He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Luke 10:2, NIV)
When I am playing strangers on the golf course, it is pretty common that we ask each other where we are from. And then I add these questions: How long you been playing golf? What course do you play mostly? What is your handicap? These are the safe questions we can ask on during the round. Nearly all golfers feel comfortable answering these.
But this year we have adopted a new tagline at Links Players: “Changing the Conversation at Our Clubs.”
Maybe the workers are few, but you can be among them.How each person does this will be a little bit different. You can’t really adopt a new personality or conversational style and come off as authentic. But you must be intentional.
I was meeting with a local Links Fellowship recently as they were going through a Links Friday study about sharing your faith. One of the attendees said that in business he has an elevator speech, and he wondered why he didn’t do the same when he played golf. He called it his “fairway testimony.”
Why would you want to do this? Our Links Players website actually includes three helpful paragraphs about key motivations for changing the conversation with words that go beyond the basic golfers’ questions. I encourage you to read them here.
When I visit the Links Fellowships in my area, I constantly remind them of the passage in Luke 10:2, where Jesus called the disciples to the harvest field. As disciples of Jesus in the 21st Century, many of us are called to the golf club. That’s our harvest field. You don’t have to go to Africa or China to reach the lost. You have a great harvest field right where you play golf.
This particular harvest field it is beautiful, but we are also reaching out in a difficult and challenging place. My pastor saw this clearly when he had lunch at a high-end club in our area. He noticed how these members had everything the world offers. But he also saw sadness and emptiness made worse when people wrongly think they have everything. This pastor had just returned from a trip to Africa, where he visited a very poor and poverty stricken area. The people there had nothing; they were desperate to know where their next meal was coming from. But what my pastor recognized was that it was easier to offer the hope of Christ to those who knew their desperation than to those at the golf club who had no material needs.
This is why the work of gospel-giving takes time. The harvest comes only after the work of tilling the soil and sowing the seeds and tending the ground and waiting. Brothers and sisters, keep working. Maybe the workers are few, but you can be among them. Pray that God will use you in changing the conversation and allowing people to meet Jesus.
—
Dereck Wong
August 10, 2016
Copyright 2016 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.