There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. (1 Corinthians 12:4-5)

This past Friday a couple of our new friends gave us their “nickel tour” of the Raleigh area. We met for lunch at their favorite restaurant, and then they drove us to one of their favorite specialty stores (Brandon, Florida, why do you not have a Trader Joe’s?). Next stop on the tour (other than site-seeing through the car windows) was the state farmer’s market. After that it was the NC State campus, the arboretum, an amazing landscape and nursery supply location, and more “how to navigate Raleigh” meanderings.

It was a good day all around, but I’d have to say the two best features were the farmers’ market and the nursery. I think the appeal of both these places is the specifically local flavor of what they have to offer. It also made us realize how unique the Raleigh area is, and not remotely comparable to either Florida location we called home.

I’ve lived 35 of my past 37 years in the Sunshine State. Our new life, I realized as we were perusing possibilities for the garden, is going to be different in so many ways!

At the landscape store, which is a marvelously creative repurposing of an old railroad station, a thought crossed my mind and lit up my spirit. I’ll try to get it across if I can.

RIGID: I know people who view the Bible in a certain way – who read it and interpret it according to the particular tradition they were raised in (or have adopted) – who have difficulty understanding that their particular dogma isn’t necessarily The Dogma. But the way they are taught demands uniformity; so if someone holds an alternate view they tend to say things like, “You don’t attend a Bible-believing church,” or, “Your church doesn’t teach the whole Bible, just the parts they like,” or, “You’re inconsistent in your beliefs because you don’t agree with the way I understand the details….”

We’ve talked about this before in my blog, about the insecurities, or the cultural prejudices, the fear, or the arrogance that’s really behind these blanket judgments. But today the image of the landscape nursery has helped me.

If Rebekah and I arrived in North Carolina and insisted that our garden behave the same way Maul Hall Valrico did, and we planted accordingly, then everything might look fine and dandy for a few months, but come the first good freeze of winter we’d be looking at a disaster.

It’s the same good Earth, with soil and rain and sunshine too; but the fruit it bears is entirely different, as is the approach we need to take if we want what we care about to take root and flourish.

DIVERSITY ROCKS! I think too many people are intent on producing carbon-copy believers, Christians who can be fed pre-packaged teaching so they all think alike, and believe alike, and have the correct opinion about everything, and follow “The Dogma” without regard to how uniquely we’re all created and how we bloom and flourish in different ways according to the climate, the Spirit, the unique ways the scriptures speak to us, and God’s particular purposes for our lives.

But we’re all planted in the same good soil of the Gospel… And it’s still the Jesus kind of life we all live… And we do love God with all our hearts… But we sure do bloom in different ways.

– DEREK

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. (1 Corinthians 12:4-5)