AdAgrA 2014 Conference

Morning Devotional

Whitmar McConnell

AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Sunday Morning Devotional

Several people have commented about, wow, there's a lot of people out there.

It's not a frightening view, it's a blessing.

If you will, we're going to pray, and I invite you to kneel if you want.

I'm afraid I'm gonna cause fireworks with this mic so I'm just gonna stand here and pray but I invite you if you'd like to kneel and we'll pray to start our devotion.

Father in heaven, we want to thank you this morning that you've been with us these last few days.

And we want to thank you that you're with us always.

Sometimes we become distracted by the things that the world throws at us.

But we're thankful that you're that immovable object in our lives, and we just pray that we would follow you wherever you go.

And I pray now that you would hide me behind your cross, and that you would overshadow me with your spirit, and not only me, but those that are listening, that we might hear what you have to say and be blessed by it.

I've gotten to know quite a few of you while I was here.

With my wife Lisa and our 8 children, yes I've been fruitful and multiplied, but they're not actually.

We did high risk medical foster care for 16 years and adopted 4 of those kids.

And so we own and operate, or are trying to get to the place where we own and operate, Golden Moment Farm again.

In Means, Kentucky, we've been in Colorado for the last 20 years, came up against a battle with water rights and decided we would not continue to fight that battle forever.

And so we moved somewhere where there was water.

Can't do a whole lot of farming without water.

It's been cold outside but be thankful you're not where my daughter is.

I have a Canadian Adventist University in Alberta, Canada.

It was minus 15 there, last that I checked.

So but irregardless I don't know about you but my heart has been really warm the whole time that I've been here.

And I wanted to start off by sharing Matthew, in Matthew chapter 5, verse 6.

I was asking myself, you know, I kind of had my ideas of what I wanted to share because I know I was going to be doing this devotional, you know, before I ever got here.

And I kind of changed what I was going to do as I heard the presentations and the messages, and not so much that what I was going to share wouldn't be uplifting and edifying, but rather I wanted to continue the theme that I've been hearing at this conference.

Chapter 5, verse 6, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

It's hungry, and I'm not talking about just physically, but it's hungry physically, it's starving.

And people are hungering and thirsting after righteousness.

They wouldn't frame it in those words, but after 25 years of interacting with the community with food, I can tell you that they're hungering and thirsting for righteousness at all levels.

I wanted to share a little bit about why I do what I do and how I do it.

Because you've heard, when the ladies were up here sharing their experiences and everything, what was the most important thing about it?

Was it how much produce they had sold at the marketplace?

And when David was sharing, was it about how big the farm was, or all of that?

It was about bringing Jesus Christ into people's lives.

And when we farm, well let me say this, we witness in our going out.

And so it's just a matter of what are you nourishing people with when you go out.

And so when we go to the marketplace and when we farm and our interaction with the neighbors and the community, our first priority.

Now, we're nourished by the farm, and regrettably I haven't been very well nourished from my own food for the last couple of years because we're in the process of moving and transitioning, and we had to sell our greenhouse operation and things in Colorado, and we're not up and going here yet.

And in fact, I haven't, you talk about trusting the Lord, I haven't had an income off the farm in 3 years because of the, they, In Colorado, they told us, the water board told us, and they're trying to take the water because there's more revenue to be had from housing and shopping centers and all that kind of stuff.

But they told us we could no longer use our water for commercial purposes.

We could use our water, we could grow all that we wanted, but we couldn't sell it.

And so, being the person that I am, I determined, I told my wife, I said, are we going to stop growing?

I said, I don't plan on stopping growing.

I didn't make a penny for 2 years, but I grew everything I had already been growing previously.

I gave it away to people who were out of jobs.

I gave it away, I gave it to the food bank because I was determined that I was gonna continue to bless people whether the world would try to stop it or not.

And if I look a little thin, I haven't been blessed by my own food.

And if you've ever tasted of the Lord and seen that he's good, it's a hard thing to go without.

And, unfortunately, a little over a year ago, I got contaminated water out of a well and was sick for 6 weeks and lost 30 pounds and was not able to gain it back, any of it, until I was finally this year we started growing again on our farm there in Kentucky and I've started gaining the weight back, which I'm thankful for.

But when we go to the marketplace, our first priority is that people see Jesus.

And so when we go to the marketplace, we bring the absolute best that we can bring.

