Killing the Plants

My mom gave me an African Violet when I was home over Christmas. I knew it was a mistake to take it but she swore that with this special "violet pot" there was no way I could kill it. Well, apparently you can if you don't have the right soil. So, today I replanted my almost dead African Violet....we'll see if it makes it. By some measure of insanity, while buying the potting soil and plant food, I decided to buy more plants as well. This has been a pattern in my life - I love flowers so I buy a bunch of flowers and pots and create a beautiful arrangement on my porch and then over the course of about two months I kill them! (it's a good thing I don't have a puppy - or a child for that matter).

I've been thinking a lot about "planting and growing" lately. In working in full time ministry, we talk a lot about growing - growing movements, growing disciples, growing account balances, and I've always felt that to be a good 'Campus Crusader', I needed to grow things. The longer I've tried to fit into that mold, the more I see that I'm never going to be great at growing things (any one wanna make bets on how long these flowers on my porch are going to last?). I'm a much better starter. I have a gifting that we call "apostolic" but we don't live in an environment that really understands or even knows what to do with that gift. Our norm is that people would grow things - that we would want to grow things. I do want to see things grow, I don't just plant them for no purpose, I just know that I'm not the best person to grow them.

I long for the day when we start to understand and value how our gift mixes can really work together - when we have the faith to really move forward believing that it's okay to have different roles in the body of Christ. I think we're getting there - maybe slowly - but there are too many people who would say, "something is not working" for me to believe otherwise.

In the meantime, maybe I can convince my neighbor to take care of my plants for me......