Psalms 68:11 “The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.”

Beginnings: Bearing Precious Seed at Parker Memorial Baptist Church

Every ministry is traced back to a vision. The same is true of our printing ministry. To God be the Glory! The Hand of God is continually active in the lives of His servants, especially those who seek His Hand and His Power in the ministry. Such was the case with our Pastor, Dr. Donald Green. God had touched many lives at Parker, and there was a spirit of revival that hovered for around fifteen years. Folks were being saved, lives were being changed and God was calling men out of our ministry. Oh, what a time of refreshing.

It was in those glorious days that God moved our pastor with a vision for our church. Dr. Green attended a preacher’s fellowship in Central Indiana, where he heard a stirring message by Dr. Ford Porter, the author of the widely used gospel tract, “God’s Simple Plan of Salvation.” The message included his testimony of asking God to give him a world-wide ministry. When it came time for the invitation, Dr. Green found a place at the old time altar and asked God to also give him a world-wide ministry. His prayer was sincere, and God began to move in our pastor’s heart with Divine direction.

Around the same time, the Lord had been working in the heart of Dr. Don Fraser of Bowie, Texas. He had traveled back and forth into Mexico working with missionaries and helping with their efforts to reach the lost. He soon discovered the absence of God’s Word in the midst of the churches in Mexico. The missionaries were doing the best they could reaching, pastoring, and training nationals. But without Scriptures of their own, how much growth could there be?

So, Dr. Fraser went home heavily burdened with the problem. God began to burden him to provide Scriptures! That is how the concept of Bearing Precious Seed was birthed. Dr. Fraser took his burden to other pastors, and then he carried the message into other parts of America including the Midwest. He eventually preached at Parker (1975), and God put this vision into the heart of our pastor. He prayed and sought the Lord, and God heard his prayer. By the following year when Dr. Fraser returned, our men found a small press (A.B. Dick 385), and shortly thereafter we were printing Scriptures. We found other printing ministries to help us with the binding and packaging, and the Lord brought many people our way to help us along.

The ministry itself was growing elsewhere as it was at Parker. Different men, who had sensed the call of God to this great work, began to visit other churches with printing ministries. Some also used the label of Bearing Precious Seed as it is so plainly given in Psalms 126:5,6, and there rose up dozens of churches with the same burden. Some began printing while other churches raised money to help purchase paper for printing. In addition, others churches wanted more involvement and became “Seedline Churches” which found ways and means of bringing printed signatures to their church. Teams of volunteers then would assemble (collate) the signatures, and then stitch (bind) them into booklets.

The Lord raised up men within our church to print and lead in collating, stitching, packaging and even shipping Scriptures to various mission fields: Mexico, Canada, and beyond. Other men came to work with us at Parker and helped in great ways to train workers, to raise funds, and find more ways to get the Word of God into the hands of a lost world.

How grateful we are for all of our selfless servants that participated on many levels to grow this ministry. We are delighted to see God’s Hand remain upon this place. We trust the Lord will continue to lead others to do what is needed to help with this great work.