Prayer Request
.Then He told them this parable; A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but didn’t find any. So, he said to the vine dresser, “For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?” The vine dresser replied, “Sir, leave it for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.” - Luke 13:6-9
As I write this the projected temperature drop is to 38 degrees tonight, just a few degrees short of our first fall frost (average date is Oct. 20). The days are certainly shorter and colder and it looks like the growing season is rapidly coming to a close. Now it’s time for me to sit back, examine the harvest, and see what worked well and what needs improvement for next year.
My biggest disappointment was with the pumpkins. In May, I set out 27 vines hoping that I’d get 50 or so small (5 lb.) pumpkins to use at Trunk or Treat this Fall. I got 8 pumpkins in all. I grew them up a trellis along the back fence as growing vertically is supposed to increase airflow and pollination. Yet all but 3 of my vines got powdery mildew and about 1/3 died from the infestation. I planted dwarf varieties that should only vine to 8 feet, the height of my trellis. Yet my vines were long and sprawling and one of them measured in at 22 feet! I planted them in good soil and watered it with the dirty duck water (dissolved organic solids) so they would have plenty of nutrients, but I think they had too much. Now that the season is Over, I can try to figure out what went wrong and why I had so few pumpkins.
First, the trellis. A good idea that works on paper but not in real life. The trellis is screwed to a solid wooden fence, so even though it can climb vertically and the fruits are off the ground, there’s no air flow through the plant. If the leaves get wet (and it was a wet June and July), they’ll stay wet; hence the powdery mildew problem. I got a home soil test kit off Amazon and checked the soil in which they were planted.
The nitrogen (N in NPK) was off the charts! So maybe that explains why they were all vine and no fruit. The Phosphorus (P) was way low and that what the plant needs to flower and set fruit. Potash / Potassium (K) came in down the middle, so no problems there. The weather also had much to do with the lack of production and that’s something I can’t control. Cool rainy days followed by hot and wet made the plant set more male flowers (excellent for friend squash blossoms) and fewer female flowers. At the farm, in the great pumpkin contest, only 2 of the 6 contenders had any fruits develop - so even the guys with more experience than me had trouble.
So, for next year I have a plan. First, we’ll forget the trellis is even there and plant the whole patch to popcorn - that should suck all the excess nitrogen out of the soil. Second, next time I’m up in Boston or down the shore, pick up copious amounts of seaweed to bring the P up to what is needed. And finally, pray for the proper temperatures and rainfall for the 2021 growing season. So, after a year of modifications, the 2021 year should yield enough pumpkins for the 2021 Trunk or Treat “Pastor’s Pumpkin Patch”.
So, what does any of this have to do with the Church? Well the readings for October and November usually deal with the end times, Christ’s return, and the final Judgment. The motif of harvest is frequently used as the harvest is the end time of the agricultural cycle. November is also when we start looking back over what worked, what didn’t, and why for the last year and start setting the plans in place for the coming year - a major portion of which is the budget. So, what kind of “harvest” did Redeemer have since last Fall? Baptisms: 0, Weddings: 0, Funerals: 4 (maybe 5 as one was a double), Members received: 2 Members left (not due to death): 4.
For a church whose purpose is to make disciples, we didn’t make very many and lost more than we gained. This is a pattern which has held steady for the last 6-7 years. We do get a few new people each year and many of those are repeat visitors who do not become members, but we lose 2 or 3 times that many to death, moving away (often out of state), or just not coming to church regularly anymore. Our worship attendance numbers have fallen to around 50 / week and we have just shy of 100 souls on our books. A 50% worship rate is actually very high in the LCMS, especially in the Northeast, so we know our worship is meeting the needs of those who attend, but we still have a 5-10% loss rate each year. Our offerings are down from last year (pretty much in line with worship decline) and now we must figure out what we are going to do about next year and how are we going to do it. We want to keep the doors open and even grow, but are we willing to do what it will take to keep going and start bearing fruit?
