Benevolomarketing

Benevolomarketing

It's a new word. But it's not a new thing.

I just got back from delivering pizzas to all of the adults at the school. It was something we came up with to show them that they are loved and appreciated in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (Despite being posted for the first time today, I wrote this a while back). With the pizzas were a letter, expressing our love for them. And a prayer for them. Who said that there can't be prayer in school? Total cost to provide pizzas to the kitchen staff, administration, teachers, and maintenance crew: $210.

For the last few falls, we have given away school supplies to any kid in our community who is in need. All they have to do is call us and sign up, or just show up. We work with the school to find out what supplies kids need. Other organizations, including other churches and the teachers at the school, give us money to buy the school supplies. And we bless the community with them. Cost to us this year after outside donations: $350.

Our town goes nuts for Halloween. Really nuts. So we tried to figure out how to be part of it without endorsing the elements we think are inappropriate. We set up a booth in the middle of the main strip and give away hot dogs, coffee, and hot chocolate. This last year we gave away over four hundred hot dogs. Cost to us: $160.

Three years ago, we transformed one of our classrooms into the Kid's Clothes Closet. People bring us kid's clothes for us to give away to those who need them. Some come in and get clothes for their children. While others use the closet to pick up clothes to give to someone they know who is in need. We encourage people to do this and be a blessing to their friends and neighbors. The school has done a clothes drive for us. Cost to us: Free except for the use of a room.

Each one of these benevolomarketing events do different things. The pizzas were delivered with a letter telling everyone at the school that we appreciate their service to our community. It was followed up by a Facebook post from the pizza shop. It wasn't done to open people up to our church, but that is the inevitable response. I received a text from one of the kitchen workers who goes to our church that all of the kitchen ladies were in tears after reading the letter of appreciation brought with the pizzas. God can do great things through pizzas. The school supply project gets our name out in the community a lot as we have to promote it every way possible. The Halloween project is just an annual event that spreads our name there. The Kid's Clothes Closet gives us regular coverage in the paper. The most important thing in all of these benevolomarketing events is that we are loving our community. The recognition just helps to get the message of Jesus out there.

Now, you might be thinking that a church shouldn't love people to get recognized. That's true. We shouldn't love people to get recognized. If we're just trying to get recognized, that's marketing. But let's look at the way we market ourselves and whether it is having the impact we want. We spent more money on a mailer that we sent out to everyone in our community than we did on all of the ministries I have mentioned up to this point. However, that mailing wasn't as nearly as effective as any of the benevolomarketing outreaches that we have done. What I'm proposing is that churches shift their limited marketing money away from straightforward marketing and toward loving actions. Think benevolomarketing. We love people to get God recognized.

This is biblical. Jesus taught, "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven" (Matt 5:14-16).

Despite popular thinking in the other direction, Jesus taught that we are to do our good works so that others may see them. There isn't any secret meaning to that teaching. No hidden message. It flat out states that our good works are supposed to be seen by others. So if you have been using "do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing" to not do loving actions, I think you are sadly mistaken. Our churches are reaping the consequences for this bad theology. Or should I say that the lost people in our communities are reaping the consequences for this bad theology?

So what was Jesus saying? How do we let our good works be seen by others to give God glory if we are supposed to keep our right hand from knowing what our left hand is doing? The idea seems very consistent with the Old Testament prophets. Religious acts like prayer, fasting, and tithing are not to be done for show because God is not glorified by other people seeing how religious someone else is. It brings no attention to God, just attention to the doer. So if you are a great tither, or a powerful person of prayer, or an incredible and diligent faster, keep it up but keep it to yourself. It doesn't bring God any glory for you to share your spiritual prowess.

However, good works, by their very nature, involve other people. They can't be done without another person being involved. But here is the key. The passage ends with the reason of why we do good works: "So that they may see your good works and give glory to God." We live a life of love so that God may be glorified. If we do loving actions so that the attention is drawn to us, then I would say the principle of not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing applies. We're aren't participating in benevolomarketing, we're just participating in chest thumping. Loving actions always involves others, so we need to make sure that our hearts are in the right place. The principle of benevolomarketing is to love others so that God will be glorified.

Getting hung up on doing loving actions in secret is often an excuse to not love and a hindrance to us loving effectively. Instead of the church being a place of rescue for the emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally wounded, the church just becomes a place for pious, religious people. God wants to transform the world through the church. Your church and my church. But this won't happen until we take seriously the call to be known by our love.

