In Luke 10:2 Jesus told 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” (NIV). Going into God’s harvest field is equally valuable to those who go and to those to whom they go. As we go, people are transformed from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God. And as we go, we are transformed into the likeness of Jesus, sent by his Father into the harvest field we call earth. Those who go and those to whom they go, together become the church which “rises to become a holy temple…in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:21-22).
Two recent deaths in Eastern Kentucky have prompted my thinking about why we go to the harvest field. On August 8, 2021, Mattie Ruth Riley entered heaven. On August 26, 2021, less than three weeks later, Masty Blank also entered heaven. They each finished their earthly race and are in the presence of Jesus.
People are praying that God will send laborers into the harvest.
Seventy-five years ago, God moved in the hearts of CMC ministers prompting them to send a team of three ministers to the south to find a place to do mission work. After a couple days of praying, traveling, and following the leading of the Holy Spirit they were in Breathitt County, Kentucky, at a small community called Turners Creek. Following a summer Bible School on Turners Creek in the fall of 1946, Alvin Swartz moved with his family to Turners Creek and a church was planted there. One of the people who accepted Christ, was gloriously transformed, and became a faithful worker in the church at Turners Creek was John C. Turner, Mattie Ruth’s grandfather. Mattie Ruth grew up in the church and became a follower of Jesus, serving the church as Sunday School and Bible School teacher and treasurer. She had a powerful singing ministry. In her career as a public-school teacher, she impacted countless young lives for Jesus.
Soon after the start of the Turners Creek church, another church was planted ten miles away on Bowlings Creek, but just a couple miles walk through the hills (which is how they traveled in 1948). This church was born out of a concern the Turners Creek people had for their relatives on Bowlings Creek. In 1960, 27-year-old Masty Blank moved with his young family from Pennsylvania to help with the mission at Bowlings Creek. He was a teacher and song leader, witnessing for Jesus as he supported his family as a carpenter. He impacted many young people in his ministry at Bethel Camp, combining his love for nature, photography, and the Word of God.
Mattie Ruth’s nephew David Turner (John C’s great-grandson) is presently serving as associate pastor at Turners Creek Mennonite Church. David is also a great-grandson of Eli Swartzentruber, one of the three men from CMC who came to visit Turners Creek in 1946.
Presently, there is a movement in CMC, a stirring of the Spirit of the Lord. People are praying that God will send laborers into the harvest. There is a weekly zoom prayer meeting asking that God will lead us as a conference to plant churches. When phone alarms sound at 10:02, we pause to pray the Luke 10:2 prayer.
I don’t profess to know all about heaven, what it’s like and what kind of conversations and reflections are happening there. But allow me to wonder. I wonder if John C. and Eli have talked about their mutual great-grandson who is a pastor at Turners Creek or their mutual great-great-granddaughter who was recently baptized in the river, which Eli crossed to get to Turners Creek in 1946. I wonder whether Masty, Mattie Ruth, and others have discussed the 1946 CMC decision that led to church planting in Eastern KY, and I wonder how many people are or will be in heaven because of that decision.
And I wonder if in 75 years people will be asking “How many are in heaven because of the 2021 CMC passion to ‘Mature and Multiply,’ to share the gospel with the unreached in our communities, in our nation, and around the world? And how many thriving, Christ-centered, disciple making churches will have been birthed from this commitment?
As we pray the 10:2 prayer, may we also pray Isaiah 6:8 “Here am I. Send me!”
3 Responses
“Going into God’s harvest field is equally valuable to those who go and to those to whom they go.”
Yes, Phil! Forever in the hearts of the Alvin Swartz family is Turners Creek and its beloved people, so many now gathered together in the forever. The losses of Mattie Ruth and Masty are deeply hurtful. Now “there is singing up in heaven such as we have never known.” But God’s tapestry has knots on the side we can see and feel.
Beautiful story, Phil! So blessed to have had my own life woven into the fabric of that Eastern Kentucky mission vision in my earliest years.
Thanks for this encouraging, challenging piece! What we do with our lives certainly makes a huge difference — but probably most of it we don’t see or even realize this side of glory