Don’t Forget to Sow

I didn’t agree with every line in the book. Some of the examples were dated. Some of the cultural analysis seemed too simplistic. Some of the prescriptions made me nervous. But overall I found the thesis to be provocative, urgent, and biblical. I’m talking about a book you probably haven’t read, Tim Downs’ Finding Common Ground: How to Communicate With Those Outside the Christian Community…While We Still Can (Moody 1999).

Downs’ argument is simple and profound. He maintains that when it comes to evangelism we focus almost everything on harvesting and little on sowing. We want to win converts, and rightfully so. But if we have the opportunity to “harvest souls” it will only be because others before us have sowed. No field is always ripe for harvest. Good farmers don’t run the combines year round. They spend most of their time preparing for the harvest.

Sowing, we’ve said, is the long, slow, behind-the-scenes process of preparing an individual, or an entire culture, to be able to hear and believe the gospel. The sower works to create an atmosphere–a soil, if you will–that is conducive to the growth of the gospel. If the sower does his work well–what Jesus referred to as “the hard work”–then the harvester may find an abundant harvest awaiting him. If the sower doesn’t do his job, the harvester may find himself casting his pearls before swine. . . .Harvesting and sowing are not two contradictory methods of evangelism vying for supremacy, but two complementary roles, each with its own focus and methodology. (101-102)

Downs is not down on gospel proclamation or courageous confrontation. But he fears that in evangelism most Christians major on “innocent as doves” and virtually ignore “shrewd as serpents.” We must be willing to patiently help smooth over stereotypes and prejudice. Sometimes we must be content to inch people closer to the gospel even if they are still miles away. We can learn to create plausibility structures for the gospel or highlight inconsistencies in a secular worldview or use art and other forms of indirect communication to persuade people of foundational biblical realities (e.g., there is a God, we are sinners, God created the world) that won’t get anyone saved but may lead to a harvest later. It’s like Greg Koukl says, sometimes we are just trying to put a pebble in their shoe.

Every farmer loves the celebration of the harvest. But good farmers will also be just as faithful with the slow, unnoticed, faith-filled act of sowing.