Seed Week: the short-term mission trip that teaches you to effectively spit out seeds! Often our mission to reach unbelievers with the gospel looks like scattering seeds as a farmer would to produce a harvest. In the parable of Mark 4:3-8, we see Jesus teaches about the four types of soil. There is only one type where the seeds are able to be planted, grow, and produce a generous harvest. Often we focus on the different types of soil. But have you ever stopped to consider what was in the seed?
Good seeds and bad seeds
As Christians, our words can have a large impact on people’s lives, for good or for bad. I always thought I knew how to clearly share what I believed. But I found that in my “Christian-ese” way of talking, I often confused people who did not grow up hearing the Bible from the pulpit. In fact, in coming here to New York City, I realized how many people have never heard the Good News about Jesus. Therefore, I need to learn how to clearly communicate the gospel.
It is more than just clarity. Different cultures and backgrounds have different barriers to receiving the gospel. For example, in Muslim cultures, if I call Jesus the Son of God, Muslims often assume I believe God had a physical relationship with Mary to conceive Jesus — not what I wanted to communicate! Seed Weeks can teach you ways to clearly share your faith with people from many different cultures and grow your confidence in proclaiming the gospel to anyone you meet.
An unexpected response
Seed Week is a short-term mission trip in New York City that can also show you just how much God can use you in other people’s lives! Take this following Seed Week story as an example of how being brave and clearly sharing the gospel with people – even those you think would not be interested at all – can bring about the most unexpected responses!
After a day of training on how to simply share the Gospel in a contextualized manner, I went out with a team member to engage immigrants on the streets. As we walked and prayed around the community, I noticed a short elderly man approaching me. We stopped him and shared that we loved our community and that we wanted to see what we could pray for him for.
He responded by telling us a little of his background and beliefs as a Pakistani Muslim. After he allowed us to pray and share the Gospel with him, he told us that he was thankful that we were sharing our faith with others. He encouraged us to keep on sharing the good news with others! I didn’t expect to be encouraged by a Muslim man to share the Gospel, but it just showed me that even a Muslim man appreciated the fact that Christians could articulate their beliefs in a clear and compelling manner.
Seed Week: spitting out seeds
“Spit it out!” is the wonderful phrase to sum it all up! I encourage you to come to a Seed Week so that you can learn how to clearly articulate what you believe and learn tools to share the gospel with unbelievers.
Ready To Share Your Faith?
Join us for Seed Week, a week of cross-cultural evangelism training and ministry opportunities among unreached people groups in New York City.
