Sowing seeds in faith

Today we had an experimental service using different techniques for worship. We chose modern songs from the book, Songs of Fellowship; a sketch was acted out to show how we sow seeds without knowing precisely what will happen; true stories were told to show that Christians do their work and then hope the seeds which they have sown will bear fruit.

One story was about a period when a man, destined to enter the Methodist ministry, led a Sunday night Youth Club where he and his colleague tried to show the youngsters what Christianity was about. Years later the two men met up and one asked the other what had become of the Sunday night youth club. It turned out that the youngsters had grown up and become members of that church - they had become Christians following the sowing of seeds by these two committed Christians.

The second story was told by me. It was about a youngster in the 1950s who attended church and Sunday School at the Congregational Church, Manchester Road, Nelson, Lancs. He had been egged on to attend by his school pal who told him they had a great time teasing the teachers in the Sunday School. As a seven year old he tormented the leader of the Junior Department. On one occasion he and his friend encouraged two stray dogs to follow them to Sunday School. The dogs followed them in and the net result was a mop and bucket effort to clean up the deposits left by the dogs. Later this boy was in the Senior Department and misbehaved just as he had done in the Juniors. The patient Sunday School teacher commented, "That boy in the corner will know one day the importance of what Jesus did." he was so right - I did!

As Christians we tend to have a hard time in trying to spread the gospel of Jesus. Today we are very much in the minority, and yet we still need to sow the seeds we have been given. We still need to assure people that under God all will be well. Some years ago I preached on the message of the Book of Revelation. I talked about the coded language which the people to whom the message was sent would understand. I talked in terms of eventually God winning through despite much evidence to suggest it was a lost cause. A well known and respected Minister in the United Reformed Church was in the congregation and I wondered what he might say to me at the end of the service. He thanked me for the sermon, saying that he was a member of an anti nuclear warfare group and he found the message that God would eventually win encouraging.

It reminded me that people need encouraging as Christians. Even they find it hard to have faith that what they are doing will make a difference. Just because there appears to be strong evidence that the world is taking no notice is no excuse to waver in the promotion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. God, after all, is at the helm and we can trust him to steer the vessel through the most turbulent waters. Throughout the world we can find ample evidence to support the assertion that God is in charge and will ultimately win the battle. There is story after story about how God is making a difference to people's lives all over the world.

As a younger person I often wondered how long the USSR would hold sway in eastern Europe. Today we see a complete new Europe and no more Berlin Wall. I wondered how long it would take to knock down the barriers of racial tension in the USA. Thanks to the work of Martin Luther King and others it is now history and a new order prevails. Apartheid was our enemy when I was a trade union activist 25 years ago. With the actions of many supporters the ANC won through, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and is now a 90 years old ex President of South Africa and we are all enjoying some fantastic fruit and wine from that wonderful land!

MAF, the airline of the oppressed and unloved in the developing countries was kicked out of countries by unfriendly governments. They wondered how the faith would hold without their work continuing. Yet, years later, they returned when a new government arose and found there were more Christians than when they left the old country. It reminds us that, despite all the discouraging evidence around us, "God is working his purpose out, as year succeeds to year." Never slip into the Slough of Despond. There is no need to doubt the faith you have. With God in control, even with few workers, all will be well.