Imagine an orchard, bursting at the seams with crops ready to be picked. But the man who owns the orchard can’t be troubled with the hassle of plucking fruit off the trees. He lets the fruit rot, rather than climb his ladder to fill his basket.

Sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Yet the same thing happens daily in our world — the Church seems remarkably silent in the face of a world ready for harvest. The nations are waiting, yet disciple-makers are not praying, not going, not mobilizing others. What do communities of disciple-makers exist for, if not to reap the harvest?

Now, before you think I’m sitting in my desk chair with my feet up, condemning the whole of Christendom, I humbly admit that I, too, have grown slack in praying for laborers to go out into the harvest. Before I can challenge you to pray, go, or mobilize, I must first challenge myself.

It may seem almost too simple, but prayer is the most strategic step we could possibly take. So, together, let’s commit to pray for disciple-makers who will live and love like Jesus and transform the world.

Here’s how you can pray:

• Ask God to stir up His church to call out for laborers.
• Ask God to move upon the hearts of His people, creating a passion to go and make His name known among unreached peoples.
• Ask God to provide the funding needed for those who are being sent.
• Ask God to orchestrate divine encounters between the laborers and those who make up the harvest. 

Mark Silvers served with Crossworld in the Philippines for 10 years and joined the home office staff as Director of Mobilization in 2009. Mark’s driving passion is the goal of reaching the the 2.9 billion people in the world today with no access to the gospel.