AdAgrA 2015: Restoring the Waste Places

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

David Obermiller

Plenary

From the Ground Up

Eric Johnson

It’s Time

It’s Time- Q & A

John Quade

Tens of Thousands

Youth, Education, and Agriculture Panel

The Truest Charity

Agriculture and Evangelism Panel

Whitmar McConnell

Some Seeds Fell

Real Missionaries

AdAgrA Panel

There's an individual that met with me last week and they, they said, Eric, they said, I've been waiting so long, so long, and they just met on Tuesday to sell their, their practice. And, and they're gonna come and volunteer full-time, time on the campus along with her wife to, to partner in this, in growing this. I tell you guys, I believe this with all my heart, God does not lack for his school and his church for resources. We lack because we lack the faith to step outta the boat and trust him too often. Too often we only want to move when we see the money in front of us or we see the way provided, but that's not God. How, cause that's not how God wants us to act. He says, trust me. And if we know we are standing on biblical principles, and if we're standing on spirit of prop principles, we can move in faith and we can know, we can say, let's, let's move forward and the resources will come. And I believe that God is gonna pour out resources on this campus, on our school as we continue to be aligned with where he's going. Now I gotta be clear. I'll be, I gotta be clear, I've shared this with my board and I've shared this with many individuals in the, in the, in the constituency. You can't just flip a switch and turn a massive institution overnight. It's like turning a massive ship. But as I've shared with David many, many times, we just continually keep turning that rudder and you keep turning that and, and continually, day by day, month by month, more and more in alignment with what God wants to see. And as we do, so, more and more people that have been on the sidelines, their money has been on the sidelines, their resources are starting to come on, and they're coming on and they're coming and saying, you know what? We need to be involved with this and need to be engaged with this. And, and the farm is spurring us, spurring us in many other areas. Last year, last year, for the first time ever in the history of Fresno Academy, we had a student led revival series. Never happened before, but you know what happened? It didn't come as a result of a faculty sitting around saying, we're gonna do this. Students came in my office and they said, can we do this? We wanna preach. And so, you know what we did? We had area pastors that came together and we, we, they mentored them and worked with them. And for an entire week we had kids who were standing up preaching the word of God. And then last spring after the series, they came in my office again. They says, they said, Mr. Johnson, can we do this again? And so we just concluded it last week. We just concluded our, our second one. And, and last year the theme was knowing Jesus. This year, the theme was knowing the truth in Jesus. And the, and the theme was this, we believe and we had our students standing up sharing what we believe as Seventh Day Adventists from the Sabbath to the resurrection to eternal hell. To to all those different biblical principles of what we believe When you, what happens when you die and those type of things, they're standing up and preaching God's word. And, and can I say that it's that it's a, a direct can I, can I have a a a point of reference where I say this is because of the farm. I don't have any direct collaboration other than I know that what God is doing with our farm is, is is breeding and fostering a spirit on our campus where our kids are searching and they're wanting something deeper. And, and we are just, we're just touching the surface. We are just scratching the surface of what God really wants to see happen with as, as far as integrating it. Because a lot of our effort over the last two years has been putting the infrastructure in place, getting the, getting the infrastructure going. And, and a lot of the energy's been poured into getting it up and going and running. And David and I talk every week we talk and we're gonna be now shifting and pouring more resources into the kids and into the program and into the school. As we continue growing this, our, our, our prayer. You're gonna give me, okay, there's another question. Lemme just share this real quick. Our prayer is not that this is just a farm that is a successful farm. It's not just a good school. But I, I will share with you with David cuz David asked me point blank, he said, Eric, he said, what's your buy-in? I said, my buy-in is long term. And I said, we have to be looking at this from a much bigger scale. And my prayer is that this school can be a model that, that we can bring teachers one day if God holds back the, the wins of strife one day we can bring teachers from all across the North American division to Fresno Academy and say, he, here's what God has led us to do. We don't wanna hold it in and say, well, it's our little secret and and we're gonna, we're gonna do it here for our blessing. No, we wanna share it, share that so that other institutions who are maybe in similar situations can take it, can be inspired and can be led to move in faith as well. Amen. You know, we're, we're, we're in our infancy. We are in our infancy. Okay. But next fall, I've already spoke with the director of the Pacific Union of Education and my plan is, is to be able able to, to, at our, at our fall principals meetings, we all come together from all the schools of the Pacific Union. And I would like to have a breakout session on what we're doing, but I wanted to make sure that we had enough time given so that I could give, you know, here's where we're at and here's where we're going. But there is interest. Bakersfield Academy, for example, Bakersfield Academy. They have land right there on their property and, and would like to look at how they can, how they can implement this as well. The principal from San Gabriel Academy met with me and he said, Eric, he said, we don't have much land. We have no land. We're down here in the middle of city. I dunno if he was at San Gabriel's down in, in la. He said, I've got no land. But he said, he said, could I provide you with resources so that we could, we could help you grow things and then you could then provide us with, with produce that we could sell to our parents organic produce. And so we can look at creative things. So, so using, using in San Gabriel a, a school that really practically can't have a farm cuz they're just wall to wall concrete, but how can they partner with us in our farm and, and, and then, then use the produce to, to meet the needs of all those people there in their, in their school. So a lot of creative ways that we're looking at, well, we, we have no, we have no accreditation issues. And I will tell you, I am a full supporter. I believe we need to be accredited. I believe that. I believe that's important. But we're getting ready to have our was accreditation visit here in February. We had our accreditation visit two years ago, and we're getting ready to have our mid-cycle visit. And I can tell you the visiting committee, the visiting team from wask, which is Western Association of Schools and Colleges, is the association that accredits all institutions on the Pacific coast, on the west coast. They said, they said, we love this, we love what you're doing. And, and just show, the only thing is, is what they're looking for is how does it connect back to student learning? Okay. So if I can show them specifics of what we're doing, it's connected back to student learning. They're thrilled. They're thrilled with it. And as far as the teachers, my teachers are out there with the, the students going and, and taking them there. And we have developed a work program. We had no work program on campus. None. And and this last summer, we, we launched it and David, five kids. Correct. We had five students work all summer. And now we have students working as well during the school year, during the school day because we've shortened our school day. I readjusted the schedule. So it's providing kids some time to work after school. And we've also pulled back on some of our sports programs to provide more time for kids to, to do that. And again, I I'm just, I'll be completely transparent with you, okay. For all of my life, for all of my life, I have, I've got my daughter Brianna, who's a senior, and my son Blake, who's a freshman at the school. And I've done nothing but but spent e every free moment with them shooting baskets, throwing footballs, taking 'em to games. That's, that was my life. And that's what they know. I just being real with you. And so it's, it's a journey for me in my own life. It's hard because I got, I got my kids who are, are Eric, dad, let's, let's do this. And I'm, I'm trying to, to, to pull in the different direction and it's taking some time. So I would cover your prayers that as we continue to, to try and realign ourselves and even my own self to what God's calling that he'll give me the courage to, to continue standing up and, and for what's, what God's asking for us for this time. This media was brought to you by Audio verse, a website dedicated to spreading God's word through free sermon, audio, and much more. 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Series

Plenary

It’s Time- Q & A

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

From the Ground Up

1h

It’s Time

41m

It’s Time- Q & A

10m

Tens of Thousands

1h

Youth, Education, and Agriculture Panel

58m

The Truest Charity

39m

Agriculture and Evangelism Panel

1h

Some Seeds Fell

1h

Real Missionaries

41m

AdAgrA Panel

1h

Sound Doctrine