At Riverside, we're a small, growing church in a small rural town, yet we have doubled in the last two years with a new attitude and a focus on His mission. I am hesitant to share this because it seems like bragging, but I share it so that you know this approach works. We're still small. We grew from small to not as small, but we're growing. We're limited, like most churches are, by our funds; however, we serve a God whose power is unlimited. He wants to do great things through every church scattered across America. Why isn't His will being done? He's not the weak link; we are.

So I want to challenge all of the churches out there to dream of ways to bless those in your community. Your ministries probably won't look like our ministries, but keep praying and keep your eyes open. God will provide opportunities for you to shower the community He has called you to minister to with His love. God is waiting for His people to love others. When we do that, He will continue the process of knocking on their hearts. And some of them, as a result of our faithful service, will open the door and join us in the process of being the kingdom of God. Glory to God.

Benevolomarketing. Try it out.

Information on Church Visitors

A great list of insights on church visitors and welcoming new people is at the National Back to Church Sunday website.  This is just a small portion.

• 82% of the unchurched are at least somewhat likely to attend church if invited – Dr. Thom Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door
• "Only 2 percent of church members invite a unchurched person to church. 98% of church-goers never extend an invitation in a given year." - Dr Thom Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door
• “A study including more than 15,000 adults revealed that about two-thirds are willing to receive information about a local church from a family member, and 56 percent from a friend or neighbor. The message is clear that the unchurched are open to conversations about church.” – Philip Nation, LifeWay Research and National Spokesperson for Back to Church Sunday
• “Four percent of formerly churched adults are actively looking for a church to attend regularly (other than their previous church). Six percent would prefer to resume attending regularly in the same church they had attended. The largest group, 62 percent, is not actively looking, but is open to the idea of attending church regularly again.”–Scott McConnell, Lifeway Research
• “Clearly we can encourage Christians to pray that the unchurched would sense God calling them back, but God works through His people," said McConnell. "The survey showed that many would respond to an invitation from a friend or acquaintance (41 percent), their children (25 percent) or an adult family member (25 percent).” – McConnell, LifeWay Research
• “The issue of affinity also surfaced in the responses. Thirty–five percent indicated that they would be inspired to attend church if I knew there were people like me there.” –McConnell, LifeWay Research
• “Much to the surprise of the ‘Chicken Little” crowd, people are still going to church. And, more people would attend if given one simple thing—an invitation.” – Philip Nation, LifeWay Research and National Spokesperson for Back to Church Sunday

Survival Mode Ends in Destruction

Last night, I had a conversation with a friend from another church whose church is in a similar state to where the church I minister at was just a few years ago.  The poor state of finances at this friend's church has caused them to hire a part-time out-of-town pastor rather than a full-time pastor who will become part of the town.  This seems to be a growing trend in the poor rural communities around here.  The money is not there to fund a full-time minister, which causes churches to make a safe yet faulty decision that will insure their death.

The church I am at had a minister who was here for three years but never moved to town.  During this ministry, he commuted fifty minutes every day he came to the church.  The result was that the church crumbled.  After he was let go, the church then decided to not hire a minister and had competent people in the church rotate to do the preaching.  However, the church failed to have a vision cast and a shared direction to head in.  Growth disappeared, visitors never visited, and the impact on the community for the gospel vanished.  Pulpit rotation with a full-time minister might be good at maintaining the status quo, but I have never seen a church flourish under it. 

Then the leadership decided to step out on faith and hire me to do full-time ministry.  That was a bold move for a church in the situation they were in.  Now, we are growing, people are getting excited, visitors are showing up and coming back, and ministries are showing fruit.  This is because the church decided to stop dying in survival mode and chose to attempt to live.

Survival mode causes a church to not change things because it might offend people.  It encourages doing things the way they have always been done.  It creates an environment of inward focus rather than outward focus.  In survival mode, a church might get sermons preached, lessons taught, etc., but the fails to reach the community for the gospel.  It leads to focusing on not losing people rather than reaching people.  The church stops taking risks and starts to just go with the flow.  In the end, survival mode does not cause survival but dwindling as the church forages around the wrong well, the well of human desires and demands rather than the well of Jesus.

I tried to encourage my friend to spur his church on to taking risks.  Throw off the shredded survival clothes and risk it all to grow.  Because if they don't, the church will die anyway.  It is dangerous trying to really live rather than just survive.  But in the end, we serve a mighty God who wants His Church to flourish.  It takes valuing Him and His will more than anything.  Despite the near moments of implosion, the risk is worth it even if it fails because we are doing the work of the Lord. 

