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In my office, there sits a shelf with a growing collection of books that are probably the least-used references in my library. They are a collection of all the latest "church growth" fads that have hit the market throughout the past few years. They represent what was at that time "must buy" books for pastors.

If there is anything that characterizes our modern generation today is that we are suckers for "a new thing." It has been said that our culture reinvents itself every three to five years, and so to be "up to date" or "in the know" you must get on board each new idea as they come. Consider dieting. Think with me to all of the latest "had to do it" fads that have come along. Remember the "lose weight while you sleep" stuff that was everywhere in San Antonio? What happened to that? It was replaced by the Atkins' diet. But the Atkins company has now filed for bankruptcy. Then there was Body for Life. I was in the store the other day buying granola bars and noticed the new "South Beach Diet" food bars. Another gimmick and another fad. If someone would go on the Atkins' diet today, people would laugh at them, but for a while it was the "thing to be doing." If something hasn't worked for you in the area of weight loss, just be patient, there will be something else to try that you can buy! I used to tell my wife that if I truly wanted to lose weight, then I would become a long distance runner. Have you ever seen one of them that was big?

Unfortunately, this faddism has spread into the area of church and the kingdom of God. Today when I go to conferences or visit neighboring ministers, I am amused that there is always a "buzz book" or system that is the "latest greatest" that they say "you must read." You've got to go read that book. You've got to read this book. "This is the key to revival, they say" and I don't have the heart to point out to them that last year, the neglected book that is sitting on the back of their shelf was the "key to revival!"

When I was a kid, the key to a great harvest of souls was supposedly knocking doors. We would go on Saturdays and knock doors and invite people to church, and it took a few decades to realize that although it makes the person who is doing the inviting feel good and causes them to get out of their comfort zone, on the whole it was very ineffective.

Then the craze was tent revivals. Anybody who was anybody bought a huge tent and a sound system and had services outside in the street. And many of those revivals were highly effective, but strangely you don't hear about them much anymore because tent revivals are not the latest and greatest in the world of religion.

And then the trend was "blitz campaigns" where churches joined together and canvassed and thoroughly covered a town culminating in a massive church service together. And then were massive and complex church-growth plans that used big graphs and set goals for outreach and contacts and where saints reported each service to the church growth guy how many people that they had invited and how many hours that week that they had prayed for souls. And then were "cell groups" where you take a service a week and instead of meeting together at the church, you divide everyone up into smaller groups that meet that night in a home under a "care group" leader. More recently, the trends have been the "vineyard" movement, where they create a church that tries to appease people who don't like church, and then there are those churches of the "leadership" mode that try to set up the local church like a business office so that "business professionals" will feel comfortable in their congregations. Last year the deal was "the purpose driven life" where people do everything "for a purpose" and keep a daily log and journal and across America there are hundreds of churches that their main agenda and program is now this program. The year before that was the "prayer of Jabez" stuff. The latest trend is what I call the "concert church." Get a good music program, get stage lights and a smoke machine. Make every service a production and a hype session. Get the latest in video and imaging. Get a leader with a fake smile who will avoid doctrine and scriptural issues such as sin, and advertise and televise your services, and you will have a large church! The key is technology and flash, they say.

The denominational church across from my father-in-law's church recently hired a "church growth expert" to come analyze why they were not growing. After reviewing and inspecting every thing, this "expert" told them that the reason for their lack of success was that their building was ugly and that if they would cover the church building with bricks, they would see a tremendous harvest! And they paid this guy for this advice!

All of these things are "methods" of reaching out to a community, and many of them are not bad ideas within themselves. But none of them in themselves are the "key to a great harvest." If it were, then why did Jesus not mention or foretell about them? Some people think that services on television or internet is the key to having a massive revival of souls, and if it is, then why is there not one reference to such a medium or principle in scripture? Is it because the Bible is outdated for a modern world? Or is it because none of these things in themselves are the true key to a great harvest?

I'm going to even go out on a limb and say that "prayer and fasting" is not the secret key to having a harvest of souls won to God. Prayer and fasting are important. But I have known friends that moved to a city, got a job, found a building and began to pray hours everyday for a harvest and fasted until their belly button turned inside out, and eventually left dejected and disillusioned and even a little bitter at God. Understand that if something is the key that unlocks something, then it works no matter what time or age or circumstance. A key that unlocks a particular lock will work in all seasons and in all locales and in all cultures and in all economic classes, and in all settings. A key will work all by itself, if someone will use it. Prayer and fasting is important and an important part of living for God -- don't get me wrong -- but it is not the "key" to having a fantastic, miraculous harvest because just because you fast and pray doesn't mean that God brings people to you.

