Stacy Singh
AFA Journal staff writer
November 2018 – “I just came to the area to check on my farm near here,” announced Andrew Miller. “Now, let me tell you about Seedbed. We’re planting seeds.”
Miller, publishing director at Seedbed, dropped by AFA offices in Tupelo, Mississippi, to share some resources offered by the Nashville-based publishing ministry. Seedbed was planted in 2012 by a small cadre of professors at Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.
Farming references were abundant, and Miller spoke with passion – but not really about farming. It was all about discipleship, revival, and teaching. With one of the first materials he showed being the Seedbed Sower’s Almanac, whimsically styled to look like an Old Farmer’s Almanac, the agricultural allusions continued right into a brief Q&A session.
AFA Journal: With your farming connection, did you come up with the name Seedbed?
Andrew Miller: The root word for seminary is seminarius, which is translated seedbed. J.D. Walt, Seedbed’s “sower-in-chief,” was the real inspiration for the name, and he was the one who convinced Asbury Seminary to get into content development.
J.D. grew up tilling the ground. So he saw the power of an agricultural metaphor that people understand intuitively.
AFAJ: What are the seeds you are publishing?
AM: We take the scholarship of the evangelical seminary and boil it down to a lay level of understanding and package it in ways that a small group or class can use and have rich content.
AFAJ: What Seedbed resources are you especially excited about?
AM: On seedbed.com, we post free, daily content that has developed into popular, continuing series.
Another thing we do is update classic texts – such as John Wesley’s sermons. We now have 10 books in the series I call The John Wesley Collection: some 140 sermons, published in a readable format.
AFAJ: Why are you “sowing” these seeds?
AM: If you follow the parable of the soil, there is rocky soil that allows some short term growth, and the soil on the side of the road where seeds get burned or eaten by birds. But where’s the seed that falls on the fertile soil that’s been prepared?
We feel like Seedbed is creating an environment for that seed. The resources we publish, which are beautiful and unique in themselves, are meant to be tools that could embolden a young believer or treatises that might tweak someone’s heart. 
Asbury University, just across the street from the seminary, also produced AFA’s own Kendra White, creator of the Ryan Defrates animated children’s discipleship series from American Family Studios. Learn more at afastore.net or 877-927-4917.
Trackers for Christ is designed to plant seeds in the soil of young hearts. Adaptable for children grades kindergarten through sixth grade, Trackers for Christ is packaged as a bundle of interactive training tools – a music CD, animated lessons on DVD, memory verse cards, posters, and a leader’s guide. The Bible curriculum has potential as a study for Sunday school, small group, Christian school, or homeschool.
Grow at Home is a book/DVD bundle that instructs parents on how to implement a system of family discipleship in their homes. In a book and companion DVD, nine segments cover topics such as rediscovering family worship, cultivating character, and the missional family. With just 100 pages in the book and 45 minutes on DVD, the set could easily be applied to anything from personal use to group teaching sessions.
Visit seedbed.com or call 615-442-8582 to learn more.
