HARVESTIME INTERNATIONAL COURSES
The curriculum of Harvestime International Institute emphasizes two major areas:
First: What Jesus taught by word and demonstration to raise up trained, motivated, lay leadership. Training focuses on what He taught to transform simple men into reproductive Christians who reached their world with the Gospel message in a demonstration of power. Often great emphasis is placed on the teaching methods of Jesus with little attention to the content. But what did He actually teach that turned men from fishermen and tax collectors to international harvesters?
SPIRITUAL REPRODUCTION
And He saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4:19)
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Second: The curriculum emphasizes what was demonstrated and taught during the times of the Acts and Epistles as His plan was instituted in the early Church.
This emphasis in no way discredits the value and inspiration of the remainder of Scriptures. Jesus often referred to the Old Testament in His teaching. He based His life and ministry on the total revelation of God's Word. The Institute equips students with creative Bible study skills to enable continued study of all the Scriptures following basic course training. But the primary focus of Institute training is teaching what Jesus taught to move men from vision to reality and the strategies revealed as His plan was initiated in the Church.
The curriculum emphasizes demonstration, training laymen to be participators rather than spectators. Intellectual knowledge of God is not enough:
But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. (James 1:22)
True knowledge is gained only by experience. Study results in gaining information, but not experience. Teaching is factual while training is experiential. Jesus is a living person, not a cold fact. Relationship to Him is based on experience, not just knowledge, facts, and information. The aim of the training is not accumulated knowledge, but action which converts the possibilities of ministry into reality. It is not just articulation [talking about the power of God], but demonstration [putting it into action]:
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. (I Corinthians 2:4-5)
We stress training rather than teaching. Although teaching is part of training, teaching leaves the learner the option to accept what is taught or reject it.
We desire that students...
...mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou has been instructed. (Luke 1:4)
The curriculum takes students beyond teaching to training where participation is required. The participation to which students are challenged is that of spiritual reproduction.
Christ's first appeal to His disciples was centered on reproduction:
And He saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4:19)
His final command was to reproduce spiritually:
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you...
(Matthew 28:19-20)
The Church is a spiritual body under commission. Since 99% of the Church is composed of laymen, this force must be motivated to become reproductive in order to harvest the spiritual fields of the nations of the world. (See "The Challenge: Training the Laity" in Part Three of this guide).
Through application of Scriptural principles, this training results in each believer having the potential to raise up other motivated Christians, creating a new network of evangelism throughout the world. Even if they never teach a Sunday school class, preach a sermon, or minister in a group situation, each believer can become part of the expansion of this evangelistic network.
This is not a plan developed by an individual or an organization, but the plan of God revealed in Scriptures. It is based on the principle given by the Apostle Paul to a young minister named Timothy:
And the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. (II Timothy 2:2)
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