Kansas weeds are different. I possess no data or evidence to justify that claim, but lived experience testifies that Kansas weeds are particularly pernicious.
As novice homeowners, and overtired parents of young children, my wife and I watched as successive summers multiplied weeds and brown patches on our lawn. We wondered what the great secret was to cultivating healthy grass. We asked a few sages and tried to observe the routines of our neighbors (most hired lawncare services).
After some trial and error, I believe we have found the secret to growing grass, which I share happily and free of charge. Here it is: We watered it.
We scattered a lot of seeds, put some dirt and straw on top to hold them in place, then regularly watered. I’m sure experts and advertisers would tell me I’m missing key steps, like applying the right fertilizer at the right amounts at the right time. They may be right. But abundant planting and regular watering seem to be the uncomplicated, essential keys to cultivating healthy grass.
Just as we might overcomplicate the key to growing a healthy lawn, we often overcomplicate what is essential to healthy spiritual growth. Or should I say “who” is essential to spiritual growth.
To put it simply, growth is God’s work. It all rests on him.
The problem in Corinth
The church in Corinth missed this truth. Division plagued the body as the believers claimed spiritual superiority by virtue of their preferred minister. Some followed Paul. Some followed Apollos. Some Cephas. All were convinced their personal allegiance to their favorite leader was vital to spiritual maturity. They misdiagnosed the key to spiritual cultivation.
Paul writes to set the record straight and isolate what is essential. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (1 Cor. 3:6). Paul may have done the initial work of scattering gospel seed in Corinth. Apollos may have followed and watered with the Word. But the growth was God’s. God himself is the key to cultivating spiritual health because growth is singularly his work.
One might forgive the Corinthians for their misplaced emphasis on personality. Greco-Roman culture made a big deal of having friends in high places. In the Roman social and political structure, wealthy and powerful patrons provided material support, legal protection and other benefits for lower-class clients. Clients, meanwhile, gave political allegiance and public adulation to augment the reputation of the higher-class patron. This symbiotic relationship was built upon personal allegiance, and one may wonder if that affected the Corinthian believers. Their culture valued alignment with important individuals.
Are we any different? We may not claim allegiance to Paul or Apollos. But we often suffer from the same celebrity speaker syndrome. We place ultimate value in who is gifted, who is published, who is drawing numbers, who is doing “great work.” We make much of lofty individuals, assuming they possess some secret to spiritual growth that escapes the rest of us mortals. If only we might swim in their orbit and capture some of their excellence, we might see some real spiritual progress in our midst!
What secret do these luminaries have that so eludes us? Is it a ministry program? A style of rhetoric? A leadership philosophy? What is the key to cultivating spiritual growth?
The place of the servant
Paul demystifies the celebrated minister. Yes, Apollos was a gifted orator, and he watered the church well. Yes, Paul was a devoted man of God and instrumental in scattering the gospel in Corinth. But it was not their genius that built the church. The growth was God’s work.
You might say these gifted leaders were hardly needed at all. According to 1 Corinthians 3:7, “…neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” A humbling assessment. We may (or may not) seem quite impressive standing beside our fellow minister. But relative to the living God, we are nothing. Under God, we are all entirely dispensable.
Our “nothingness” emphasizes the sinfulness of the Corinthian division. It also reveals how wrong we are when we believe church growth rests on our giftedness. To be blunt, it is idolatry. We remove God from his throne and take the pedestal for ourselves, thinking we are the key ingredient.
This is not to say we don’t aim to be useful. Scripture has much to say about laboring for the Lord and utilizing the gifts and roles given to us. However, Scripture never allows us to confuse such stewardship with idolatrous self-exaltation. We are all mere servants, utterly dependent on the God of the harvest. He is essential to growth. We are not.
The mystery of God’s work
In fact, kingdom growth happens quite apart from our direct effort. According to Jesus’ parable of the growing seed in Mark 4, the kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seed on the ground, then goes to bed. Day after day, he wakes up and finds that seed sprouting and growing, producing a crop all by itself. He didn’t do this work. He doesn’t even really know how it happened. He certainly can’t take credit for it.
To stretch the parable, I suppose if you were to ask the man the secret to seed’s growth, you might receive a disappointing answer. (Not unlike the answers I’ve sometimes received from older parents when asked how they got through the early years of child-rearing.) He would simply shrug. Who knows? The Lord must have done it. And the Lord will keep doing it until the crop is ready and the time for the harvest has come.
This ought to be our response should anyone ask how we account for growth in our midst. A simple shrug. Who knows? We put some gospel seed down. We watered it with the Word. Then God did the work according to his will.
A word for our members and ministers
If you are seeking spiritual growth, take care not to over-complicate things. We so often look to peripheral priorities that are bonuses at best. We think it’s all about a style of speech, the look of a leader, the reputation of a church or the slickness of a program. We pay great attention to our preferred servants, putting humans in the place of God, as if the key to growth is the watering can and not the water. Think less of the vessel. Think far more of the Word with which God waters. Then go where the water of the Word is, and drink.
If you are a minister, think less of yourself. There is freedom in it. I am confronted routinely with my own frustrating limitations and weaknesses. Even as I write this, I wish I had a more clever or insightful word. But my limitations are no impediment because my strengths are not the key ingredient. Just like any other gospel minister, I am, by God’s grace, a servant and vessel through which seed is planted and watered.
I am often encouraged by the sentiment of Charles Spurgeon, who was remarkably gifted in his own right. But he put his gifts in proper perspective when he said, “Whitefield and Wesley might preach the gospel better than I do, but they could not preach a better gospel.” It’s not about our talents; it’s about our Lord. To cultivate growth, we simply play the role of John the Baptist, who looked to Christ and said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30 ESV).
Point people to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and growth will happen. Often surprisingly and mysteriously so. Because the secret to spiritual growth is simple, obvious and repeatable. Spread the gospel. Water with the Word. And God gives growth as he wills.
Aaron Halvorsen has been the lead pastor at Community Bible Church, Olathe, Kansas, since 2015. He and his wife, Maggie, have five children.