So what is it? What is the key to a church and area having a great harvest? All of us have different ideas of what it takes for a church to grow and most of them are just methods that we like because of our personality or background or a result of what we have been taught, and are not really the "key to a great harvest." If you look to the scripture, you will discover examples of the real key to revival, and find it over and over again. And yet it has been largely forgotten in the advent of all the fads and "new deals." What is this key to having a great harvest in the kingdom of God? Drum roll please . . . It is "personal evangelism." One person winning one person. People of God that are filled with His Spirit caring enough to reach out to someone, win them as a friend, answer their scriptural questions, spend time with them, pray for them, help them, and be real with them. Winning people one on one is the key to having a great harvest.

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Jesus was the greatest soul winner that ever lived -- there is not doubt about that. In three and a half years, He forever changed the world and laid the foundation for a church that would turn it upside down. And yet the key aspect of Jesus' ministry was not really the crowded days where He would push back from the shore and teach the multitude. Jesus' ministry was more often characterized by spending time with people one on one. Remember Nicodemus in John chapter 3? There are very few glimpses and exchanges in Jesus' ministry that teach us more about the plan of God than His conversation with this man, and yet we tend to forget that nobody else was around. It was a conversation held at night with just Nicodemus and Jesus by themselves. We know today about the necessity of being born of the water and of the Spirit because of a one on one encounter. We know today about the love of God and John 3:16 because of Jesus' talk with one man.

Remember the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19? The scriptures say that the crowd around Jesus was so great, that the short man had climbed a tree to just see Jesus, and yet we find in the story, Jesus tells Zacchaeus to come down out of the tree that He is going to eat with Him today, and Jesus leaves the crowd, to go fellowship with one man who has religious pedigree! To us it would have seemed a waste, to leave the thousands and spend a few hours with just one, but to Jesus it was priority! Jesus understood the true key to revival was not necessarily in preaching to the zillions, but reaching a lost soul, one by one.

We tend to forget that Zacchaeus was a publican and a tax collector who climbed the tree because he had "heard about Jesus," but never seen Him! Over a year before, Jesus had taken time out of His schedule to call another tax collector named Matthew and upon obeying the call of Jesus, Matthew had thrown a feast for all his tax collector friends to come and meet Jesus. It is very likely, that although he was not at that feast, that Zacchaeus had heard about Jesus through mutual tax collectors that had, and that the seed of faith that came to fruition that day in the sycamore tree, started with Jesus taking the time to call and deal with one man, Matthew!

What about Jesus eating at Simon the Pharisee's house? I don't know that Jesus ever won Simon to His cause, but He was trying. What about the woman with the issue of blood, whom Jesus could have healed without even acknowledging her existence, and yet felt led to stop the crowd and draw attention and praise to the one? For the first year of Jesus' ministry, He spent hours with a small handful of men, His disciples, teaching them, loving them, and influencing them. And even in the later part of His ministry, He would get away from the crowds and teach them. He would take Peter, James, and John apart and spend time with them. Jesus would travel across an entire lake and endure a horrible storm, just to get to one demon-possessed reject of society that awaited on the other side. Jesus' ministry was characterized by personal, one to one, evangelism. And it was the key to His changing the world for forever!

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There is no greater example of Jesus' commitment to ministering to the one, than the story of the woman at the well in our text of John chapter 4. Coming to a well at Samaria, Jesus sent the disciples away to buy food. It was not because He was starving, because when they eventually brought the food, He did not eat it. Jesus knew that a certain woman was coming and knew that she would not properly respond to His teachings if a crowd were around. Jesus sent the disciples away to minister to a Samaritan woman, one on one. (And notice that He was careful to only minister to the opposite sex in a very public place, where there was not even the hint of the improper.)

The Bible says that when the disciples got back from town, that they "marveled" that Jesus was talking to this lone woman, but not one of them asked "why are you talking to her." Because everyone of them knew why He was talking to her, because they had at one time first had that same discussion and talk. You see, we do not have every miracle that Jesus ever performed recorded for us because of the great space that it would have taken up and so we have a few "key" examples of the miracles that Jesus did. I don't think that the writers of the Gospels chose exceptional miracles only, but I think the Holy Spirit moved upon them to write what was a fair representation of what Jesus did everyday. We can learn the normal method of Jesus' operation from reading the few. The miracles that were recorded were of the type that were the rule not the exception!

And I think that it is the same way with the recordings of Jesus' one on one encounters. The Gospel writers could not include every such conversation because of the lack of space, but I believe that such talks as with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well were the normal course of Jesus' life. These are -- I believe -- a fair representation of what happened all the time with Jesus. I believe that Jesus' life was characterized by personal evangelism. The disciple did not have to ask what Jesus was doing talking to this woman, because He was doing what He always did, talking to an individual because He wanted to see them saved!

