Are Your Church Members Self-Seeding?

On Facebook I occasionally run across articles on self-seeding plants recommended for a cottage garden, meadow, or landscape area which a homeowner does not plan to mow. Self-seeding plants are so called because, if you plant one of them, they multiply year after year.

Church members and those who regularly attend a church but have not yet joined it should be equipped so that they can be self-seeding, that is self-propagating, sharing the gospel with others, pointing them to Jesus, and if and when they come to faith in Jesus, discipling them so that they become disciples who can reproduce themselves.

Sharing the gospel with those who are not yet believers and discipling new believers is not just the responsibility of pastors, lay preachers, and other ordained or licensed ministers. It is the responsibility of all who consider themselves followers of Jesus. We cannot say that it is not in our job description because it is. When Jesus entrusted the continuation of his mission to the apostles, he gave that responsibility to them as representatives of the whole Church. That responsibility has been passed on to us.

This may come as a surprise to members and attendees of your church. If we are going to be faithful to our Lord, Christians should be spreading like self-seeding plants, like weeds and wildflowers! Like the dandelions that escaped from colonial herb gardens we need to be spreading everywhere!

Jesus compared the kingdom of God with yeast in a lump of bread dough. Yeast as it multiplies in a lump of dough produces carbon dioxide gas which causes the dough to expand and the bread to rise. We knead the dough to work the yeast through the dough.

The rising agent in God’s kingdom is multiplying disciples, followers of Jesus who reproduce themselves. God’s kingdom expands as the number of people in whose hearts Jesus reigns and who live their lives according to his teachings and example expands. These people influence the people around them and impact their lives.

Followers of Jesus cannot be salt and light in the world if they are shrinking in number. One of the reasons that we seek to make more disciples is not to fill the pews of our church on Sunday or to provide more people with a ticket to heaven but to increase the number of people who know and love Jesus and who can make a difference in other people’s lives, to share in God’s mission in the world.

In future articles I will look at ways a church can help its members and regular attendees to become self-seeding. I will look at barriers, or obstacles, that we ourselves create to being self-propagating. I will also look at how we can mobilize existing resources to help church members and attendees to spread the gospel and make self-replicating disciples.

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