may 2023 featured Article

Introducing Jeff Getz

Jeff Getz is the Director of the Missionary Church Eastern Region and recently started the Immerge Network (immergenetwork.org) to mentor young leaders serving in immigrant communities. Formerly he was lead pastor at Avalon Missionary Church (Fort Wayne) and served as MC’s Church Multiplication Coordinator. He and his wife, Christina, moved their family to New York City in 2007 to live for the good of the city, so Jeff enjoys inspiring other dads to lead their families on a mission to serve their communities. Jeff is proud of his three girls, including one who is a recent graduate of Bethel University School of Nursing. He enjoys biking, Penn State football, English literature, comedy and satire, and bricklaying.

Open Your Eyes and Pray

“Jesus went through all the towns and villages ... When He saw the crowds … He had compassion on them … and said to His disciples, ‘the harvest is plentiful.’” (Matthew 9:35-38)

When Jesus declared that “the harvest is plentiful,” was He only speaking of the spiritual climate of His day? Was He declaring a timeless truth that would apply to every place, including our current spiritual climate? If the harvest is truly ready right now, do we see it?

Shortly after I was born, I had reconstructive eye surgery that aligned my optic muscles to function normally. Nearly 45 years later, my eyes had weakened and were not functioning in coordination, requiring another optic muscle surgery.

My eyes were completely covered for seven days, and I opened them to see an incredibly confusing picture. Instead of one continuous horizon, two “tilted” horizons intersected in the middle of my view as if forming a giant X. Doctors explained that though my eyes were functioning properly, my brain needed time to merge the competing pictures into one. They pleaded with me to keep looking as long as I could. Stare. Look harder. Look longer. Within a week, I began to make sense of the misaligned information. The two slanted horizons slowly rotated until they aligned into one perfect picture. The correction was happening in my brain, not in my eyes.

I wonder if we are misinterpreting what we see in our world. Do our minds need to be more careful, more intentional, more discerning as to the signs of a “ready” harvest? Are we agreeing with the popular view about the state of our culture while missing its readiness for the gospel? 

Jesus told us to do more than simply glance at the fields. We were told to “look.” Look again, even stare at the fields, until we are able to understand what He sees there. 

In John 4:35 Jesus asks, “Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” Are we looking “four months out”? Are we content in praying that the harvest will someday become ready? Are we believing that God might ripen the harvest sometime in the future, but certainly not now? 

Some of you have spent a day with me in New York City at CurioCity where we prayed missionally as we walked among the crowds, staring carefully at the mission field … person by person, block by block, building by building, subway car by subway car, park bench by park bench. What an incredible experience to look at the fields while pondering the heart of the Father toward each of these “faces, places, and spaces,” as I like to call them.

Missional prayer is not asking God to save the world, simply listing out and naming lost people to God, telling God how much the world deserves to be indicted, or asking God to love the world more, as if that were possible. Missional prayer leads to a compassion for the crowds, sympathizing with those who feel hopeless, empathizing with those who are harassed and helpless, all the while we are being cleansed from attitudes, prejudices, and views that hinder our compassion and distract us from our mission toward the crowds.

Imagine the intercession that Christ Jesus is doing today before the Father on behalf of your neighbor across the street, the co-worker across the hall, or the stranger at the coffee shop. The same Christ who had compassion on the crowds understood their common plights as hopeless and harassed. As Christ followers, we too quickly forget what life feels like for those who have no shepherd. We complain about the inconveniences of being a Jesus follower while giving little thought about what it’s like to get out of bed each morning with no shepherd. Christ-like compassion doesn’t happen unless we take the risk of actually looking at the crowds. 

Seeing what Jesus sees doesn’t happen casually. Instead of just praying, “God, please help what’s her name with whatever she might be dealing with,” why not take a closer look at her life. Notice her. Know her. See her through the gospel. We must truly look at people until we weep for them, until our indifferent heart is truly compassionate toward them. Compassion toward others does not happen with flippant glances their way.

What is He praying? Christ is in us, and He is our Life. What would it look like if the Spirit of Christ in me gave expression to what Christ is seeing, thinking, feeling, and sensing in the faces and places around me? Asking the Spirit to reveal to us what the Son might be praying to the Father leads us to echoing His intercession.

Rather than getting our prayer list from the news, what if we began to see what He sees, sense what He senses, and believe what He says is already happening before our eyes? Aren’t you curious about what prayers Christ is praying to the Father as He continues to intercede for the Father’s mission now being done through missionaries like you and me? We pray to the Father through Jesus, but we also pray with Jesus.

Open your eyes. See what He sees. Believe what He says is true about the readiness of the harvest. And then pray. Pray that many others will also open their eyes, see the harvest, and join today’s movement of harvest workers.

I imagine that is a prayer Christ Jesus prayed this morning. So let’s open our eyes and pray it right now.