Last year, South Carolina Baptist Convention associate executive director David Parks said that Baptists are a “harvest-minded people living in an unseeded generation.” David Bryant, chairman of the School of Christian Studies at Charleston Southern University, pointed out that  our culture is growing “increasingly more anti-Christian.”

Our country is different today than in years gone by. We are, as a whole, post-Christian. In so many ways, our country is a mission field.

A recent conversation my wife and I had with a young salesperson as we were trading vehicles confirmed what both Parks and Bryant have said. We were able to have a long and significant conversation with her. She was polite and nice. I took the opportunity to share the gospel with her as we conversed. She listened but let us know that she did not really believe (or know) the Bible. She was courteous but shared with us how wrong she believed it was for Christians to oppose same-sex marriage. She thought people should be able to love whomever they wanted. On that point, my wife and I both disagreed with her but did not attack her. In fact, it gave us the opportunity to listen to her and talk about what love, as revealed in Scripture, is about. The conversation lasted around 45 minutes as we shared Scripture with her, tried to explain why we are all guilty before God, and attempted to place John 14:6 clearly and lovingly before her.

She did not really think much about the afterlife, but she said she thought she would be OK because she was a good person who did good deeds. We shared with her that all of us have a humanly incurable problem that only a personal relationship with Jesus can solve.

We concluded our time with her in a positive way: She sold us a truck. However, that encounter illustrated for us the reality that we do live in a culture that has not been cultivated with God’s truth and is therefore increasingly more opposed to Christianity. As Christians, we cannot compromise God’s truth, but we must be both relational and intentional in our witness as we plant truth in people’s lives through conversations that help prepare them for God’s supernatural work of salvation.

An unseeded generation reminds me of the warning that D. James Kennedy stated many years ago about trying to pick fruit before it is ripe. It has been suggested that we must spend more time with fewer people in order to see more genuine disciples of Christ.

As always, there are so many methods, plans and ways of witnessing to people. The fact remains that an unseeded generation needs to be seeded with God’s truth. The truth sets people free. First Peter 1:23 says, “You have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God.”

Christians must be prepared to give a defense for the hope that is within them. We must know the Lord genuinely and His Word sufficiently in order to converse with unseeded people effectively. Some of us may see many people experience new life in Christ, but all of us can and should be disciples who plant the seeds of God’s truth in people’s lives on a consistent basis.

The harvest belongs to the Lord, but we are the instruments He uses to providentially prepare people for the new birth. We can be faithful planters of the gospel. The parable of the soils in Mark 4 records only one type of soil that brought forth a harvest, while the other three types never yielded any lasting life. The seed was the same in all four, but only one bore fruit. Everyone with whom we share the gospel will not be born again. Our responsibility is not to save people but to be faithful servants of God who plant His truth.

An unseeded generation needs faithful planters. It is every Christian’s calling. Together, we can be God’s tools for making an eternal difference in the lives of people — one person at a time.

As we enter this new year, let us do so with a renewed confidence and zeal to live holy lives, build relationships, plant truth, and pray for the lost we know. Let us work together, not only as Baptists, but as children of God to bring glory and honor to His name.