Richard Greenham

In the late 16th century, Richard Greenham pastored in Dry Drayton, an English town about 7 miles from Cambridge. As a pastor, he worked very hard and was diligent for the Lord. "He rose daily at four and each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday preached a sermon at daybreak, to catch his flock before they dispersed into the fields; then on Sunday he preached twice, and in addition catechised the children of the parish each Sunday evening and Thursday morning." (Packer, A Quest for Godliness, p. 43) Henry Holland, his biographer, says that when he preached that "he was so earnest, and took such extraordinary pains, that his shirt would usually be as wet with sweating, as if it had been drenched with water." He was constantly and continually with his people, encouraging and counseling. In one of the few letters we have from him, he wrote his bishop to say that his ministry was "preaching Christ crucified unto my selfe and Country people." But for all his labors for Christ, Greenham's ministry was unfruitful.

How are we to understand the truth that many pastors diligently labor in fields in which there appears to be little growth? Are we to be in despair? Are we to be discouraged in our labors for Christ? Indeed not! Packer concludes that in "rural England in Greenham's day, there was much fallow ground to be broken up; it was a time for sowing, but the reaping time was still in the future." That, of course, is the correct answer: some are called to sow and some are called to reap, yet both are good, solid laboring for Christ.