The same is true with our lives.  If we go in survival mode rather than continue on living, we will miss experiences that God has planned for us.  We need to live a life of risk, go wherever God leads, and do whatever God prompts us to do.  We will see that struggling to live was worth more than surviving because through struggling, we will learn how to truly live.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly" Jesus in John 10:10 (ESV).

Beyond Wishing to Dreaming

A message I preached to my leadership class.


There is a difference between a dream and a wish.

I’m using wish in the genie in the bottle sense.  You’re given the opportunity to ask for something and then you just speak it.  Dream is being used in the sense of “aspiration, goal, aim.”  If it is a dream, it should consume us.  It’s what we are working for.  It really becomes the reason for our existence.
    For small business owners, the success of their business is usually their dream.
    For parents, raising their children well is usually their dream.

Now last year, we started praying for our church to be 100 people in size and that people would stop attacking us.  The last one seemed to be answered despite my thinking that it would not be possible.  But on growing to 100, I think we wished it rather than dreamed it.  What would make me say that?
    A dream consumes us. A wish doesn’t change us.
    A dream leads us to action.  A wish is just words.

And the stark truth is that I really haven’t seen much changes in people’s personal ministries outside the gatherings since then; actually, I think I have seen a decrease.  I’ve seen an increase in “it’s the minister’s job” mentality. 

So what would our lives be like if that was a dream we shared?

Tiger Woods said in his apology on Friday:  “Elin and I have started the process of discussing the damage caused by my behavior. As she pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not come in the form of words. It will come from my behavior over time.”  You’ve heard the phrase, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  That’s Elin’s approach to Tiger’s reformation.  And I think that is the way God sees our dreams; we show him our dreams by what we wrestle over in our mind and eventually go after.  Because if we really dreamed what we, in our churchy moments, give lip service to as our dream, then we would be living our lives differently.  The life we lead gives us the church we are living for.  A dream engulfs us; a wish can leave us unchanged.  Let’s make wanting to be a church of 100 a dream rather than a wish.

In two separate conversations this week, I encountered what seemed to be anti “the church being used for evangelism” slants from people in this church.  The thought is that we have to win them to the Lord completely outside of this building.  Where does that idea come from?  I would argue that it is unhealthy and needs to be purged from our thinking.  The church is only a community of believers under the Lordship of Jesus.  Our first and last goal in our mission statement is to be a community.  God established a kingdom, which implies people in relationship with one another rather than just people in relationship with God.  Our life together should be something that helps our church grow, and our church typically gathers inside this building.  I understand that ministry starts outside of this church, but our Sunday morning gathering is one that I hope could be used by each of us as a tool to minister to the lost.  We should readily, and weekly, be inviting people to our gathering.  It’s not that hard.  Friends invite people over to parties, and every week, church should be a party.  An invitation is a good thing; not being invited is a bad thing.  It hurts feelings to not be invited to a party.  Being invited, even if the person does not want to come, is never offensive.  We need to be inviting people to our weekly, Sunday morning party.  If coming and worshiping God is not exciting for us, then I think we’re lost.     

When I was lost and I started to feel that God was pursuing me, I was being invited to church, other worship gatherings, and bible studies.  I remember being moved, brought to tears, and having my heart worked on during those times.  Our gathering needs to be used by us to minister to people.  If not, we should just stop it and take communion during Sunday School because we are just wasting a lot of time. 

If our evangelism does not lead us to asking them to our gathering, it tells me one of two things – either we don’t believe our gathering is that worthwhile.  If that’s the case, we need to make improvements.  Or it tells me that we really still cling to that good old American individualistic Christianity and don’t believe in the value of community.  Those are two ideas we have to destroy.  We need to make sure our church gathering is culturally relevant and we need to bury the idea that Christianity is not about community. 

This church has developed a culture of not evangelizing over the years.  It’s ingrained deeply.  The style of our Sunday Morning Gathering was a sign of that deeper problem.  The way we worshipped in that gathering was culturally irrelevant to those living in this community around us who did not know Jesus.  It was even hostile to some believers, yet alone non-believers.  And so we started to develop thoughts and convinced ourselves that the one hour we gather to sing songs, listen to a sermon, and share in communion was not something for the lost.  That thought can only develop in a church that is worshipping in a culturally irrelevant way.  It can only come about in a church that has not seen the power of God transform life after life during the time in which people take that step to seek him during the gathering.  That one hour on Sunday morning is the time that visitors are most likely to check us out and get an impression of God; it’s most often the time that a hurt person is going to come and seek God.  It’s not our time; it’s God’s time.

