On Friday, we looked briefly at the Parable of the Four Soils and how it applies to all people.
Ideally, if we are good planters for the Kingdom of God, we want to be planting seeds in the best soil. It is this soil that gives a 3000%, 6000%, or 10,000% return on your investment. But who is that soil? If you look in the average church, we think that the good soil is the rich, powerful, pretty people. Those with seminary degrees and big smiles. But rather than getting big returns from these people, it seems they take and demand more than they give and serve. Hmmm…maybe they are not good soil after all.
Then I started to think about soil. What makes good soil? When I was young, my mom had some flower gardens, and every spring, she would go down to the lawn and garden store, and buy bags of “Manure” to put in her gardens. One year I asked her, “Mom, what is manure?” She said, “It’s cow poop.” What made mom’s garden grow? Poop.
What makes good soil? Good soil is that which has a lot of nutrients in it. Good soil is that which has a lot of fertilizer. Excuse me for putting it this way, but I am becoming convinced that the good soil people are those who have a lot of sh*t in their lives. Which people are these? The people we would normally think of as “bad people.” Sinners.
And yet in most of our churches, we work hardest to keep these people out. We say “come as you are” but the super fine print says “only when you can act like us, talk like us, and look like us.”
But when we look at Jesus, who did He pick to work with, minister to, and pour His life into? Tax collectors, sinners, thieves, murderers, prostitutes, drunkards. Why? He knew a good investment when He saw one. In bad people, Jesus saw fields upon fields of rich, fertile soil just waiting to be planted. Bad people make good soil.
So who are you and your church trying to seek after, love, and embrace?
(P.S. Credit goes to Neil Cole and his book Organic Church for most of this idea. Buy this book and read it!)
