I’m On The Tractor And I’m Not Getting Off

What a great read this morning. It’s from Don Miller’s blog and I’ll quote the part that pinged my heart this morning.

He (Rick McKinley, pastor of Imagio Dei) recalled hunting on some property in Eastern Oregon, sitting in a duck blind, watching a farmer a couple fields away just driving his tractor back and forth. Rick said that is what building a church looks like, it looks like farming. It figures, because, well, God invented farming.

Don goes on to talk about four practical applications of this and often he (I, you too I’m guessing) gets distracted from plowing the field by bigger fields or deeper fields or prettier fields or maybe it’s not a field at all…maybe it’s a mountain (ouch). The point is – God’s put each of us in a field and He not expects us to plow that field but He’s gifted us for that field and He’s purposed us for that field. And who doesn’t love to ride on a tractor anyway?

The four practical applications Don draws are these – If you have a family – that’s the first field to plow. Plow the field God gave you. Work with consistency and faithfulness. Stop measuring your crops.

Stop measuring the crops. Better said – stop basing worth and performance on the measurement of your crops. We had 8 people join the church yesterday. There’s a list of 8 more waiting for our next class. And I’m not going to lie to you, that amps me up quite a bit. But that’s not the point. Really, it isn’t. It’s hard to believe that when most measurements of success for churches begins and ends with numbers.

The point is creating a culture where every person has the opportunity to encounter Christ and be changed by Him. That’s the plowing. In Life Groups, student ministry, children’s ministry, whatever we do in the name of God under the identity of Western Hills – is this Love, Live and Serve?

And that’s the plowing. Back and forth, back and forth. With faithfulness and consistency.

Thanks, Don.