iShare 2016: iShare Every Time

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Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

How to Evangelize Using Agriculture

David Obermiller

How to Evangelize Using Agriculture- Part 1

Well, let's start with a word of prayer and I'll introduce myself and our topic this afternoon.

Father in heaven, I want to thank you that we can be here together this afternoon to have spiritual dialogue, conversation about things that you've written, things that you've blessed this world with, and the blessing that we have to reach out to other people.

So we want to pray that you would send this afternoon your Holy Spirit to be in our presence, to be our teacher, our instructor, and to give us encouragement, to give us perhaps a clearer vision of how you want us to move forward with our lives and to serve the communities that we live in.

So I am the executive director, founder, whatever, of Harvest Fields Organic Farm in Fresno, California.

We are a certified organic farm on the campus of Fresno Adventist Academy.

There are a couple other of my colleagues that are here.

They slide in and I'll make sure to introduce you to them.

But it's myself, my wife, and then 2 other gentlemen that help run the farm on the school campus there.

To tell you very briefly just how the project got started and where we're trying to go, I was a denominational employee for about 10 years.

How many of you, I don't know if some of you are familiar with Souls West?

Okay, about 6 years ago I was working for Souls West, a little bit more than that actually.

She was there for 7 years because she was there 2 years before we got married.

I was reading Ellen White's other books on education, you know, Fundamentals of Christian Education, some of her pamphlets and periodicals and different things that she wrote on education.

I was reading some of the educational work done by our early pioneers, so not only the pioneers but like Edward Sutherland, Percy McGann, if you're familiar with Madison, They were the founders of Madison College.

And I was reading all this material on education and something was happening on a regular basis.

When you read about education you read about agriculture.

Some of you have heard, I won't have it on the screen here today, but what is the ABC of education?

In the book Education, Ellen White highlights quite extensively the importance to education work.

And when she says ABC of education, what does that mean to you, ABC of something?

Fundamental, it's elementary, it's your starting point.

It's your foundation if you want to want to call it that.

So I was reading all this stuff in the Spirit of Prophecy about agriculture in the context of education, was working at Sols West and there was no agriculture program at Sols West.

There was no agriculture program in my life and here I am on a school campus and I said to myself this is a problem.

I said to my wife I need to learn how to do this.

If it's and I'm gonna go through some of this this afternoon But if it's that strongly worded in the spirit of prophecy how important agriculture is to education Then I'm gonna step out and I'm gonna go learn to farm I had a little bit of farming experience when I was a kid.

My grandfather had a farm, but it was mostly cows and hay.

Quite different than vegetables, it was not on a school campus, it was quite different.

But I knew how to drive a tractor, could do that much and a few other little things.

But I said I'm gonna go out and try to do this.

So my wife and I left Souls West 6 years ago, almost 6 and a half years ago actually, and we went and spent 4 years on an organic farm in Arizona.

And my goal was to come back into church work and put a farm on a school campus somewhere.

So I was speaking at iShare, let me see, 3 years ago now, and a church member, his daughter graduated from Sols West, and Friday morning after I had spoke on Thursday night.

He came up to me at the hotel Breakfast bar and sat down and started talking to me told him me who he was and we just started chatting He had no clue that I was on a farm because the night before I'd spoken on something entirely unrelated to farming and we just were having a chit-chat and somewhere along the lines it kind of just became obvious that I was on a farm and he said you know our school would actually like to start a farm and my first 1 would be honest with you I've told the school this too my first reaction was can any good thing come out of California How many of you are from California?

I worked at Oklahoma Academy for a couple years.

I then was literature ministry director in Nevada-Utah conference.

And there are just too many people here for me.

And it's a very restrictive state as far as the government goes.

A lot of rules, a lot of regulations, a lot of extra paperwork if you're running a business, and kind of liberal too from a Christian point of view.

You know, California is sort of the leader in the world, in America at least, in liberalism as well as the East Coast.

And it's like, no, Lord, you know, Man, this is just...

Well, I tried to learn from Jonah and not tell God what I won't do.

I did tell him it wasn't my preference, but I decided to entertain the school's offer to give a presentation of their school board and I did that now almost 3 years ago and when I was done giving my presentation I was very very impressed that this was a school board that was interested in turning back the clock and trying to go back in the direction of an educational system that God was originally wanting for us.

It's not my preference, but I'll go where you're telling me to go.

And if it's Fresno, California, I'm going to Fresno, California.

We ran the farm through the school for the first couple of years.

You know, I had to go through the school board and had a farm committee, subcommittee of the school board.

But about the beginning of this year we started having serious conversations about separating the farm from the school.

And so March 15th of this year, we separated Harvest Fields Organic Farm from Fresno Adventist Academy.

We have a lease agreement with the school, so we rent their land, we rent their buildings, we farm their land, And we founded the farm as a non-profit organization.

And maybe at some point we can get into a little bit of that.

There are some reasons why we went non-profit instead of for-profit.

