MMRC: Harvest 2000

Harvest 2000
by Justin D. Long
Please see next issue for addendum to this editorial

"Harvest 2000 is the name given to an Assemblies of God initiative to pray for every person in America by name and present each with a meaningful witness of Christ by year-end 2000," writes the Assemblies of God in AG-NEWS #120 (25 March 1998).

This is the "last great push" of the Decade of Harvest, the A/G theme for the 1990s. The last three years are scheduled as: 1998, communicating the goal to the Fellowship; 1999, identifying & praying for the harvest field; and 2000, reaching the harvest field with a personal presentation of the Gospel of Christ.

Harvest 2000 incorporates a partnership element in a national coalition of 55 denominations and 200 ministries representing over 170,000 churches, brought together through "Mission America." Churches are asked to map out their cities by zip code (via software provided by the Mapping Center for Evangelism in Kansas City, Mo.). "Just imagine every Assemblies of God church taking responsibility for a specific area of the U.S., cooperating with thousands of other churches, praying for every individual, and giving him or her a meaningful witness of Christ."

Right away, just about any reader of the Reality Check is going to know this editor's opinion of this plan. The news release was a little scant on thorough specifics, and nothing about the plan was present on the Assemblies of God website (http://www.ag.org), but I think the plan deserves a critique anyhow.

First, the target audience: "Every person in the United States." There is no real clear definition as to what "every person" means. Does it include children? Infants? The elderly? The disabled, who cannot clearly understand what is being told to them? What's the cut off age range? Moreover, does 'every person' include every Christian? It doesn't seem so, since the 170,000 churches partnered with represent nearly one-third of the total number of non-marginal Christian congregations in the United States. Perhaps it would have been better to say 'every non-Christian,' since this would certainly have reduced the field. Of course, then we would be left with asking 'who is a Christian'? Does the target audience include, for example, non-Pentecostals? non-Evangelicals? non-Protestants?

Next, Harvest 2000 suggests it will have A/G members pray for every individual in the United States by name. But, one should ask, where are they going to get the list? One can suggest a phone book on CD-ROM, but what about those numbers that are unlisted? What about those who don't have a phone at all? What about the homeless?

Harvest 2000 says it will provide special materials to aid in presenting a gospel message. Are the materials being distributed translated into minority languages? Are the "evangelists" attached to the churches ready to evangelize Muslims, for example? Have they been trained in doing so?

Finally, of course, there's always the question of why such a plan has been proposed at all. After all, residents of the United States receive on average at a bare minimum one offer of salvation monthly, and many receive one weekly. One wonders why the A/G hasn't adopted a similar goal for mission mobilization -- that is, to have every single A/G member above the age of 15 attend a missions-awareness course. That alone could result in massive mobilization of new missionaries for World A.