As we look at Jesus’ parable of the fig tree, we see three things that might help us. The steward of the vineyard (what a fig tree is doing in a vineyard escapes me) says to give it one more year. So, there is a time table, a deadline. The fruitlessness cannot and will not continue indefinitely. But it takes time for things to take effect.
I’d like to remove the nitrogen and up the phosphorus in my pumpkin patch right now and plant squashes again next season, but corrections take time and energy and resources. The next thing the steward will do is to “dig around it”. If the soil is compacted, the water runs off and the nutrients can’t get to the roots that take them up for the plant. This digging around also removes the weeds that suck away the nutrients, water, and light and provide habitat for harmful insects and microbes. What is keeping us from “Knowing Christ and making Him known”? We’re not doing it, so what is getting in the way and needs to be uprooted? Lastly, the steward of the vineyard will fertilize the tree, giving it the proper balance of nutrients to make it fruitful. The fertilizer for God’s people is His Word and the Sacraments. If we don’t worship, or worship infrequently, we will not be nourished enough to go and bear fruit. If we just read our Portals of Prayer but never join with others in corporate Bible Study, then we’re only getting some nutrients, but not all we need to Know Christ and Make Him Known. The parable ends with a warning - if, after doing all this, the tree (congregation) still doesn’t bear fruit (disciples), then cut it down (close).
Give it one more year, a phrase we use frequently when reviewing what has happened in the past and what we hope will happen in the future. What can we do in the next year to get Redeemer back on track to making disciples? I don’t know. We’ve tried many things in the past with little impact on the congregation as a whole.
What can we do in 2020 that we haven’t done yet and will help us to start bearing fruit? What will we need in terms of time, talent, and treasure (budget) to make that happen? I hope you will be part of the discussion over the next couple of months. We hope to have a survey out to the congregation by the end of November to get your input and formulate some new ways of getting the fertilizer of Word and Sacrament to the root zone during December. Come January, at our annual Voter’s Meeting we’ll decide if we’ll “leave it be for one more year” and if so, what will we do (what needs to be dug around, what fertilizer do we need) so that the Redeemer tree will bear fruit.
Peace in Christ;
Pastor Brian
.Then He told them this parable; A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but didn’t find any. So, he said to the vine dresser, “For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?” The vine dresser replied, “Sir, leave it for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.” - Luke 13:6-9
As I write this the projected temperature drop is to 38 degrees tonight, just a few degrees short of our first fall frost (average date is Oct. 20). The days are certainly shorter and colder and it looks like the growing season is rapidly coming to a close. Now it’s time for me to sit back, examine the harvest, and see what worked well and what needs improvement for next year.
My biggest disappointment was with the pumpkins. In May, I set out 27 vines hoping that I’d get 50 or so small (5 lb.) pumpkins to use at Trunk or Treat this Fall. I got 8 pumpkins in all. I grew them up a trellis along the back fence as growing vertically is supposed to increase airflow and pollination. Yet all but 3 of my vines got powdery mildew and about 1/3 died from the infestation. I planted dwarf varieties that should only vine to 8 feet, the height of my trellis. Yet my vines were long and sprawling and one of them measured in at 22 feet! I planted them in good soil and watered it with the dirty duck water (dissolved organic solids) so they would have plenty of nutrients, but I think they had too much. Now that the season is Over, I can try to figure out what went wrong and why I had so few pumpkins.
First, the trellis. A good idea that works on paper but not in real life. The trellis is screwed to a solid wooden fence, so even though it can climb vertically and the fruits are off the ground, there’s no air flow through the plant. If the leaves get wet (and it was a wet June and July), they’ll stay wet; hence the powdery mildew problem. I got a home soil test kit off Amazon and checked the soil in which they were planted.
The nitrogen (N in NPK) was off the charts! So maybe that explains why they were all vine and no fruit. The Phosphorus (P) was way low and that what the plant needs to flower and set fruit. Potash / Potassium (K) came in down the middle, so no problems there. The weather also had much to do with the lack of production and that’s something I can’t control. Cool rainy days followed by hot and wet made the plant set more male flowers (excellent for friend squash blossoms) and fewer female flowers. At the farm, in the great pumpkin contest, only 2 of the 6 contenders had any fruits develop - so even the guys with more experience than me had trouble.
