I love being a father and one of the benefits is I get to watch children’s films. Many of these films have lessons that we can learn from and a recent film that spoke to me was Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang.
The film centres around five children who are cousins. Two brothers and a sister who live on a farm in the country have to deal with difficult relationship dynamics when their two ‘rich cousins’ from the city come to stay. In the film the children have to learn 5 lessons and I believe the church in the world has to learn these same lessons. However, the result from learning these lessons will the biggest harvest of souls we have ever seen.
Lesson One: To learn to stop fighting!
When the cousins come to stay they soon begin fighting, until Nanny McPhee turns up and tells them to stop. Initially they don’t stop so Nanny McPhee uses her ‘power’ to make them hit themselves, rather than each other, until they say they won’t fight any more. As members of Christ’s body and part of the church we need to realise we are all part of the same family and learn this first lesson; stop fighting!
Lesson Two: To learn to share
The cousins on the farm need to share their beds with the cousins from the city, but are not willing. Also the city cousins don’t have suitable clothes for farm life, so again the cousins from the farm need to share. This is the second lesson they need to learn, and as the family of God, we need to learn to share our resources with the whole family.
Lesson Three: To learn to work together
On the farm is a litter of pigs which are to be sold to pay for the tractor which will help bring in the harvest, but the pigs have been released into the wild so they can’t be sold. The children have to learn to work together to capture the pigs. Nanny McPhee makes it more difficult so that they have to work together as a team. As a church we need to learn to work together, acknowledging we need each other and are unable to do it by ourselves.
Lesson Four: To learn to have faith
The father of the cousins on the farm is away fighting in the war. They receive a telegram saying that he has been killed in action. The children do not believe this, they feel that he is still alive. They have faith in what they believe even if they have ‘evidence’ to the contrary. As a church we need to have faith in what we believe even when people come to us with ‘evidence’ to the contrary. We eventually find out the Uncle has faked the telegram to get the farm for himself, but the children manage to stop him getting it. Two of the boys go to the war office to find out about the dad and discover he is only listed as missing in action.
Lesson Five: To learn to be brave
A bomb has landed in the field nearby and not exploded. The local ARP warden goes to defuse the bomb but falls off the ladder and faints. The children decide to defuse the bomb themselves following the instructions the warden was using. By being brave the children save themselves and the harvest by defusing the bomb, with a little help from Nanny McPhee’s pet bird, Mr. Edelweiss. Mr. Edelweiss, the pet bird, then supernaturally brings in the harvest by releasing a large amount of wind!
The children have fun playing in the harvest field and the final scene shows the father coming over the hill to join them in a joyful reunion. They were right to have faith!
Conclusion:
The church has tried so many programs to reach the people with the good news of Jesus and yet we haven’t really seen multitudes coming in to the Kingdom. I believe as we learn these lessons; stop fighting, learn to share, work together, be brave and have faith, we will see the harvest of souls reaped with no ‘self-effort’. A supernatural harvest!
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