Seek. Love. Serve.

Take a moment to read Luke 8:4-8. You’ll recognize it as the parable of the sower:

While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.” When he said this, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Pastor Bill Hybels kicked off the 2012 Global Leadership Summit with this scripture. He proceeded to tell us that in this parable Christ shows a 75% rejection ratio.

Did you catch that?

Three out of every four seeds failed to yield a crop.

That’s some slow growing. With that type of rejection, how will the Kingdom grow?

Bill Hybels suggests two ways:

• Sow more seed!
• Sow all kinds of seed!

There are great marketing messages (and truths) in those two statements.

A few posts back, we addressed “return on investment” and how much one soul is worth. This parable complements that discussion and amplifies just how hard we’re going to have to work to spread the love of Christ.

We need to sow more seed. We need to serve more people. We need to get out there more and share the Good News by being the church. Set the example. Live lives that reveal Christ’s love. If three are lost, but one is gained, let’s rejoice over the one!

The other message shows that we need variety.

In church marketing, there is no magic bullet. There are a lot of people in your community. To reach all of those people, you ultimately need to develop a number of ministries, service projects, outreach opportunities, etc. One chili supper or one week of sports camp isn’t going to reach everyone you need to reach.

So what’s the point? It’s too much, you say.

Yes, it is too much. For you and me.

But with God’s guidance and the power of the Holy Spirit, we can tap into strength we could never fathom. With God’s guidance and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian Church grew from a group of 12 outlaws and is still rolling more than 2,000 years later.

Let’s keep it going.