Ken Adams said not too long after he got into ministry, someone in his church gave him a clipping of a magazine article called the “Parable of the Garden.”
“I read it every year,” said Adams, lead pastor of Crossroads Church in Newnan, Georgia. He shared lessons learned from the parable during the Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference at Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham on Nov. 14.
The parable focuses on a gardener who grew beautiful roses that he carefully cultivated. Over time, he began neglecting the care of his own garden to help other people with theirs, even traveling across town to teach gardening students.
“Then one day, he looked at his garden and it had been so long since he cared for his own rosebushes, the whole garden was so full of weeds he could hardly even see his prized roses,” Adams said. “No blossoms had even appeared.”
That can happen to pastors who get so busy they forget the things that fanned the flame of their passion for God at the beginning, he said.
“As he lovingly uncovered his prize roses, the gardener realized how important it was for him to care for his own garden, because how could he teach gardening to others if his own garden was unkept and overcome,” Adams said.
Priorities over pressure
Preaching from Mark 1:35–39, Adams encouraged pastors to follow the model of Jesus, who drew away to spend time with the Father. That helped Him to respond to the priorities of the Father rather than the pressure of the people, Adams said.
“When you live your life by priority, you will always know what you need to say no to,” he said. “Contrary to popular opinion, Jesus was not accessible and available to everyone all the time.
“Maybe there’s something you need to say no to,” he noted. “If you’re not saying no to some good things in your life, you can’t be saying yes to some of the best things that God has for your life.”
Adams encouraged pastors to abide in Christ just as Jesus spent time with the Father.
“I am convinced that it was His connection to His Father that allowed Him to be able to accomplish His mission, to be able to live by priorities and to fulfill the agenda that the Father had for Him, not the agenda that everybody else had for Him,” he said.
Living by priority helps us know what to say yes to also — the important, core things like a personal relationship with God, relationships with family, staying healthy and making disciples, Adams said.
“If you’re not careful, some of the very things you did that God used to call you into ministry, you will soon find yourself not doing any of those things and then you will begin to wonder why you’re even in ministry,” Adams said.
He added, “Go back to those bushes. Go back to those roses and do what it was that you did when God called you to do what you do.”
To view more photos from Ken Adams’ address during the 2022 Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference, click here.
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