This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
The harvest is plentiful
The harvest is plentiful
The harvest is plentiful, look up, and you'll see
how people are searching: they long to be free.
Like sheep, wand'ring far from their shepherd, they stray:
Lord Jesus, may they find you as their way.
The harvest is plentiful, and golden its yield
so pray to the Lord to send into his field
the workers to tell of his glorious name:
Lord Jesus, send us ahead to proclaim.
The harvest is plentiful, the workers are few,
and so our Lord Jesus calls me and calls you
to tell of his kingdom, announce it and preach:
Lord Jesus, send us to heal and to teach.
The harvest is plentiful: we'll gather it home.
We'll search for the lost and confused, all who roam;
bring into one fold those his Spirit will call:
Lord Jesus, you will be Lord over all.
Words and tune copyright © John Hartley 2006.
Based on Luke 10:2 and John 4:35.
Story behind the song
I wrote these words while thinking about the image of the harvest-field which Jesus uses as a picture of people's spiritual states in two bible passages about sharing our faith: Luke 10:1-9 and John 4:1-40. In both he stresses that evangelism is a natural activity that arises because that's what the people are ready for - it is a service to them to help them to find faith in him and so receive eternity into their hearts. There's also some of the imagery from John 10 of Jesus being the good shepherd and of his seeking to bring all his sheep together into one fold.
The tune is an adaptation of the one I originally wrote for a song based on a talk by Paul Bayes on sharing faith, which appears as no. 47 in this list. However I have hopes that someone else might contribute a tune for it as well.
John Hartley
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.