeds that are windblown. Each day we will sow seeds by:

Seeking - who does God want us to encounter today and what might that look like e.g. a very intentional, ‘How’s your day?’

Encountering – doing it! Following through, noticing when God is prompting us.

Explaining – to the group what has happened when we meet.

Discerning – what might God be doing/saying and then praying.

Sending – recognising where God has sent us and embracing our posture as ‘sent people’.

So this harvest time, how might God be asking us to adopt a posture of mission and intentionally plant seeds in our everyday? Seeds we might sow now, and then eagerly wait for him to gather in at a later date? Here are a few resources that might help you:
 

National Day of Prayer for Schools 27th September
Run by Pray for Schools, Youthscape, PAIS, Prayer Spaces in Schools, Scripture Union, Youth for Christ, and others. The vision is to mobilise Christians to support their school communities through prayer. All over the UK, groups of parents, teachers or schools workers meet on a regular basis to pray for their local schools. Join one of the online events to gather together in prayer for 30 minutes either at 7am or 1pm.
Register here

OIKOS Prayer App
Commit to praying for your community, to being a seed and using the OIKOS prayer app to help you. It’s free and easy to use, simply download then tap to pin a prayer on a street or pray for a home.
If you are praying with others in or for an area, you might want your own OIKOS subgroup or to join the pilot ‘Prayer In Action’ project between Hope and Cinnamon Network. This gives you access to free training and resources beyond OIKOS to support you in missional listening and community mapping. For more information, contact sammy.jordan@hopetogether.org.uk or click here

Hope Harvest Resources
If you are planning to celebrate harvest this autumn, perhaps as a time to reach out and sow into your community, we’ve put together some harvest festival suggestions and resources:
Hope Together : Autumn
Harvest Outreach Ideas

As I finish, I want to reiterate that for me, living missionally is not about doing another thing... I don’t have time! It’s about a posture of intent every day, sowing seeds, always being prepared to be windblown and waiting expectantly, trusting God to gather in the fruit. It’s about pivoting what I already do, so that like a dandelion, it intentionally but accessibly points to The One I am living for. The One who wants to gather us all into his arms.