Jesus once told a parable about the kingdom of God. "It's like a farmer who sowed many seeds," he said.
He continued, "Some went on rocky soil. Some landed on a path. Others among thorns. And, some landed on good soil."
As you can imagine, the seeds among the rocky soil couldn't grow deep roots. The ones on the path were burned up by the sun, and the ones among the thorns were choked out by those weeds. But, the ones that landed in the good soil produced a bumper crop. (This is all Pastor Paul's paraphrase, by the way!).
As we enter our 2023 stewardship season and look at our annual appeal to build our ministry plan for next year, we're considering how God's kingdom operates with abundance and abandon.
God is the good Farmer in our lives. God pours blessing upon blessing on us. God can seem somewhat reckless with how these good gifts are shared with us, just as the farmer seemed a bit reckless with how the seeds were sowed. God scatters seeds in our lives with great abandon.
God does so out of a sense of great abundance. God's grace is unlimited; God's mercy is never-ending. The end goal of redeeming all those who are stuck in their sin is worth it to God.
Below, you'll find several stories from members in our congregation who have taken time to reflect on how the seeds of God's generosity were sown with them. They consider how they learned to be generous with what God has given them and engage in the mission of our church -- to connect people to share in Christ' mission of grace.