Lessons in Hope from a Backyard Gardener

I like to garden. I mean, I REALLY enjoy gardening.

Perhaps it’s the feel of a rough, wooden hoe handle against my fingers, sanding away softness and creating calluses which remind me of my grandfather’s hands, hands which always held great comfort, experience and wisdom. Those hands that could make anything grow, no matter how hard the soil. And they did their fair share of cultivation in my own life as well.

Or maybe it’s the excitement of a four year old discovering a secret subterranean world of earthworms and grubs as he digs potatoes.

Oh, and compost, glorious compost. Ahh.

(I need therapy, I know.)

Maybe it’s the smell of rich, dark, freshly turned soil, or the first flash of bright, defiant green breaking the earthen plane, boldly declaring to winter that though her icy fingers were persistent and her winds blew with violent ferocity, they could not hold back the eventual and sure dawning of a new Spring.

Yes, I think that’s getting closer to it. In a word, I guess the practice of gardening reminds me to…. hope.

Hebrews 11 says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ²For by it the people of old received their commendation. ³By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

When I begin prepping my plots, there is still a chill in the air. When those first seeds are placed in the soil, the trees have not yet tipped their hand towards Spring by showing forth their new buds. Gardening often begins when there is little evidence suggesting that winter is yet over.

And yet it is not a completely blind leap. Because of past experience, I do know Spring is coming. My hope is, as the ESV Study Bible puts it, “not a vague hope grounded in imaginary, wishful thinking.” Rather it is “a settled confidence that something in the future – something that is not yet seen but has been promised by God - will actually come to pass because God will bring it about.”

How can I know this? Because He has proven himself faithful in the past, both in my own story as well as in countless stories revealed to us within His Word. Because of God’s “observable track record” I know that He is worthy of the hope I place in Him.

Gardening can remind us to hope. It can remind us that in our own winters when icy fingers are attempting to grip our soul and the ferocious winds of fear and despair are seeking to assault our spirit that there is such a thing as Spring. And the warmth and new life that characterize this yet unseen season are just as sure as the cold wind which may be all too real today.

Yes…. hope. Spring IS coming. And honestly, sometimes we could use the reminder.

Numbers Matter

I have been playing some with numbers lately. Actually my job has a lot to do with numbers. As Pastor for Newcomers and Outreach at Oak Mountain Church, you might say that numbers play a pretty big role in my daily life. The number of members, the number of 1^st time visitors, the number of repeat visitors, the number of new members….sometimes my desk feels like a never ending flow of numerical data.

Some people may balk at that. Decrying an over-emphasis on numbers can sound very “holy” and “righteous”. That is, of course, until you begin to realize (much like we learned in last night’s episode of LOST... Sorry, couldn't resist.) that every one of those numbers actually represents a unique individual, created in the image of God and in desperate need of a Redeemer.

Then you kind of begin to make a connection between 1^st time visitor number 347 and the guy who is walking through the doors because his wife decided last week that, after years of marriage she actually didn’t love him after all. And there he is saying, “Tell me again that God is in control. Tell me why to believe and how to explain all this to my 2 year old daughter.”

You begin to realize that new member number whatever and fifty-four is actually a legalistic, hard-nosed CEO whose wife and children hate him almost as much as his employees do. And there he is, hearing for the first time in his life of this new concept of grace. And he is saying, “How does this apply to me? What impact does this have for my socially functional yet relationally and connectionaly anemic, gospel-less marriage?”

Here is my point. Numbers matter because people matter.

We, as individuals, come into contact literally with THOUSANDS of people each week. If you add in contacts through social networking contexts like Facebook, Twitter, etc. that number then explodes exponentially.

Simple question. Who in your sphere of contacts are you inviting into your community of faith?

Two ways to take that question really. First, who are you literally inviting to become a member of the family of God? With whom are you, on a consistent basis, sharing your faith? You too? Hmm….

Secondly, who are you inviting into your locally recognizable community of faith, your church. If your church and its pastors are proclaiming the truth of the gospel, that God pursues the broken, the undeserving and the rebellious (and if they are not proclaiming this message, then why are you still there?), then wouldn’t it make sense to simply invite someone to attend worship next Sunday?

Here is what it might look like in our particular context at Oak Mountain Church. We have approximately 1,400 adult members of our church. For simplicity sake, let’s take that down to 1,000. If we then take HALF of that 1,000, that then leaves us with 500.

Stay with me now.

There are 12 months in a year. Let’s drop December because of the Christmas holidays and March because of Spring Break. That leaves us with 10 months.

500 people, inviting 1 person a month for 10 months, just gave us 5,000 unique visitors walking through our front door, exposing them to gospel infused, Christ-focused ministry and all of this with a relational connection already in place to our church. YOU!

5,000 people, whose lives could be dramatically changed.

Imagine with me for a moment what our church would look like with ….. no, wait, what our city would look like with 5,000 new people being influenced by the gospel? What would that do to the fact that 12% of Birmingham City School students are recognized as homeless? What would that do to our city’s murder rate? What effect would that have on our region? I think I could get kind of excited about dreaming like that.

So who are you bringing this Sunday?

RedeemingTechnology for the Sake of the Gospel

Um...wow.

Among the many interesting items in this video,

"The mobile device will be the world's primary connection tool to the internet in 2020."




What implications does this have for the church, for our growth and movement forward in engaging the next generations? What tools may we be completely ignoring while their potential for redeemed gospel usefulness goes untapped? This technological revolution could be every bit as seismic in our generation as Gutenberg's printing press was in his.