When the woman became convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, she ran back into the town and the entire town came out to see Jesus and hear Him teach. They so believed that He was who He said that He was, that they convinced Him to stay with them for a few days teaching them the new kingdom principles. The crowd was affected and moved and stirred and reached, but it all began with Jesus spending time with one person.

Don't get me wrong, it is the will of God for us to win the multitudes and throw out the net and reap the group harvests with many people at a time, but lost in all of that is the key to such a great harvest, and that key is starting with one soul! Hear this preacher: the people of Samaria and the woman at the well did not receive salvation under Grace that day because it was not yet needed. They were still under Law. But the seed was planted. When you turn to the 8th chapter of the book of Acts, you find this:

Before the chapter is over, we have such great verses as this:

And this:

And then we find that this great soul harvest spread from the one city into the entire country of Samaria:

How exciting! This is what we want in church growth! This is what we want to see in our own personal evangelism. We want to see the thousands getting the Holy Ghost and thousands getting baptized! We want to see the entire area rocked by the power and presence of God! We want to see the whole city beating down our door to receive the revelation that we have! But don't forget that Phillip and Peter and John were simply reaping the harvest of the seeds sown in Samaria by Jesus Christ back in John chapter 4. The massive revival of Samaria in Acts 8 would have never been if Jesus had not taken the time at a well with one woman that day in John 4. I looked it up and it was a minimum of four years between John 4 and Acts 8 and possibly as much as thirteen years between them! The harvest of Samaria was not something generated by a new gimmick or the latest fad of church growth, but was rather a result of a seed being planted in one person's life and slowly germinating there for five to ten years! Phillip just happened to be the one to begin to reap the harvest.

The Apostle Paul said:

Some plant, and others water, but it is God who gives the harvest and both the planter and the waterer were vital to the crop. But we want to reap the harvest. It is the reaping that is fun, not the planting and not necessarily the watering. Ask a man if he would like some corn or a watermelon, and he will immediately say "yes," particularly if it is free. But ask that same man "would you like to break your back plowing a field and tilling it and hoeing it and planting seed and then watering it and weeding it and guarding it?" and he will look at you like you are crazy! We like harvesting; we do not like the work of sowing the seed, but without the one, we will not have the other!

I have some friends that are evangelists who will every once in a while call me despondent because of a lack of results of people getting the Holy Ghost or converted in their ministries and I have to remind them that they can only harvest what has been planted a long time ago. If they go to a church where few seeds have been planted, then they will reap a sparse crop. I have no issues with evangelists and thank God for men and women who are called to fulfill such a God-given role. But they must remember lest their "success" get to their head that they can only reap the crop of what has been planted and nurtured, and that their success is largely dependent upon the efforts of others years before in the area that they are now reaping. I've known some saints who "followed evangelists around" from church to church because they liked the excitement and the zeal of a harvest, and yet they would criticize a pastor for teaching on a service and not preaching evangelistically every message like the evangelist does. Understand that hired laborers to help reap a large harvest is a Biblical concept, but without someone planting the seed and watering it and nurturing it, there will be no harvest! Phillip the evangelist saw a great work in Samaria, but that work was the result of sowing that started with Jesus sitting down one on one with the woman in John chapter 4!

You see, we like the "crowd" ideas because it appeals to our nature for fast results with little work. I've had more than one person come through our church with great ideas to win the multitudes and more than one person get upset because I did not jump on their ideas and run with them. But what they did not realize is that I was hesitant to get on board with such people because even though they dreamed of the many, they had yet in their life to even win one! I knew a man once that wanted to rent the High School stadium and preach to the crowds, and yet couldn't even find time in his schedule to bring somebody to church or to teach one person on salvation!

It's not hard to draw a crowd. You can just run into someone out on the highway and hurt your neck and let them fly a helicopter in to take you to the hospital, and you will draw a crowd. You can light a big fire and the crowd will come. But the problem with having to use a gimmick to gather the crowd, is that eventually when the gimmick is over, the crowd goes home. They are not won nor are the permanent. Ask Jesus. The crowds came to see the supernatural, but when Jesus began to focus on teaching more than the supernatural, the multitude that had followed Him for the miraculous only, fell away. They were attracted by the loaves and fishes and so a cross and sacrifice did not appeal.

Catch this: "drawing a crowd is not the key to winning a crowd." I think that I'll say that again: it is the will of God for us to win the multitude, but drawing a multitude to us in a gimmick ploy is not the key to winning the multitude!" The key is to plant the seed in one person's life. And then another seed in another individual and to not stop!

