One of our current ministries is the Harvest Table. (The Harvest Table has been around for a while, but it has grown much in recent years.) We provide produce, from member's gardens, as well as our community garden, to anyone that wants fresh produce. Our community garden is across the street from the church, next to our back parking lot. We have various people that take care of rows of plants in the garden. Some of those rows are taken care of by people who don't even go to this church. The garden supplied tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers, and other items for the Harvest Table this year. While we sent home produce with folks, maybe we also planted a few "seeds" along the way (if you know what I mean).
Do you know that before that spot was a garden, there was a house on that lot that the church came to own? Do you know that things "grew" in that house as well? I'm sure there were things that grew in that house that we don't really want to know about. I'm not talking about those kinds of things.
I was recently looking at a church directory from 1999. There was a picture of youth from our church on the front porch of that house. Our youth group met in that house for a time. I am sure that our youth grew spiritually during that time. In that same directory, I saw a picture of a Sunday School group I was part of - it met there as well on Sunday mornings. The caption for that picture was, "Learning God's Way." Growth took place in that house. That house has since been torn down to make way for our community garden that grows produce for the community.
I heard a "fun fact" about that lot recently. When the house was torn down, they filled in the basement area with a sand heavy mixture. It was a real challenge to get enough organic matter over the years so it wouldn't be like gardening in a desert. It took time and care for things to grow, but now we grow produce.
We are all called to continue to grow in our faith. (Looking at past church directories, I see people who have grown up and matured physically as well as spiritually in the past 20+ years.) And as we grow, we pass it on. But it takes time and care for us to grow as well.
Maybe, just maybe, "seeds" of faith planted in the house 20+ years ago, maybe produced "fruit" through the garden and the Harvest Table, that maybe sowed some more "seeds" that one day, may produce more "fruit." And so it goes.
That can happen through God's grace. We can hope that it does!
Pastor Doug