So, for next year I have a plan. First, we’ll forget the trellis is even there and plant the whole patch to popcorn - that should suck all the excess nitrogen out of the soil. Second, next time I’m up in Boston or down the shore, pick up copious amounts of seaweed to bring the P up to what is needed. And finally, pray for the proper temperatures and rainfall for the 2021 growing season. So, after a year of modifications, the 2021 year should yield enough pumpkins for the 2021 Trunk or Treat “Pastor’s Pumpkin Patch”.
So, what does any of this have to do with the Church? Well the readings for October and November usually deal with the end times, Christ’s return, and the final Judgment. The motif of harvest is frequently used as the harvest is the end time of the agricultural cycle. November is also when we start looking back over what worked, what didn’t, and why for the last year and start setting the plans in place for the coming year - a major portion of which is the budget. So, what kind of “harvest” did Redeemer have since last Fall? Baptisms: 0, Weddings: 0, Funerals: 4 (maybe 5 as one was a double), Members received: 2 Members left (not due to death): 4.
For a church whose purpose is to make disciples, we didn’t make very many and lost more than we gained. This is a pattern which has held steady for the last 6-7 years. We do get a few new people each year and many of those are repeat visitors who do not become members, but we lose 2 or 3 times that many to death, moving away (often out of state), or just not coming to church regularly anymore. Our worship attendance numbers have fallen to around 50 / week and we have just shy of 100 souls on our books. A 50% worship rate is actually very high in the LCMS, especially in the Northeast, so we know our worship is meeting the needs of those who attend, but we still have a 5-10% loss rate each year. Our offerings are down from last year (pretty much in line with worship decline) and now we must figure out what we are going to do about next year and how are we going to do it. We want to keep the doors open and even grow, but are we willing to do what it will take to keep going and start bearing fruit?
As we look at Jesus’ parable of the fig tree, we see three things that might help us. The steward of the vineyard (what a fig tree is doing in a vineyard escapes me) says to give it one more year. So, there is a time table, a deadline. The fruitlessness cannot and will not continue indefinitely. But it takes time for things to take effect.
I’d like to remove the nitrogen and up the phosphorus in my pumpkin patch right now and plant squashes again next season, but corrections take time and energy and resources. The next thing the steward will do is to “dig around it”. If the soil is compacted, the water runs off and the nutrients can’t get to the roots that take them up for the plant. This digging around also removes the weeds that suck away the nutrients, water, and light and provide habitat for harmful insects and microbes. What is keeping us from “Knowing Christ and making Him known”? We’re not doing it, so what is getting in the way and needs to be uprooted? Lastly, the steward of the vineyard will fertilize the tree, giving it the proper balance of nutrients to make it fruitful. The fertilizer for God’s people is His Word and the Sacraments. If we don’t worship, or worship infrequently, we will not be nourished enough to go and bear fruit. If we just read our Portals of Prayer but never join with others in corporate Bible Study, then we’re only getting some nutrients, but not all we need to Know Christ and Make Him Known. The parable ends with a warning - if, after doing all this, the tree (congregation) still doesn’t bear fruit (disciples), then cut it down (close).
Give it one more year, a phrase we use frequently when reviewing what has happened in the past and what we hope will happen in the future. What can we do in the next year to get Redeemer back on track to making disciples? I don’t know. We’ve tried many things in the past with little impact on the congregation as a whole.
What can we do in 2020 that we haven’t done yet and will help us to start bearing fruit? What will we need in terms of time, talent, and treasure (budget) to make that happen? I hope you will be part of the discussion over the next couple of months. We hope to have a survey out to the congregation by the end of November to get your input and formulate some new ways of getting the fertilizer of Word and Sacrament to the root zone during December. Come January, at our annual Voter’s Meeting we’ll decide if we’ll “leave it be for one more year” and if so, what will we do (what needs to be dug around, what fertilizer do we need) so that the Redeemer tree will bear fruit.
Peace in Christ;
Pastor Brian