The church should be about evangelizing.  That means each individual member in their daily lives needs to be reaching out to the lost to show them God’s love.  And the gathering needs to be something that is culturally welcoming to all and is only hostile in the demands that Jesus makes on their lives.  I think I’m pretty kingdom-minded when I try to evangelize.  If I think a person will fit better in another church or they are already plugged into another church, I don’t make them feel guilty for not coming here.  But if I consistently don’t believe our church would be a good church for people to get plugged into, then we need to change.  I’ve heard that our lack of growth might be God preparing us for further growth.  That means we need to be changing.  If we aren’t, then we are not making use of this time to prepare ourselves for future growth.

The only way our church will grow is if growing God’s kingdom is the dream of each one of us.  Not a wish.  It has to consume us, not just be one area of our life that we pursue.  Now, I don’t expect, although I hope, everyone in the church to be consumed with showing God’s love and bringing people to the Lord, but I expect our leaders to.  And you’re a leader.  I don’t care how long you have been at this church.  You’re willing to get around early on a Sunday morning, read through a book for this discussion, and take the time to come.  That shows me you show a level of commitment that others don’t.  I consider you fellow leaders. 

I try to not preach theologically deep sermons during our Sunday morning gathering; I try to preach relevant sermons to everyday life.  Our whole redesign for what we do on Sunday morning has been done because we want it to be accessible to people who do not yet follow Jesus because that hour is typically when they will come and check us out and maybe even make a decision on whether to follow God or not.  That hour is no longer for the churched.  So when I hear that somebody would like to have more hymns during the Sunday morning gathering, I realize that I have failed to communicate the vision of the Sunday morning gathering well.  That time is not for us.  It’s for us to use in our ministry to others.  If we don’t have people sitting in those pews who need to hear those sermons, then we are wasting our time because none of us in this room need to listen to another sermon.  And each one of you is responsible to minister and get people in those pews.  We need to be living sermons. 

Music in Relation to Growth in the Church

Last week, I had a conversation with a good friend who goes to another church, one that is dying, and, as is typical with many dying churches, has only a traditional service. Some have left that church for the one just two buildings down, a church that worships together in a modern way. I told him this story that Jason Kemerly, the worship minister at Christ’s Church at Georgetown in Ft. Wayne, shared with me.

I can tell you that I have been at 3 churches now where we’ve done the Traditional and Contemporary service thing, and I have yet to see the Traditional service ever grow. I have never seen a baptism or a family join during one of these Traditional services. I’m not saying it’s impossible or doesn’t happen, I’m just saying that I haven’t experienced it yet.

As far as a Contemporary (or I prefer to call them “Modern”) services, we had 43 baptisms last year. I have seen great growth in all churches that I’ve been a part of. In the first church I was at, we went from 70 people to over 225 in the modern service. At my 2nd church, we went from 230 to over 400 in the Modern service. Here at Our current church, we’ve gone from 170ish to about 260ish. So I think it is kind of easy to see where the growth is coming.

Modern music is not a magical potion for growth, but it is a sign that a church is trying to be relevant to the culture they are in. A church that is not willing to be relevant to the culture is focused on what they like rather than what is good for the kingdom. And a church full of people focused on their own selfish likes and needs will never prosper.

But here is the persistent dilemma. What is modern today will be out of date in 15 years. If we are going to make a go at being a healthy church in the long run, a church that can pass the baton while still running, we have to be willing to regularly change. We have to create a culture of change.

So I told my friend, that if he wants his church to grow, then he might want to consider modernizing that traditional service. It isn’t that changing from traditional to a modern music style will automatically make churches grow. It’s the change that must happen in people’s hearts in order for them to allow a change of music style. Church must no longer be a ritual. It must not be about us, but about God who is great and about living out His kingdom! The doors must be flung wide open for the people in our community to come in while the church must be welcoming to them.

There is a lot that has to change in a churchgoer’s hearts so that they will allow a change in worship style from one they like to one they don’t like, but that change in heart is necessary for the church to fulfill its mission. If those hearts don’t change, no tweaking of music, no new ministry, nothing will improve that local body, and I fear more churches will die like many of the churches that have refused to change before them because they are focused on themselves rather than God’s design of them being a body built by Him to bring about His will.