Remember, when you're going into the public, you're witnessing and you're going out.

And so If we go in and say that we're Christians, and we bring something to them that doesn't make any more difference to them than what the world's offering them, then what are we testifying to as far as to the character of Christ?

So we always try to bring the absolute best, And the only way we can bring the absolute best is if we're in harmony with the word.

And I mean that both in spiritual terms and I mean it in physical terms.

But we would bring the absolute best and we would represent ourselves or we would display it in the most beautiful way.

Not just throw it on the table, but blend the colors and the shapes and the textures and everything so that it painted a beautiful picture.

You know, I don't know about you, but I work with a health center, and we're trying to get them, we're trying to help them get up and producing their own, you know, highly nutritious food because food's the number 1 medicine.

It's probably 1 of the weakest links we have in trying to reach people and minister to people with health problems because we're really not giving them everything that they could.

Steve Day, who's running that center, he really wants to do it and he's so busy he can't do it, but when he gets these free moments he'll go out there and work around and plant stuff and then He won't be able to get back out there and guess what happens?

And here you have people coming, for example, who are already dealing with problems in their life.

Their health is not right, you know, and in their mind they feel my life is just messed up.

And how would you feel if you looked out over this garden, now their balcony for the Lifestyle Center looks out over where the garden is?

And I said, how would you feel if you're discouraged and you're struggling with this difficulty that you're dealing with and you look out over a weed patch?

And how, now let's look at it the other way.

How would you feel if when you looked out over there, you saw nice straight rows that were clean and orderly and beautiful and there were flowers here and everything looked cared for?

And as if it was doing well, it would be hopeful to you, wouldn't it?

And that's what we need to bring to the world.

And so when we go to the marketplace, we want to make things, we want to present it in a way that's beautiful.

And then we want to present ourselves in a way that's fitting of the character of God.

And I want to just share a little bit, you've heard several things, and that's the priority.

And so when we go to the marketplace, we normally use a scale.

Now some people will put stuff in bunches or in baskets and stuff like that, but we typically use a scale.

And the reason is we had so many people come to us and say, well, I don't need that much.

Is there any way I could just have this or that?

And so I decided we'd just do it by scale.

And if somebody wanted 1 carrot, they could have 1 carrot.

And if they wanted a whole bunch of carrots, they could have a whole bunch of carrots.

But we always press it down and make it overflow.

And we'll watch, I always watch the customers when when we put stuff on the scale to weigh it and have this very watch and close You know why they're watching close because they think I'm gonna try to cheat him and then when they look at the scale and they have a pound of stuff and I, or they have a pound and a half of stuff and I only charge them for a pound, they look up at me.

I had a, I had a woman who came down and she was very upset.

She had come down to our stand And so I said, what's the matter?

Darren Greenfield

Sabbath Morning Devotional

It's been an exciting time to hear all the different messages and to fellowship.

I'd like to start with a word of prayer if you would bow your heads with me.

Loving Father in heaven, thank you so much for this wonderful Sabbath day.

Thank you for encouraging our hearts through everything that we've heard here at this conference.

Thank you, Lord, that you have a plan to not only fit us for heaven, but you have a plan to enable us to finish the work you've given us.

And I pray that as we contemplate that this morning, that you will inspire us to do everything in our power to work with you in this plan.

I titled the talk this morning, Agriculture and Education as it relates to the mission of the church.

I was listening to the message last night and I see there's a little bit of overlap in what Brother Bob shared last night.

So please, if you hear it and it's a little bit of repetition, repetition is 1 of the keys to learning.

So there's a few slides here that will be quoting some of the quotes that he gave.

And what I want to focus on is that not only has God given us a message of agriculture to develop our characters and that of our young people and children, but he's given it to us as a means of accomplishing the mission of the church.

And it has actually, in our day and age, it opens doors that are little dreamed of that we haven't even begun to tap into.

I don't have time this morning to basically unravel all of those different possibilities, But I would say that agriculture is the key that God has given us to reach the rich.

The rich people in this world do not like you coming and knocking on their doors.

They don't like you talking to them about God.

They have other things that are capturing their attention, but if you can supply them with healthy food that is being grown in a responsible way, their door is open, they want to hear.

And you can build relationships with them and reach the wealthy in a way that not even the health message, unless they're suffering from health, will reach them.

And so I believe that as the Health message is the right arm of the gospel message.

