Back to the fields

It's Friday morning in Damoh and the two-day preaching conference is over. I got to preach twice to this group of pastors before we sent them back to the fields. I use that terminology because in the final sermon I preached from Matthew 13 and the three stories about seed planting in the kingdom of God. My simple charge was to sow as many seeds of the word of God through preaching as they possibly can. Don't worry about what kind of soil it may fall on - just plant seeds. Don't worry about the weeds the enemy (Satan) may sow along side - just plant seeds. Don't worry about how big the harvest may be in your particular field (the kingdom is designed to grow and only God can make that happen) - just plant seeds. It was interesting yet again to sense the connection between preachers even though my field is central Illinois and theirs is all over India and surrounding countries. When I mentioned that sometimes as a preacher I feel as though my sermons aren't that good, every face in the crowd acknowledged by expression that they felt that way too sometimes. After the sermon, we closed the conference out by celebrating communion together - another emotional kinship with these brothers and prayed over them as they went back to their places of ministry. Many of them were heading immediately to the train station and several days of travel back to their home churches. My prayers are with these men and the fields in which they plant. I pray that this Sunday's sermon is filled with passion and energy from our time together. I also hope that if heaven is like this, someday we'll stand side by side in front of the King and speak the same eternal language AND recall our time together here.