Our March site visit was to Reap & Sow Ministries. It was a service using embodiment techniques to tell the story of Jacob wrestling with God. Participants were guided through physically enacting parts of the story, while other participants were invited to examine the tableaus with guided questioning. This method gave the story deep emotional resonance.
We are pleased to have Rev. Bayo Ogungbade, founder of Reap & Sow, as a guest writer for the post below.
Reap and Sow Ministries is a student-led initiative that seeks to empower and provide students with the platform to create, orchestrate, and participate in diverse worship experiences that are contextually adaptable to their relevant ministries.
Reap & Sow exists to be a vision incubator, while cultivating a collaborative, experiential learning environment that empowers students and faculty to transform classroom theories into real-world practice.
(In brief: We are an incubator that empowers students and faculty to take what they learn “in here,” and try it “out there.”)
Started in Fall 2022 by Rev. Bayo Ogungbade and a few other colleagues who desired to build community with their neighbors, Reap & Sow has hosted innovative worship services from students, faculty and alumni from Union Presbyterian Seminary and other ministry entities.
These creative, student-made worship services have ranged from contemporary services inspired by the popular rock band, The Grateful Dead and Vesper’s Services to more traditional Irish Celtic Services and Advent services. Reap & Sow has hosted student presentations, Black History month services, and intercultural/international services, which has provided worshippers with a multitude of perspectives to engage with regarding what it means to be in worship, share in worship, and experience worship.
Reap & Sow has been recognized as a seminarian student movement and has received the support of the Virginia United Methodist Annual Conference and other local ministries such as the Voices of Jubilee, Shalom Farms, Yaupon Place, and Ginter Park United Methodist Church.
The philosophy of Reap & Sow is the interchangeable process of reaping & sowing. By sowing from what is reaped, the hope is that others will reap from what you sow. Reap & Sow hopes to continue to grow and invest in the lives of all who witness, participate, and experience Reap & Sow Ministries.
We enact our mission by:
• Providing students, faculty, staff, alumni, and laity with opportunities to participate in various components of worship design and lead worship.
• Providing students, faculty, staff, alumni, and laity with opportunities to preach and/or teach (sermon, testimony, message, practice, play, etc.)
• Incorporating a flexible, adaptable six-step worship template to help guide worship service planning discernment.
• Serving as a mission-oriented community platform to support other platforms on campus and in the surrounding communities around us.