The biggest 1 being that for-profit businesses cannot take volunteer labor and in order to get the students involved in the school and allow the church members and the community to be involved in the farm we had to go non-profit.

We are a farm that's about mission not just about the business of selling product for a profit.

It's a much bigger picture for us than just just the finances of it although that's important obviously.

So again Harvest Fields Organic Farm is a is a non-profit farm and what I want to talk to you about today is what the mission of this farm is, what the purpose of the farm is, and help you understand why and how, if I can say it that way, the why of what we're doing and how we're trying to get it done.

And so this is a three-part series you've seen in the bulletin, 3 sessions today.

This first period I want to spend, by the way, is there like a 10-minute break between sessions?

So at 3.20 we're done and 10 minute break?

So this first period I want to really talk about why, the big picture why this is important in the context of evangelism and our church's mission.

I want to move beyond that in the next 2 portions and talk about the how, the what we're doing, the how we're trying to get it done, and so that's a fair summary of things.

You are in a workshop on farming How you feeling right now It's a little awkward Good good good.

You know I was looking at the the booths and everybody's got their nice banners, and we got pallets.

If you've seen our booth over there, you can come check out our booth later.

A little bit different feel to this this morning, this afternoon.

I subtitled this, you know, the main topic is agriculture and evangelism.

I subtitled this, we'll be glad we did this.

If I were to spin that and put it in a more negative way, we're going to wish that we did this.

And each 1 of us this afternoon has to make a decision.

Either we'll at 1 point say, I'm really glad I did this, or at some point we'll say, I really wish I would have done that.

And it's the same 2 sides of the same coin.

I want to emphasize, we'll be glad we did this, and talk to you about why here.

I believe that Jesus' ministry is a model to us for how we operate our church ministries, our literature ministries, our Bible work ministries, our health ministries, our educational ministries.

How to Evangelize Using Agriculture- Part 2

Father in heaven, I want to pray that you'd bless us as we talk now about the some of the details of how we can can make the farm a ministry to our community, what we're doing in Fresno in specific, and ask your blessings, your Holy Spirit to be with us here and now.

Part 2 here, I'm going to do serving our communities.

How can we serve our community through the farm?

And I want to start with this quote here.

You're all familiar with this, or most of you anyway.

Ministry of Healing, page 143, Ellen White writes, Christ's method, what?

Alone, will give true success in reaching people.

The Savior mingled with men as 1 who desired their good.

He ministered to their needs and won their confidence.

Then he bade them follow me." I want to ask you, I don't want to be offensive to anybody, but I want to be honest.

Whose method and what plurality is used there?

Are there any other methods that will give true success?

Will the methods of our seminaries and educational institutions bring true success?

Will the methods of Willow Creek or Saddleback Church bring true success?

Yes, as long as those ministries are following that method.

I want to ask though, what's true success?

I know you're saying no, but I don't believe you.

Because everybody in our world measures success by what?

Is success measured at all by the numbers?

I think it's a bit tricky question, doesn't it?

You guys, how many of you knocked on doors this summer?

How many doors does it take you to sell a book?

1 in every 5, 1 in every 10, 1 in every...

How many presentations do you have to give to get a sale?

How many doors do you have to knock on to get a sale?

How many Bible study contacts do you have to have to get a convert?

How many people in the business world, how many people click on your website before they sign up?

Well, I didn't have a lot of conversions but I got 3 out of 4 that's pretty good 75% if you're playing baseball and could get a hit 3 out of 4 times you'd be pretty good if you go to Las Vegas and go win the lottery 3 out of 4 times, you'd be doing pretty good.

Is the conversion ratio how we measure success?

Is it the type of convert that we have that is the measure of success?

In other words, was the baptismal candidate a Christian beforehand?

Doing God's will almost implies not being worried about the results.

What if success was won by the number of people who are willing to put their confidence in you?

I know, okay, everybody take a deep breath.

It's typical to measure success by the number of baptisms, But what if somebody has confidence in you but hasn't been baptized yet?

What if you have sympathized with someone and ministered to someone but they haven't yet given their confidence to you.

Is there any type of person that Jesus didn't have success with?

He got a few of them, but not the same number, I agree.

His method worked on everybody except for those who were too proud to accept his help.

Women, children, men, politicians, religious leaders, poor people, working-class people, regardless of ethnicity, it worked really well on everybody.

I mean I haven't seen anybody preach a sermon yet that was so powerful that the whole community was at the church door by the time the sun set.

How to Evangelize Using Agriculture- Part 3

Father in heaven, I'm just very grateful that we can be here today, that I can share what you've really been sharing with me.

And I thank you how you're leading in the world and in all of our lives, that you are fully in control and that you're working in such a way that's in all of our best interest because you love us, because your heart is bound to us.

And even many of us as people don't care for each other in the way that we really should.

You're always passionately working on our behalf.

And again, it's just my privilege to be able to share what you've shared with me.

