Developed by Bob Moffitt, Disciple Nations Alliance co-founder and President of the Harvest Foundation, seed projects are short, small, simple ministry activities. They are done by local churches, use local resources, and demonstrate God’s love to those outside the church—whether in a South America shelter home, an Asian rice paddy, a densely populated slum in Africa, or suburban America. They are small efforts, but their combined impact has enormous potential.
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Do a "Seed Project"
Seed Project Characteristics
Seed projects are identified, led and empowered by the Holy Spirit through prayer. Prayer must be a significant focus before, during and after the project. Seed Projects reflect God’s heart of compassion for brokenness. They are not manipulative tools for evangelism.Seed Projects provide an opportunity to obey Jesus’ command to love our neighbor, unconditionally. If salvation and church growth are the principle motives for our service, our efforts become manipulative. Seed projects are motivated by God’s intentions and carried out with God’s strength.Traditional community development projects are often undertaken when a need is seen, felt or expressed by local people—or when funding is available. But this is a trap—doing good works carried out in human strength. Christian ministry should be different. It should reflect God’s intentions for people, not ours. We should ask “Father, what do You want us to do?” It should be God who directs our service rather than a “felt need.” Seed Projects should be thoughtfully planned.Planning includes preparation, prayer, writing, implementation and evaluation. The Seed Projects Planning Guide ensures that these steps are taken. Seed Projects must be simple and short, small and uncomplicated.The projects themselves should take no more than one or two days, though planning and preparation will take longer. God honors and brings results to faithful, small works. People grow in faith as they attempt to take and complete small steps. If large projects fail, people may be discouraged and unwilling to try again. Small projects are essential stepping stones to larger projects. Seed Projects are to be done with local resources.Outside resources can be helpful, but when and how they are introduced is very important. The local church must be sacrificially investing its own resources in ministry before receiving outside resources. If the outside resources come first, powerless and dependency is reinforced and local initiative is stifled. Seed Projects use resources that already exist in the community. Seed Projects are directed to those outside the church.We should not express God’s love only to other Christians. We serve community members because we are obedient to Jesus’ command to love our neighbor as ourselves. Those who benefit from Seed Projects should also participate in them, as possible.When those who are being
helped are involved in the process of planning and helping, they have
the dignity of participating in their healing. Doing things for
people who are capable of participating—but not involving them—is
paternalism. People who benefit and participate in a ministry project
also have a greater sense of ownership. There should be a planned spiritual impact whenever possible. People should recognize that our motivation for doing the project is our love for God and desire to be obedient to Him and His command to love others. We should be ready to give the reason for the hope that is within us so that people may come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Seed Projects are evaluated by Kingdom standards.Evaluation is important—by Kingdom standards. Here are some questions to ask: Did God multiply the resources? Have people been blessed or favorably impacted by the project? What God’s love evident and did the project result in Him receiving glory and praise? |
