”A healthy tree produces good fruit…
The way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that is produced.” 
 Matt 7:17,20

“Those who remain in me, and I in them will produce much fruit.
Apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5

“My true disciples produce much fruit. This brings great glory to my Father.”

John 15:8

As church planters, I think it is safe to say that we all want to bear fruit.  That’s what we’re here for, right?  We want to bring glory to our Father by producing fruit, and not just a little handful of fruit; we want to bear much fruit.  We are typically apostles and evangelists.  We don’t want to just see a few disciples made. We’re jumpin’ in deep.  We want whole cities! 

I think we also understand that we can do nothing apart from Jesus.  That’s pretty much 101.  But how to get from just bearing some fruit to bearing much fruit is something most of us long for and wrestle with.  I know I do.  When I meet Jesus someday I want to show Him that I have not hidden away the gifts He has entrusted to me, but have used them to produce much fruit.  I want to hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

I recently ran across some notes I took over ten years ago about bearing much fruit.  The following is my very short recap of the message I heard from Dan Spader at Sonlife Ministries in Elburn, IL.

First, imagine four buckets.  One has no fruit in it. The next has some fruit, the next more fruit and the last one much fruit.  Between each of these buckets is a barrier that keeps you from getting to the next fullest bucket.  For each of these barriers there is also a way to break through to the next level.

To get from the first bucket of no fruit to the one with some fruit we have to break through the barrier of sin.  Sin keeps us from connecting to God, and since apart from Him we can do nothing we must first remove the sin and get connected to the Vine.  The way we do this is through repentance.  It is this cleansing that causes the first breakthrough.   As church planters, we know and teach this.

Each barrier gets progressively more challenging (and convicting).  The barrier that keeps us from moving from some fruit to more fruit is often just “stuff”.  Just like in the parable of the soils, the weeds choked out the growing plant, the “cares of this world” and all the stuff in our life can hold us back from being all that we can be.  “Stuff” could be tangible things like money, homes, cars, motorcycles, motor homes, clothes, shoes, etc.  But it could also be non-tangible things like emotional baggage: past hurts, failures, false beliefs, unforgiveness.  All of this “stuff”, tangible or not, needs to be pruned away.  How we participate in the breakthrough is by rejoicing.  This is not our typical/natural response to pruning!  Pruning is painful and most of the time we resist or even run from pain.  But, just like a shot hurts more if you tense up your muscle, pruning hurts more if we resist.  If we instead choose to relax and even rejoice in what God is doing, then the pruning will feel less like a wrestling match and more like a pedicure!

There is so much I could say about pruning!  As church planters, I’m sure you’ve all undergone pruning.  If you haven’t yet it probably means you just finished assessment!  You will be pruned if you are to grow. There were times in the beginning that it felt like this whole endeavor of church planting was only about my pruning, God working IN me.  The stripping away that happens at the beginning of a plant is such a necessary process.  Allow God to do His thing in you.  It will certainly lead to more fruit.  Let Him cut away as much as he needs to and rejoice as He does it, knowing that the beauty will soon be revealed.

Then you can move on to the next level and break through to “much fruit”.  I’ve found this barrier also to be common to church planters, but probably in a different way than the regular church attender.  The next barrier is satisfaction.  Plenty of people might be satisfied with “more fruit”. They become complacent.  It’s pretty good.  They don’t want to endure the work it takes to get to the next level.  They need to break through their satisfaction with the amount of fruit they have.

But as church planters we are usually strong willed and “go-getters”.  That’s why we passed assessment.  We will make it one way or another.  We are survivors and we want it all.  We aren’t satisfied with “more fruit”; we want “much fruit”.  Satisfaction in that way is not usually the problem. BUT are we satisfied with how God will lead us to that fruit?  The breakthrough is through deep abiding and by remaining in Him.  Can we rest in Him and allow the Holy Spirit to do His thing in His timing?  Can we be satisfied for Him to use His strength and not ours? 

The first two breakthroughs of “repenting” and “rejoicing” are active ways we participate.  We like to be active and “do” things.  “Remaining” and “abiding” are much more passive and don’t need our active, “go-get-em” strength (which we too often like to show off).  The breakthrough to “much fruit” is about the power of the Holy Spirit and not our power.  We must decrease so He can increase.  Will we be satisfied for Him to get the glory and us to get none?  I think Dan might have called the last barrier “surrender” if he was talking to church planters.  Will we surrender all the results of our ministry to God while we spend our time abiding in Him?   If we do, we will produce much fruit, and “this brings great glory to our Father.”  (John 15:8)

Remaining and Abiding are not things that happen quickly and are done.  There isn’t an ending like there is with cleansing and pruning.  Those things might need to be done over again, but remaining doesn’t end and begin again. This is where we must stay.  Once you wrestle with the barrier of surrender it will be much easier to relax and remain in Him.  What things, ideas, fears, and futures do you need to surrender to God?  Be honest with yourself and God, and lean into the wind of the Spirit as you move to “much fruit.”

The Much Fruit by Women in Church Planting, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.