The Worship, Walk and Work model of Harvest Bible Chapel.

Go to any of their websites and you will discover Harvest's model for discipleship. I was a member of a Harvest Bible Chapel for about six years, and being out of work for a long time and also entertaining thoughts of being a paid minister of the gospel, a Pastor there told me there, "Mike you don't have to have a degree to serve the Lord!" When I heard these words, I was excited at the prospect of actually serving God without any formal education. What Pastor Ed didn't tell me was that you can serve the Lord without a degree, but you won't ever get paid for it. During my time there as a volunteer minister, I worked extremely hard. I remember friends telling me, "Mike you are working again?" they couldn't understand my dedication to this church, and why I was spending so much of my time and my talent for many years without getting paid!

What I came to understand, is that any church cannot function without a healthy volunteer base. Many of these volunteer are not being compensated by their church in any way, and it doesn't matter what denomination you belong to, there will always be lay people serving you in some from. The model that all Harvest Bible Chapel's use is WORSHIP, WALK, AND WORK. At first glance this seems like a socialistic concept, because there is no financial compensation for this model, and to be a member of a Harvest Bible Chapel Church you are commanded to participate.

Some of their sermons have the intention of recruiting volunteers into full time ministry for free. By chance, some of these volunteers end up on staff, but this is the exception not the rule. There are literally thousands of non-paid volunteers working for free in Harvest Bible Chapel churches around the world and churches like Harvest. The WORSHIP part of their discipleship model encourages congregants to faithfully attend their service, or a service at another Harvest Bible Chapel if they are out of town every weekend. While I was attending there, I literally attended the same service more than once, and on a given weekend and sometimes served all weekend long.

The next thing that this church encourages people to do is join a small group. This is the WALK portion of their discipleship model. In these small groups, there is strict confidentiality covenant and many secrets are told that shouldn't be told to relative strangers, or brother's and sister's in the Lord. Finally the WORK component of their discipleship program includes WORKING for Christ at your local Harvest. This is done by the worker (Volunteer) for free, and the leader of Harvest (James MacDonald) in his sermons has literally commanded that WORK for Christ, is a badge that you are truly saved, and anyone one who isn't WORKING (Volunteering) for the Lord, is not truly saved.

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