Sowing into God's kingdom

A sower went out to sow. But first he needed some seeds. So he went to Home Depot and bought a bag of seeds. When he opened the bag, he saw that they were very nice seeds. So he wanted some more. Checking on Google Maps, he found a Garden Center on the outskirts of the city. So he drove there and bought several more bags of seeds. Soon he had a whole wheelbarrow full of seeds. But it wasn’t enough – he wanted more. He asked ChatGTP where he could purchase large volumes of high-quality seeds at wholesale prices. ChatGPT happily recommended some agri-suppliers in his county, and soon his whole barn was full of seeds. He continued building up his store of seeds in this manner until harvest time came. But he had no harvest that year, because he had been hoarding seeds instead of planting them! Hear what I’m sayin’? A good example of how this parable applies to the church is housegroups. Many pastors see housegroups as having a supportive role for their Sunday services. They reason that by getting visitors involved in housegroups (small weekday evening fellowship gatherings in people’s homes) they will feel “connected” and will be more likely to become full members of the congregation. And by centering housegroup activity on discussion of the previous Sunday’s sermon, pastors try to utilize their housegroups to reinforce their preaching and teaching. But they’ve got it backwards! As we explain in our book Simple Kingdom: Home Fellowships , it’s in home fellowships, not in Sunday morning services, where church really happens. Home fellowships are the perfect training ground for believers to learn how to worship, minister, serve, help, love, forgive, move in spiritual gifts, reach out to others, walk in holiness, and more. And they’re also the place where new leadership can arise and be nurtured in ministry areas like teaching, healing, evangelism, the prophetic, pastoral care and helping the poor. In other words, home fellowships are the seeds from which new churches can be planted. And by giving your church’s home fellowships the freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit and then letting them go when the Spirit imparts vision and authority to their leaders, you’re going to end up reaping a big harvest at the close of the age. So if you’re a pastor and you’re using your home fellowships to try and make your church grow, you’re doing it wrong. Yes, your church probably will grow if you do it this way, but the goal isn’t to make your church grow, is it? The goal is to make the church — God’s church — grow. So give your church away so that God’s church can grow. If you do that, you’ll be rewarded (Luke 6:38). Cheers, Mitch

Ingrid recently had a strange dream and I think it was prophetic. She often has dreams from the Lord, and they’re usually to guide us. Sometimes they’re dreams for specific individuals, or for the church. And on occasion they’ve been dreams about coming world events, and time has proved them accurate. While the spiritual gift of having prophetic dreams is available to all of us who ask for it (see Acts 2:17 and 1 Cor 14:1) such gracelets (occasional manifestations of a gift as ordained by the Lord) can become ministries for those who pursue God diligently. Wimber talks about this in his series on spiritual gifts. I’ve also had significant dreams myself from the Lord that have guided us in life, business and ministry. But I don’t get them in the degree and number that Ingrid does. Anyways, in this particular dream Ingrid saw the number “1867” strongly highlighted. That’s it, the whole dream. She said she had no idea what it might mean. But I knew immediately what it meant. Much has been made in the media about Mark Carney, who became Prime Minister of Canada just over a year ago. Carney’s motto is “Canada Strong” which means strengthening Canada’s sovereignty by lessening our dependence on the United States in areas like defense and the economy. On the Liberal Party’s website it says: “Our sovereignty is under threat. America’s unjustified trade war is an attempt to weaken us. We will not let that happen. It’s time to build a future that makes Canada strong... To unite this country, a Mark Carney-led government will build one economy where Canadians can work wherever they want. Where goods can move freely from coast to coast to coast...” etc. The “trade war” being referred to here is Trump’s threat to withdraw the U.S. from the CUSMA free trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Well, guess what? That’s exactly what the U.S. did in 1866 when protectionist elements cancelled the Elgin-Marcy Treaty, which was a trade agreement between the U.S. and the U.K. that applied to British North America, an umbrella term for the U.K. colonies in North America. Worries about the economic impact of the cancelled trade agreement on Canada’s economy, together with lingering fears about the U.S. idea of “manifest destiny” being applied to all of North America — like Trump threatening to annex Canada — led the colonies to unite in a confederation and become a sovereign state — the Dominion of Canada — in the year 1867. And that’s where Ingrid’s dream comes in. I think what the Lord is showing us is that Carney’s move towards divorcing Canada, both economically and with regard to national security, from the United States is not just a short-term gimmick to gain leverage over the U.S. to favorably renegotiate the CUSMA. I think it means we’ve permanently shifted course here in Canada, taking us out of the U.S. orbit onto the world stage as a sovereign state. Permanent as for a generation at least, just as things panned out for Canada in the decades that followed Confederation in 1867. What does that mean for the average Canadian? Well, it’s the world, right? Jesus warned us in Mark 13:8 that “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines.” So it’s all just par for the course. And how did Confederation turn out for us here in Canada after 1867? Some good things happened, like building a transcontinental railway, the promise of which brought the U.K. colony of British Columbia into Confederation as Canada’s most western province. And in the long run this strengthened Canada’s economy, though the country was still impacted negatively by events like the stock market crash in Vienna in 1873 which resulted in an international downturn and a “post-Confederation slump” in Canada. And one might say that Carney is engaging in something similar to transcontinental railway building as he negotiates with our provincial and territorial premiers to try and reduce or eliminate trade barriers that exist between different parts of our own country. I didn’t want to make this post a history lesson, but simply point out that I think the Lord is showing us here in Canada that the direction our federal government has taken under Mark Carney is not something that is going change in the coming years. It’s permanent — probably for a generation or more. And it will impact different Canadians in different ways, some positively, some negatively. And as someone once said somewhere, reality isn't the way you want things to be, or how they seem to be, but how they actually are. So you either need to acknowledge reality and use it for your benefit, or it’s gonna work against you. And the ultimate reality is God. Anyways, I *think* that’s what Ingrid’s “seer” dream means. And I think too that I have the Spirit of God (1 Cor 7:40). Cheers, Mitch