Thank you for all the help, encouragement, and blessings as I wrote my dissertation. Many people were moved by the discovery that the born-again Christian musicians I researched all had 3 things in common- A Gospel seed planted in them when they were young, a revelation that evil is real, and a person who reached out to bring them back to the Lord.
Using academic jargon I call these actions- evangelism (planting seeds), enlightenment (preaching the wages of sin), and evacuation (rescuing lost sheep).
The one that hits most people the hardest is planting Gospel seeds in children. I know this is because many people have planted seeds and have yet to see the "prodigal child" return. Rest assured, you did the right thing. It is hard to see kids fall away but we can lean on the promise that God's Word does not return void. I heard Dr. Robert Smith Jr. teach on the prodigal son and he stressed the importance of planting seeds through said parable by pointing out the fact that, "There was no preacher in the pig pen. It was the Word that was planted in that boy that brought him back." (Dr. Smith has the uncanny skill of being able to wax eloquent theology and also speak very plainly).
David Ellefson (bass player of the band Megadeth) recalled the way the seed worked in his life (I pray that anyone who has a prodigal child will see these words come to life in their lives very soon), "I spent the early years of my life on the farm in and around the church. Nothing fanatical, but I still had the fundamentals of a Christian ideology put upon me. "What was interesting is that although I had embraced the party lifestyle, one that was intriguing and fun, albeit dangerous, I could always hear the rules of the church upbringing chiming in my head, as if a voice were saying, "You'd better watch out. You know what you're doing is wrong and that you will pay for this, sooner or later."... there was always a little thing inside me, hanging on to the church, no matter how bad things got."
Keep fighting the good fight, have the fattened calf ready. Trust God!
