how to qualify for the sunset harvest: God is calling

Because God is calling urgently and intensely and has spoken so clearly twice (through a man and woman both hungering for God) as I personally encounter within two months in two different countries for sunset harvest laborers for one specific people group (the elderly: 60-80s) whom He is now saving, nurturing and discipling, I have compiled a list on the qualifications required to be part of this Great Commission. The target remnant group lives in the cities and urban towns, usually alone and separate from relatives and friends. Some live with their family but have difficulty of interacting with the younger generations who have pre-occupation with their own lives. Some are seekers of God. Some are new believers or believers who have not been discipled. Often the willingness to know God deeper and wider is in their heart. They yearn for God and His way for an abundant life.

The List is not exhaustive and may be used as a first draft. You will note that this list is not the usual traditional church list for ministry to the elderly. I pray that we all think out of our boxes and do the great paradigm shift. I pray we become the neighbors who can slow down our pace, pause, and stop for at least one whom God is determined to save, help, give an abundant life and demonstrate His love through a willing heart.

THE QUALIFICATION FOR DEEPER MINISTRY TO THE LOST REMNANT GROUP: THE SUNSET HARVEST

1. Be willing to go to them. Because many cannot come to church due to physical reasons.
2. Be available in terms of time. They need plenty of time during the ministering. because they cannot remember as we normally do. They need lots of repetitions.
3. Be aware that this ministry is a one to one ministry. The target is an elderly woman or an old man.
4. Be filled with the Spirit of God. Because God is love. This ministry is a ministry of love above all.
5. Be savvy in modern technology. Because their current one need is love. They usually live alone and have limited access to transport or other relatives. They sit in the house whole day and want to know God and what God is saying to them. They are tired of the secular TV. They want a different message. A different and genuine love, joy and peace which they have heard that our God can give. They have been exposed through the multimedia to a better and easier way to learn about God and how ti live the Christian abundant lives that Jesus has promised and they want more. They want to learn the new way to access more information and perhaps even join in and participate by watching and listening how others worship and praise God or pray.
6. Because of the difficulty and cost to learn and use a personal computer they prefer learn to use mobile phone to access the internet.
7. You need to be conversant in their native language. Many cannot use English. If you happen to be near a Chinese community you need to use Chinese language, spoken and written, at least enough to read and explain the terminologies of a mobile phone. You need to use their language to explain and demonstrate how to access the various basic internet functions.
8. Because they cannot type, you need to help them to install the Applications they need: audio Bible, Christian channel for audio and video watching, Christian songs. Most of them can read. But typing is a bit difficult as they do not know how to use PinYin which requires using Romanized (English alphabets and sounds) typing. Some do not have steady fingers and cannot use the writing mode as an alternative.
9. You also need to show them how to delete, uninstall, remove cluttering of unwanted stuff from their phones. Teach them the setting. Teach them where to look at their internet usage. And there are many more little useful details which they can learn to maintain their little useful technological window to the Christian world and have the virtual mobility they want and need to learn God’s way.
10. You need to know the Bible and are always ready to answer questions about the Bible on God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Bible verses

Luk 10:37 And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Goand do likewise.”

Luk 14:21 “So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’

Luk 14:23 “Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

Luk 15:4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

Rev 7:9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

Rev 19:1 After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God!

Rev 19:6 And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!