Two Blog Hints - For Advanced Visibility - The Mark 4 Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly

The Lutheran Library and The Lutheran Librarian - Alec Satin's dual-threat to Lutheran apathics, apostastes, and anti-Creationists.

I have linked favorite blogs on the left column. They pick up graphics and links to the latest posts. The latest post is the top one, so there are advantages to being the latest to publish on one's blog.

The software always picks up the graphic at the top, if there is one. That is not necessary, but I have always favored at least one graphic for each post. A captioned and linked graphic leads to more visibility on Google Images and Google. As WELS people complained years ago, "No matter what synod graphic we look up, it links to Ichabod!" That complaint happened with a small college, too - making me wonder about their grasp of communications.

So the image is a triple benefit:

1. Graphics add interest to the post.
2. The graphic will lead back to the blog on searches.
3. The graphic, caption and link can connect to something important, such as another post, another item of interest for the blogger or reader.

  Pastor Jordan Palangyos and his PhD wife Amabel - his blog Lutheran Cowboys (for a good reason - find out).

Pastor Jordan Palangyos has already seized the moment in media, with his blog, Facebook pages, graphics, video, and now streaming video. He is literally reaching the world with free media, using Facebook as a platform. 

Pay Attention to the Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly

KJV Mark 4 

26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

27 And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

29 But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

I am watching the garden go to sleep, one plant after another. The Feverfew is especially interesting. The cold weather never hurt it last winter, but when the cold hit zero degrees, the plant took on the dead or dormant look of most plants. But with a little more sun and freezing weather, it perked up again and turned green. The plant was preparing its roots for spring, just as the winter bulbs were developing roots and pushing their stems up to the surface of the soil.

Once I have sown Borage, or planted herbs, or dug in roses, I can sleep at night, without worrying. The plants will disappoint me at times, but they grow beyond all I can hope, think, or imagine. 

When pastors and laity worry about success, I tell them to broadcast the Word more. This media age means we can reach the world while spending almost no money. We can sleep at night, knowing the effective Word has the divine energy to grow and to accomplish God's will. The Word never returns empty, but always accomplishes His purpose and - most importantly - prospers His will. 

That is how I think about the future when falling asleep. The question is not whether I am successful, but whether I have sown the living Seed with abandon. 

Our next door neighbor, from a cult, began following our services and confessing Justification by Faith. She died a baptized Lutheran. Her husband banned her from having roses, so she shared them with a woman in hospice care, filling the home with fragrance and peace. That family - whom I never met - thanked me for the roses and what they contributed to their mother's last days.

The Word is very effective in fueling the hatred of some people, but also accomplishes such wonders that we could never imagine what was ahead. So many parishes offer synod worship, personality worship, history of the building worship, and programs worship, but they should exchange what is sterile and lifeless for what is imbued with divine power - The Word of God.

 Our entire backyard is a pond, deeper than before, from over six inches of rain last night. The water makes me think of Luther's pond analogy.

More Pastors Should Garden

Cow vetch, a legume, grows naturally in my yard.
Budgies and other birds love the seed and spread it.

Mark 4:26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

27 And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

29 But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

Borage is the cousin to comfrey and
has a similar but smaller growth habit.

Borage is either pink or blue, an edible herb.

More pastors should garden, because then they would would understand all the parables related to the growth of plants and how these stories apply to their work.

I looked up one of my garden weeds and found it was cow vetch, loved by birds. They planted it for me, and some grew up the back fence, creating a beautiful waterfall effect of purple flowers.

The borage flowers above are also called bee bread, because they constantly flower, generate pollen and nectar, drop seed and grow again. All of the sudden, there is a new borage plant growing - the seed growing secretly. Borage is so robust that this happens all summer.

That reminds me of how the living seed of the Word sprouts and grows secretly. That is why I do not believe in trying to persuade people or  to appeal to them. The ministers who do not trust the Word think they have to make it appealing. Synods think they have to grow, without thinking about the only thing that is required of stewards, that they be found faithful.

The CLC (sic) is a sect that lives by, "Why didn't he join us 60 years ago, as he promised?" Meanwhile, Missouri and WELS think extending the Left Foot of Fellowship is their prime directive. Anyone who experiences a hint of that should extend the Right Foot of Exit, because shunning is Pietism at its core. "We are superior and anyone who disagrees must be shunned and expelled as an evil-doer."

We were mulching some of the new roses yesterday. We went through our cardboard and 15 bags of mulch. Our helper kept mentioning the lack of grass. I said, "We are on the cutting edge. Grass is last century, and we are re-inventing rose gardening!"

Before photographs were taken yesterday and should be posted fairly soon.

Bride's Dream rose has the largest bloom and plant.
I got two from Gurney's for $5 each.
It's fun to order blindly for bargains and find
classics that normally sell for $20 each.

Roses only require being:

• Planted
• Pruned
• Watered
• Mulched, and
• Earthwormed.

A $20 rose bush grows more than enough flowers to pay for itself in retail value the first summer. One good hybrid rose is worth $5 at a flower shop.  A dozen roses will sell for $60. Many hybrid tea rose bushes will yield a dozen roses the first year, each bloom far better and longer-lasting than flower shop roses.