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We are not living in harvest days in the UK.

There are times of spiritual ploughing, sowing, watering, weeding as well as harvesting. We look to the Lord of the harvest, and to the Lord for harvest, but meanwhile we are called to faithfully prepare the ground, plant gospel seed.

Postcode lottery?

Jesus told us to pray for workers into the harvest fields. Yet, we can hardly blame him if they are not there. Labourers are needed for evangelistic work, and they need to be spread across the ‘field’; if some areas are harder to work than others, then more work is needed there.

‘What I've discovered is that what works best with non-Christians is opening up the Bible with them.’

So said Doug, a student at Glasgow University, who was surprised at the effectiveness of discussing God’s Word with non-Christian students, in a forum often called seeker or evangelistic Bible studies.

Among the many distinctive traits of 21st-century global culture is our confidence in technology.

To every problem there must be a solution which technology can supply, if only the science is advanced enough and there is money enough to apply it. And in many areas of our human experience that has been proved to be true, so that we can all be profoundly thankful for the benefits of scientific research in making us healthier, more comfortable and (perhaps) happier than our forebears.

Heathrow airport on a Wednesday afternoon. You buy a tray full of overpriced coffees and carry them carefully over to a group of people sitting round a small table. A teary-eyed missionary saying goodbye to sad family and friends!

It’s a strange mix of excitement and sadness. After handshakes and hugs all round you watch as your missionary joins the queue through security and into the departure lounge. A final wave and he is gone! The thought suddenly comes into your mind, ‘Now what?!’

Last October over 200 people filled St. James’s Church, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, for a service of thanksgiving for the life of Roy Leafe, the church’s assistant minister for six years.

Roy lived the last two years of his life with the diagnosis of bowel cancer, a condition he bore with courage and without complaint.