Ministry, lay and clergy, is about seeds, I reckon. Every sermon, every Bible Study, every moment is about seeds, planting them, watching them grow, waiting for the moment Jesus harvests.
Much of the problem of ministry is that often we simply can't wait for those moments of harvesting because we've seen absolutely no evidence the seeds took root.
But wait, dear clergy. Wait, dear laity. Wait evangelists. Wait plowers of the fields.
Jesus himself talked of fields that were ripe but workers were few. Why? Sometimes it is simply because we gave up before we saw the results.
Paul writes to a church he planted in Galatia: "So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith."
I want to talk this bright, beautiful and reasonably cool morning about the notion of seeing what we've planed grow.
Paul is the absolute best example of this. This is a constant theme of his. He wrote to the church in Corinth: :Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us—servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God’s field in which we are working."
Last night a wonderful young girl, 13, during a discussion with the whole youth group of the church led by our marvelous youth director Dwight Jodon asked "what happens if you haven't been baptized?" She was given a proper answer, then pointed toward me.
We met after the Club 316 night ended, and I asked her some serious questions. "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior or do you want to?" "Yes, sir." "Do you have a church other than this meeting?" No, sir." "Do your parents go to church?" "No, sir." Do you want to be baptized and would they have a problem with that?" "I do, and they wouldn't care."
So, next week we will baptize a 13-year-old girl who attends no church but our youth meeting on Wednesday nights.
Dwight and the staff of our Club 316 have planted for more than two years. Others have come to Christ through that ministry. But each one that does makes heaven dance, remember. Next week we will baptize this young lady, and heaven and earth (Club 316) will dance some more.
Seeds. Earth. Water.
Faith. Hope. Love
Often I hear that "we just don't know what to do next to help the church grow." Often I'm the one who is leading that conversation.
Then someone reminds me, and all of us. I asked this young lady, how did you come to be here at Club 316. She said that a year ago a friend of hers, who no longer comes to the Wednesday night meeting, invited her. She came, and she said she hadn't been in a church in a long time, but she loved it when she got here.
Seeds. Earth. Water.
Faith. Hope. Love
Does it really, really matter that it's one at a time rather than 20 or 50 or 3,000?
Oct. 3 the party will start all over again.
Paul fired off a letter to the church in Thessalonica, "Do you know that all over the provinces of both Macedonia and Achaia believers look up to you? The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—you’re the message! People come up and tell us how you received us with open arms, how you deserted the dead idols of your old life so you could embrace and serve God, the true God. They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom."
Seeds. Earth. Water.
Faith. Hope. Love
No comments:
Post a Comment