Blog Series: The "Sow Good" Experience with Pastor Brent Anderson.....

I heard recently that a football coach once said, "Football is just life marked off at a hundred yards;" which very well may be true. However, considering my recent experience with organic gardening at the Sow Good Garden, I would venture to say that the lessons of life are far more prevalent in cultivating the soil and growing food.

As a follower of Jesus, I see in his teaching that he had come to the same realization. We observe Jesus teaching the crowds in Matthew 13 about the kingdom of heaven, using the story of a farmer sowing seeds into different types of soil and the various outcomes from the sowing. The story chronicles the different challenges the sower faced, which included the untilled path, the rocky ground, and those evil thorny weeds. In each of these instances the seed did not produce a harvest but the story culminates with a simple gardening lesson and a profound life lesson. Jesus tells us in verse 8 that, "Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." As a young inexperienced gardener this "good soil" stuff has hit pretty close to home, since Sow Good, unfortunately, started with some of the worst soil around.

Deciphering the soil analysis and understanding the necessary amendments had me scratching my head and checking the balance in the bank account. We didn't have enough time or money to do everything that was recommended for conditioning the soil and our first harvest (or lack thereof) is an indicator of the deficiencies in its health. Although we have had some success in our first season, which includes being able to bless an elderly woman in Senoia and a few families in Newnan with some clean veggies, we are looking forward to the future harvests that will come as our soil grows to be "good."

Jesus, in this parable, is clearly teaching the crowds and, in greater detail, his disciples the fact that the one who receives the message about Christ with a tilled up receptive heart will certainly produce a "harvest" that is well beyond expectation. In addition, I believe, we farmers and gardeners can be reminded of the vital importance of literal seeds being sown into "good soil." In the meantime, I'll be open to learning more life lessons and, for that matter, filing away countless sermon illustrations all while workin' the ground and "sowin' good!"

Pastor Brent Anderson