I often tell students that we are asking God to build spiritual movements on each campus so that the Kingdom of God will extend everywhere. What is the Kingdom of God like? Jesus tells us in Mark 4 that the Kingdom of God is like a man who plants seeds in the ground. I grew up in an agricultural region, so I can understand a little where Jesus might be going with this illustration.
About now near my hometown farmers are getting their fields ready to plant corn, potatoes, onions and pinto beans (not very glamorous crops, but it’s what we grow there). I love driving by the fields and finding a few brave stalks of corn growing in a potato field. They are not purposely planted there, but they grew there because a seed from a previous harvest had simply fallen into the dirt. It’s obvious that it is a corn plant, even from the beginning because a corn plant looks very different from a potato plant.
In Genesis 1:11 God said, “Let the earth burst forth with every sort of grass and seed-bearing plant, and fruit trees with seeds inside the fruit, so that … Every seed will produce more of its own kind of plant [fruit trees on earth bearing fruit according to its own kind/species that has seed in them].”
Here we find the principle of the DNA of seeds:
Everything reproduces its own kind. An apple seed produces an apple. Fertilizing the soil with a different mixture of fertilizer will not cause a banana to reproduce a potato, nor will watering it more cause it to produce a cucumber. A watermelon seed will produce watermelons, a potato produces potatoes. Neither will the soil (environment) change the outcome of the seed. It’s the seed that is planted that determines the fruit.
God desires us to reproduce a people who will reproduce spiritual fruit. He spells it out for us in 2 Timothy 2:2:
“ You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.”
This is why we talk so much about the DNA of Key Volunteers! We have to look ahead to see what we want to reproduce so we can be now searching for the seeds with the right DNA. The DNA of a Volunteer determines the fruit of the spiritual movement.
I smile when I try to picture a farmer standing in a potato field on harvest day ready to harvest potatoes with his potato-digger tractors, only to find that he is surrounded by rows of corn. Then he shakes his head as he says, ‘Why didn’t the corn seed I planted come up as potatoes?” Oh, may we not be like this confused farmer!
This worksheet “How to Know if Someone has the DNA of a KV” may give you some guidance in knowing what KV seed (DNA) to plant.
Questions to consider:
- What has your experience shown you in this area? Do you have any examples of trying to grow an ‘apple’ with ‘watermelon’ seeds? What were the results?
- What happened when you, like the potato farmer, tried to plant someone without KV DNA, hoping instead that creating the right environment would produce a spiritual multiplier?
- According to the passages below, what spiritual multiplication DNA should we be looking for? What other passages would you add?
Passages to ponder:
- 2 Timothy 2:1-3
- Matthew 28:16-20, Acts 1:8
- Romans 10:1; 1 Corinthians 1:4 and 7; 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3
- 2 Timothy 1:13-14