Every "crowd" harvest in the Bible was the product of personal evangelism. Jesus spoke to Nicodemus the Pharisee by night, and obviously won Nicodemus because he was still around at the crucifixion. In fact, when all of the disciples had forsook Jesus, Nicodemus was proud to stand up and say "I was one of His followers; I'll help bury Him!" And together with Joseph of Arimathea, begged for the body of Jesus so that it might have a proper burial. Where did this rich and influential Joseph come from? I think that it is very possible that even though we never read about it, Joseph was another individual whom Christ touched personally. There were people who are not even recorded throughout the life of Christ that were so moved by Jesus' personal evangelism that when all the "disciples" fled, they were faithful!

In Acts 15:5, we find that there was a large number of Pharisees that had been converted to Christianity. Where did this revival come from? From a seed planted in a lone Pharisee named Nicodemus twenty-two years earlier! Like the Samaritan revival, the multitudes were a result of one person winning one person.

When the demoniac of the Gadarenes was healed. The scriptures say this:

The crowds were frightened and not quite sure what to make of Jesus after the miracle, but when the one man stayed and testified, the next time Jesus comes to shore here, we find this:

The multitudes came to be touched and healed and taught, but it all started with one man reaching one man!

Remember that little woman with the issue of blood that Jesus thought important enough to stop and minister to amongst the crowd? Later on we read this:

Where did the many who were healed by touching the hem of Jesus' coat get the idea? It was a result of one woman whom Jesus took time to heal!

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I could go on and on with how every harvest of the crowd was a result of personal evangelism, but let me finish the story of the revival in Samaria. Phillip had preached and all of Samaria had heard the Word and responded and a great harvest was taking place. And in the midst of all of this, God commands Phillip to leave the multitudes and go to a particular spot in the desert. If we were Phillip, we would have questioned God like "people are getting the Holy Ghost left and right, and you want me to leave and go stand by myself in the middle of nowhere?" But God had a purpose for Phillip, because the scriptures say that once he got there he saw a lone man riding in a chariot, an Ethiopian, reading a scroll of Isaiah and after Phillip started explaining what the man was reading, before it is over the man has been baptized and Holy Ghost-filled and converted to Grace.

Let me point out that crowd evangelism is fun because you do not have to personally respond for your actions or take personal responsibility for the souls. When there are many, you can even help without truly having a burden for the lost. If you don't think that this is true, then look at Act 8. Peter and John did not have a burden for the Samaritans, and yet they came and helped reap the harvest. Look at our own bread ministries, where there were many people who helped who never fasted a day in their life for someone else, or ever shed a tear that someone might be saved. We like crowd evangelism because it fits our comfort zone.

But personal evangelism causes us -- like Phillip -- to get out of our comfort zone and to sacrifice. You will not win an individual without prayer and fasting. You will not be able to teach them without applying yourself to study. You will not be able to befriend them without rearranging your schedule. It's work plowing the fallow ground so that the seed can be planted. It's work watering it with prayer and petitions to God. It's work protecting it and tending it and straightening it. Personal evangelism means that we either fail or succeed based upon our personal walk with God and Him moving through us. It means that we have to get a burden. It means that we may labor hard and not get instant results or quick fruit of our labor.

Maybe to Phillip, one soul in the wilderness was sort of pointless when their were so many responding in Samaria. And yet that one soul was important enough to God for Him to send the evangelist to him. Phillip had some satisfaction in seeing the man saved, but Phillip never did realize the magnitude or importance of what he had done. You see, the seed planted in one man's life has grown today until the Ethiopian Apostolic church has more members than any other Holy Ghost-filled movement in any other country! Let me say it like this: there are probably more Holy Ghost-filled Ethiopians today than there are Americans because of the result of a great harvest of literally hundreds of thousands of people getting the Holy Ghost at one time in the great Ethiopian annual crusades conducted in the last twenty years.

It's easy to look at that and say "we want that revival for America" and then do nothing. But if you really desire such a move of God, then remember that such a multitude is the result of the Word of God being planted by one man to another lone man almost 2,000 years ago! If we in America are to see a great multitude of harvest as we need, then we in the churches of America must be willing to personally plant the seed in someone's life. Personal Evangelism is the key to having a great harvest! It is time to stop waiting for someone one else to spark a harvest in our church, and personally plant the Word of God in someone's life. Now that you understand the key, you be the spark to a great harvest! Plant the seed in an individual's life, and then do it again and again. Don't worry about whether or not you see immediate results, because only eternity will reveal the multitudes who have come to God because of your personal evangelism! Let's set up a great harvest; let's win somebody to God!