{"id":179,"date":"2008-04-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-08T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-04-08T16:25:51","modified_gmt":"2008-04-08T20:25:51","slug":"my-avocado-tree-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/2008\/04\/08\/my-avocado-tree-died\/","title":{"rendered":"My avocado tree died"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Have you ever sprouted a seed? Maybe it was in science class, or Sunday school. Maybe you were making bean sprouts or alfalfa sprouts, or just having fun.<\/p>\n

Did you know you can sprout avocado seeds? If you slightly poke in toothpicks to suspend them in the mouth of a jar of water, so their pointy end is up and their rounded end is in water, they’ll send down a tap root and send up a stalk with leaves.<\/p>\n

I did that for fun one time, and then thought, “Hey, I really like avocados. I should plant this!”<\/p>\n

So I did.<\/p>\n

It died.<\/p>\n

OK, OK, I appreciate the sympathy. Really, it was a long time ago. I’m over it. I really only brought that up because it has a lot to do with New Tribes Mission.<\/p>\n

You see, there’s a big difference between planting a seed and growing a tree, and that’s one place where New Tribes Mission differs from many other organizations. Someone said to me the other day, “Well, everyone <\/strong>plants churches.” And there’s a lot of truth to that. A great many organizations say they plant churches.<\/p>\n

What sets NTM apart is that we grow trees.<\/p>\n

In essence, even a few believers in fellowship constitute a church. But there’s a lot more to a mature church. <\/p>\n

Last week one of our leaders gave me a 12-page booklet that is a summary <\/em>of NTM’s mature church model. The model gives our missionaries a target to shoot for, helps them make sure they are on track, and gives guidance for how to get back on track.<\/p>\n

If I had had something like that for avocado trees all those years ago, I would probably be enjoying fruit today, and for years into the future. And when it comes to planting churches, that’s the point, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

I’m glad our missionaries grow trees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The truth is, the avocado seed I helped to sprout was probably still too small to be called a tree when it withered. Maybe there’s a message in there \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}