Agriculture is the foundation of the right arm.

And I won't talk more about that because that's another topic.

I want to talk this morning about the training of our young people and how that agriculture plays a part in fitting our young people to do the work that God has given them.

You know, if we just focus on agriculture and having our nice little lifestyle, growing our own food and staying to ourselves, we'll be no different than seventh-day Amish people.

Not accomplishing the mission that God has given us.

And so we want to keep in mind that God has given us a mission to reach the world, and agriculture is a means to do that.

Jesus said, do you not say there are still 4 months and then comes the harvest?

Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields for they are all ready white for harvest.

There are souls out there that are just longing to hear the message, but they need a way of reaching them, and agriculture, I believe, is 1 of the ways.

Jesus also said that the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few.

Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." And so the Lord has said to do what?

We need to be praying that the Lord will send out workers into his harvest field.

Not only can we participate in that, but he said, pray that there'll be more.

There needs to be an army of workers that go out and reach people for his kingdom.

We are told in the spirit of prophecy we can speak to him of our real wants and if we want Jesus to come soon we can hasten that day by doing everything in our power.

And so if that's our real want, we can speak to him of our real want and our earnest petitions will show that we realize our needs and will do what we can to answer what?

We are told that with such an army of workers as our youth rightly trained might furnish how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon coming savior might be carried to the whole world.

How soon might the end come, the end of suffering and sorrow and sin.

How soon in the place of a possession here, with its blight of sin and pain, our children might receive their inheritance where the righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever, where the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick, and the voice of weeping shall be no more." Don't be satisfied with your piece of ground here where you grow your own food.

This ground that has been cursed 3 times, from the fall, from the murder of Abel, and from the flood, this ground is cursed.

We need to be looking for the heavenly kingdom and longing for that day and praying for it because when we inherit that land, we'll grow stuff like, it's just going to be unbelievable.

So what is missing in our education that prevents this army of youth being rightly trained from this being accomplished so that the end will come quickly.

Well, we are told that it's the development of character and Brother Bob brought that out beautifully last night.

I love hearing Adventist history because our early pioneers were so zealous to do the Lord's work and they were willing to be radical and to do things that were unheard of and that were crazy in their day.

But they wanted the Lord to come and so they were willing to do what he had said.

And we are told that we have nothing to fear for the future except what?

So We are being reminded through this conference of the Lord's teachings and our past history, and as we look forward to the future, we need to remember, we need to return to that counsel.

So it is character, we are told, which decides man's destiny.

That is very important, and we've forgotten that.

In fact, we are told in the Spirit of Prophecy that all this book learning and just information that is not used in the practical life actually does harm to the brain.

And so we shouldn't be satisfied with just teaching information.

We need to be involved in teaching practical things and how it applies to life.

So agriculture provides the means of character development.

And we're told in this quote here, I'm just gonna focus in on the highlighted points, but we're told that through agriculture and all the details of it, that it teaches important lessons concerning the development of character and that's for the thoughtful worker.

You know, we have students sometimes come out the farm and they just, their mind's elsewhere and they're not thinking, but we have to encourage them to be thinking and looking for the lessons that the Lord has for them in the work that's being done.

So we'll teach important lessons concerning the development of character, but the work itself is what?

It's a means of development And it's a most essential training.

So if we're going to rightly train our young people, what do they need to do?

Agriculture, because it is a means of the development of character, and it is character that determines destiny.

The essential training will advance the cause of God.

And this came out last night too, we should so train the youth that they will what?

Love to work upon the land and delight in improving it.

The hope of advancing the cause of God in this country is in creating a new moral love of work, which will transform mind and character, and character determines destiny.

So we are told that we should start the training of our young people at a very young age.

Start them when they can just toddle around, you know, get them out there in the garden.

I had a friend who went to Fulton College in Fiji to train as a minister.

And he went, he had hardly any money, but anyway, he had to grow his own food.

He was forced into it because otherwise his family would starve.

And he had a little toddler, 2 years old, and he'd get up at 5 in the morning, take this little boy out there into the garden, and this little boy would, you know, he's rubbing his eyes waking up, but he was out there with dad for a couple of hours growing food.

And he told me later, he said, that boy is so helpful.

My other kids, they didn't have that experience and he said, but anything that needs done, that boy's ready to do it.

