Dear Church,

There is a lot going on that I’d like to mention and I think I can sum it all up in one phrase; sowing the Word. At church Friday and on the UCF weekend we discussed memorization and meditation as a way we can cultivate the soil of our hearts so that the Word can germinate there (see the thoughts from Patrick below about this).

There are also a lot of evangelistic opportunities in the days and weeks ahead. This too, is sowing of the Word, but it is the sowing liberally abroad that we are called to do. I have encouraged everyone to pray about those you might invite over to watch the Billy Graham video in a couple of weeks (http://myhopewithbillygraham.org/). Not many people raised there hands Friday about this, but please ask God to open doors in this department and warm your heart to this passionate pursuit of our Father. I was blessed to hear that Ryan and his kids spent about three hours of their weekend up on campus passing out Bibles and looking for opportunities to share. In addition, Jed Smock will be on UK’s campus this week and that always provides opportunities to speak to people in the crowd.

Finally, remember that we will not be meeting Friday night but Saturday night at 6:30 at Park Methodist and Sunday morning at 10 at the Jessamine building to hear David Ravenhill share. Please consider attending both of these times.

May we receive and sow his Word,

Chad

Here are Patrick’s thoughts:

I have been thinking a lot over the past couple weeks regarding the parable of the sower.

In light of Chad’s challenge last Friday regarding the importance of memorization of scripture I have thoughts that I hope will encourage some of you.

Most of you all know my love of all things related to farming, thus this parable has always been a favorite of mine.

When thinking of the parable we often think of which kind of soil each of us are, and leave it at that.

As described in the parable there are many different types of soil.  Some productive, some weedy, some rocky, etc.  What Jesus doesn’t go into detail about in this parable is that there are ways to improve soil quality.

In a parallel to farming, any good farmer spends much of his energy working to improve the quality of the soil on his farm.  Cultivating, seeding, fertilizing, etc are ways that soil is improved.  Soil quality can be changed dramatically.  It often doesn’t occur quickly but takes years of work to make barren soil productive, but it can and has been done on many occasions.  I know of many areas on farms that were once barren that now are very productive with lush vegetation.

I feel like the memorization of scripture is much like fertilizing the soil of our heart and soul.  Scripture is the clearest most indisputable truth we haveavailable.  It is a direct picture into the events God thought were the most important for us to have recorded.  Scripture allows us to have first hand evidence of how Jesus lived, how he thought, how he made decisions etc.  Memorizing God’s Word can help make fertile soil that may be barren, or help clear weeds from otherwise productive soil.  It is like adding fertilizer to a crop, or to your lawn.

Lets fertilize the soil of our hearts with the memorzation of scripture.  Lets make areas of barreness productive, and areas that are productive even more productive.

It takes work, but as Chad compared it to exercise.  If we do it, we will grow.