2007
Steven R. Rottgers
Ripe for the Harvest
With time passing into the second millennium, the Church finds itself faced with a paradigm shift from empirical maintenance to a missional challenge of becoming more relevant to people’s needs and to maintain flexibility. It is pushed to keep up with the rapid rate of change that now exists in the modern world. This thesis describes the development and application results of a discernment process that I have called, “Ripe for the Harvest”. It enables creative flexibility, an ability to adjust quickly and efficiently to people’s needs, and yet, still maintains a core of internal spiritual integrity. Although aspects of “Ripe for the Harvest” are readily applied in the secular world and known by other names, these same aspects, formats and theory were used by Christ thousands of years before surfacing in business today. However, most of them are not the practiced norm in Church management (Diocese or Parish) even though they have scriptural roots. Akin to the business practices of the SWOT method of Environmental Scanning and the application of the Pareto Principle, this process solicits input from the actual people involved, prioritizes that input, and then invites their engagement to make a missional difference of doing more by doing less. The basic structure of “Ripe for the Harvest” also makes it a viable means of soliciting input from multi-cultural members of a parish who in other formats may be hesitant to participate. The theological integrity for the entire discernment/empowerment process is built upon the Great Commandment (Summary of the Law) and Jesus’ Great Commission to the Apostles.