So in our last hour here, we do want to pray for your Holy Spirit.

I ask that you would guide our conversation, our time together.

I think you'll be able to see it okay it's just the background.

I want to shift gears in this last hour and talk about really I want to talk about agriculture and education within the church.

I've explained to you why this is important because among many other methods, agriculture is 1 component of winning the hearts of the people in our community around us, building public support, winning confidence, winning approval from the community.

That's the real objective is This is all set in the context of our mission as a church.

And while we're reaching out to the community, that's a really good thing, there's also a need to reach out to our own church, and to our young people in particular.

An eschatological prerequisite, that's why I titled this.

How many of you know what eschatological is?

Study of last day events, study of last things, is what it means in Greek.

Eschatology is the Greek word for last and then the study of last things.

A prerequisite is something that you must do before you can do something else.

So an eschatological prerequisite is something that must be done before the last things can happen.

Matthew 24 14 is our church's commission.

This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, then shall the end come.

I'm gonna skip actually a little bit of this for sake of time, and that's the word witness in the text.

We often think of evangelism too academically.

Even the cross and the crucifixion, the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, can be boiled down to just information.

But the verse says, in this gospel the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness.

What if there was no witness component to the preaching of the gospel?

The Greek word here, martyrian, you'll recognize the Greek word martyr or the English word martyr.

This is a different use of the word, it's a different tense, And this is from a Greek dictionary.

The word martyrian denotes the proof which can be adduced to confirm a statement or a fact.

In respect to the use and meaning, our starting point must be the fact that unlike martyria, that's the word martyr, martyrian does not mean the process of giving testimony.

It's not the transmission of information.

It's not the regurgitation of ideas or truths if you want to call it that.

Martyrian, even in witness, we are to think less of the content than of the fact that the objective testimony, whether it be an object, act, or utterance, is primarily a means of proof.

What this says is when Matthew 24 is fulfilled it can't just be stated it must be proven.

It must not just be stated it must be proven.

So Revelation chapter 14 is really the same as Matthew 24 14.

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell in the earth and to every nation kindred tongue and people it's almost identical to Matthew 24 so much so that we've actually made a song about it you're familiar with the song and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached and all you know and then it switches Revelation 14 Those 2 verses go together so strongly that they are actually the same.

So I'm going to change gears for just a second.

Every time God did something significant in society, it was preceded by a revival in the principles of education.

Before God could take them into the Promised Land, He had to re-educate them about the law and about obedience.

And Moses was an instructor to the point that Pharaoh actually complained about the re-education of the Israelites on a spiritual line.

The first advent of Christ was preceded by John the Baptist, who was to prepare the way, and John the Baptist did not receive the traditional form of education.

Once Luther broke from the Church of Rome, 1 of the very first things he did was to start a school in Wittenberg, and many of the other reformers did the exact same thing.

For a while the Adventist Church was a little slow in jumping on the education bandwagon so to speak because they thought the world was going to end right away.

But now the Adventist Church runs the biggest school system in the world, second only to the Catholic Church, and it's growing profoundly, I understand, in other countries, although that's not the case here in the US.

So what would you expect would happen right before the second coming?

If every time God has done something significant in the world, it's required a revival or reformation in the principles of education, what will happen right at the end?

It's interesting to me that many of God's greatest men, here's a list of some of the common ones, that many of these men were actually farmers.

Now Samuel was a priest, Solomon was raised in the palace, Isaiah, Daniel were different as well, But Abraham?

I'm gonna pause on that 1 for just a second.

The only thing we know about Elijah is that he was a Tishbite from the land of Gilead.

But when you look in the Old Testament, the land of Gilead was on the east side of the Jordan River that was really good for pasture and flocks and herds, which is where the tribe of Reuben and the tribe of Gad wanted to keep, they wanted to possess that land because it was good agricultural land.

And so what historians think is that Elijah's family fled from the apostasy in the northern 10 tribes of Israel and moved out into the countryside and farmed.

That's the only thing we know about Elijah, is he was a Tishbite in the land of Gilead.

And by the way, 1 other detail there, some people think that he was from Tishbah, which is a town, but there's no Tishbah in the land of Gilead.

And the word in Hebrew actually means stranger, as though he wasn't a local, he wasn't native to the land of Gilead, he was a transplant of sorts.

You can ponder on that and that may be a little different than something you've heard before, but my suggestion is that Elijah really grew up in a rural setting and just like Elisha the next guy who was found doing what when God called him?

John the Baptist grew up in the rural setting now the Apostles including Paul were not particularly farmers per se but they all had a very hands-on, blue-collar sort of background and education prior to being called into ministry.

Instantly, when you think of Jesus, you actually think that as an occupation, he was what?

The Bible is pretty specific, it says he was a carpenter.

But you ever notice that many of Jesus' teachings were actually from the farm?

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How to Evangelize Using Agriculture

How to Evangelize Using Agriculture- Part 1

Transcript

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