We're told that if these young children that spend that time in the garden with the parents feeling that they have a responsibility, they use their time more wisely.

Their spare time will not be spent in idleness.

They don't know anything else to do with their hands.

Larry Lesher

Friday Morning Devotional

Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for this time that we can come together.

Father, we can meet with you as a corporate group.

We can come together to ask your blessing upon this convocation of people, Lord, that we could learn of you, that your spirit would fill each 1 of us that we would Be mindful of the things that you have for us Father help us not just to be hearers of these words that we're learning and these things that we're taking in, but help us to be doers.

Prepare this ground, Lord, that we'd have fertile ground that we could receive the seeds of the word that you have for us, that it would bear good fruit.

To your name's glory and honor we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

I wanted to ask you guys a question, a couple of questions, and then I'll make a few statements.

How many people here, Well, the first question is how many people here are involved in growing something?

And I wanted to see how many people, last night Bob asked it, and quite a few people raised their hand and so I was curious this morning if it would be a little bit different or the same.

How many people here want to proclaim the third angel's message or are proclaiming the third angel's message?

How many people know how many rules William Miller used?

Can somebody tell me how many rules of interpretation William Miller used?

So William Miller had 14 rules of prophetic interpretation.

And that might not sound important at this day and age because William Miller is, you know, 1830.

He started preaching this, especially in 1833, he started preaching this message.

But it should have a relevance for us today in light of the spirit of prophecy.

Let me read you a quote from Review and Herald, November 25th, 1844.

Those who are engaged in proclaiming the third angel's message are searching the scripture upon the same plan that Father Miller adopted.

In the little book entitled Views of the Prophecies in Prophetic Chronology, Father Miller gives the following simple but intelligent and important rules of Bible study and interpretation.

Now how important do you think these rules are now?

And almost nobody here knows what they are.

And so I read that and I thought, why don't I know what they are?

If I want to be proclaiming the 3 angels' messages, If that's what our call is, and we're to be using the same lines that Miller used, seems logical that we would know what those lines are.

She goes on, she says this, she lists 5 of Miller's rules.

Every word must have its proper bearing on the subject presented in the Bible.

All scripture is necessary and may be understood by diligent application and study.

Nothing revealed in the scripture can or will be hid from those who ask in faith, not wavering.

To understand doctrine, bring all the scripture together on the subject you wish to know and let every word have its proper influence.

And if you can form your theory without contradiction, you cannot be an error.

Scripture must be its own expositor, since it is a rule of itself.

If I depend on a teacher to expound to me, And he should guess at its meaning or desire to have it so on account of his sectarian creed or to be thought wise Then his guessing desire creed or wisdom is my rule and not the Bible Review and Herald, November 25th, 1884.

And then she says, The above is a portion of these rules.

In our study of the Bible, we shall do well to heed the principles set forth." Now, I haven't been an Adventist that long.

Genuine faith is founded on the scriptures, but Satan uses so many devices to wrest the scripture and bring in air that great care is needed if 1 would know what they really do teach.

It is 1 of the greatest delusions of this time to dwell much upon feeling and to claim honesty while ignoring the plain utterances of the word of God because that word does not coincide with the feeling.

Many have no foundation for their faith but emotion.

Filling may be shaft, but the word of God is the wheat, and what says the prophet is the shaft to the wheat.

None will be condemned for not heeding light and knowledge that they never had and they could not obtain, but many refused to obey the truth that is presented to them by Christ's ambassadors." Who here is Christ's ambassador?

Because they wish to conform to the world's standard and the truth that has reached their understanding.

The light that has shone in the soul will have been shining through all the ages, and we shall be held correspondingly responsible.

The path of holiness is not a level with the world.

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Sunday Morning Devotional

25m

Sabbath Morning Devotional

29m

Friday Morning Devotional

29m

Thursday Morning Devotional

19m

7- The Challenges and Solutions for Institutional Farming- Roundtable Discussion

52m

6- Reports from Southern Adventist University

20m

5- Reports from Daystar Academy and Weimar College

1h

4- Reports from Eden Valley and Hartland Institutes

1h

3- Reports from Andrews University and Fresno Adventist Academy

59m

2- Reports from Light Bearers and Pattern Life Ministries

55m

1- Reports from Black Hills Health & Education Center and Gospel Ministries International

1h

7- Choosing the Right Resources, The End Matters

53m

Sound Doctrine