On November 2-3, experts from Bayer CropScience visited Southeastern to discuss the importance of agricultural sustainability and vitality

This partnership between Southeastern Seminary and Bayer CropScience becomes tangible by means of the GoGrow Conference. The conference hosts Bayer CropScience agricultural experts and instructors to train students in basic agricultural principles. Some of the instructors teaching during GoGrow have lived and taught in a developing world.  

One of the sought-after programs at Southeastern is the International Church Planting (ICP) program. This program trains students to love Christ by serving as international missionaries. Additionally, the ICP program is a partnership between the International Mission Board (IMB) and under the direction of the Lewis A. Drummond Center for Great Commission Studies. Upon completion of Southeastern’s curriculum requirements and the IMB’s approval, students enter the application process for service with the IMB as either two-year term missionaries or long-term missionaries. 

Many of those attending the GoGrow Conference were ICP students. Bayer CropScience’s experts provided materials and information equipping these future missionaries with a solid agricultural foundation. IMB Missionary in East Africa, David Hooten, asked the conference attendees, “Will people hear the message of Christ while they are hungry?” One of the means of sharing Christ is by meeting the physical needs of a malnourished individual and/or community. 

The GoGrow Conference did not promise to make these future missionaries agricultural and horticultural experts. It equipped them in asking basic agricultural questions and provided them with expert knowledge in order to meet basic needs for national and international peoples.  

Hooten said, “Generally speaking, America is not a survivalist society. Simply put, survivalism is an attitude, policy, or practice based on the primacy of survival. We, as Americans, aren’t worrying about our next meal, but many cultures, societies, and villages are. So, you must always keep in mind that you are not traveling to a distant village to become their savior. You are going to other nations to feed them and point them to the one Savior, Christ Jesus.”