Music is just one example, and I hope we don’t get hung up on that one issue. There are so many areas of our church life that God wants us to surrender to him so that he can build us into the body of believers he wants us to be. There are also many areas of our individual lives that we also must surrender to him. A healthy church is like a catch-22. Individuals will usually reach their true potential in God when the church is what God intends for it to be. And the church will only reach its true potential in God when the individuals that are part of it are who God intends them to be. We each have to allow him to change us individually if we want to the church to be what God intends it to be.

John Wesley, the man who the Methodists, Wesleyans, and Nazarenes have sprung out of, said, “Give me 100 men who love God and nothing else, who hate sin and nothing else, and I will change the world.” God is waiting for a people to say, I will do nothing else except what you want me to. I’m all in. Are we willing to be that group of people? Do we believe enough to go all in? Following God is like pregnancy, either you’re pregnant or you’re not. It’s like life; either you’re alive or you’re not. Are we ready to stop building sand castles and snow statues that will melt away and start allowing God to build us into the eternal place he wants us to be?

A Body that Generationally Lasts

Paul wrote, “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:15-16 ESV)

The Kingdom is about love. The church, or as Paul says “the body”, is to be about building each other up in love.

When we are kingdom builders rather than just building a church for ourselves - when we are people totally surrendered to Jesus rather than religious people just going through the motions, then we will be used by God to bring about his will here on earth. He wants to build us on top of the work he has done through Alexander Campbell, Soren Kierkegaard, John Wesley, Martin Luther, and all of the other faithful people that have lived, or should I say died to themselves while still living, since the time of Jesus - the cornerstone on which his kingdom is built. God builds his kingdom one life at a time.

During some generations, the kingdom has seen significant growth and progress. During others, we can seen darkness and depravity. If you look at the rings on an old tree, you will see that trees grow more some years than others. You can see years where it faced a great fire or drought, and you can see other years where growing conditions were great. It’s all there in the rings. The same is with the kingdom. It has good years and bad years, but good and bad growth are a result of the human hearts that are part of the kingdom rather than an indictment on God’s will. God wants his kingdom to flourish, grow, and transform the world, and he will empower his people to do that if we are willing. He’s patient and is waiting for a group of people to say, “Use us!”

When I think of the kingdom, I typically wonder, “What state am I going to leave the kingdom when I pass on?” There has been a lot of talk lately in Christian publications of passing the baton in churches because the kingdom is not a sprint, it’s a relay. It’s not one person excelling, but people faithfully serving and handing the mission down from generation to generation. Some churches do it well, some struggle to do it but eventually do, and some just die out. At the one church I interviewed at last spring, they were focused on hiring a younger pastor because it was time for them to pass the baton on to remain relevant. And that is one thing we have to always be willing to do. God will raise up new leaders in our midst. Are we the type of people that will be territorial and not let them lead and stifle them? Or will we be the type of people that will empower those who God has called? Are we the type of people who will be unchanging, or will we keep changing methods, while not compromising the gospel, so that we remain relevant to the culture around us?

Article On Leadership - Economist on Intel and Andrew Grove - Changing Established Churces to Be Focused Outwardly

This article deals with being a great leader and Andrew Grove's thoughts on how the government not allowing companies to fail is a bad thing in the long run.

Paranoid Survivor: Andrew Grove, the former boss of Intel, believes other fields can learn from the chipmaking industry that he helped bring into being.

"Computer firms come and go all the time, such is the pace of innovation in the industry. Yet for some reason this healthy attitude towards creative destruction is not shared by other industries."

"Every company will face a confluence of internal and external forces, often unanticipated, that will conspire to make an existing business strategy unviable."

"He launched the “Intel Inside” campaign, which marketed microprocessor chips directly to consumers, starting in 1991. This incensed his rivals and his immediate customers, the computer-makers, but the strong demand for Intel’s new Pentium chip showed that the strategy had worked."

"Dr Grove, however, insists that it was his experience at City College, where talent and hard work were rewarded and where students challenged their professors without concern for rank, that impressed upon him the value of meritocracy....The meritocratic culture he created at Intel then helped it attract the best talent in the industry."

This last point stuck with me the most. Churches tend to develop a culture that rewards those who have been there the longest and who give the most money. That would go completely against the approach that Grove took to make Intel successful. A healthy church is one that takes any good idea no matter where it came from and allows gifting to decide who gets to serve rather than seniority or time at the church. This is why church plants grow faster than established churches. An established church will already have all the "prominent" positions filled and will already know who they listen to as their idea people. If you aren't in the circle of the prominent or one of the reputable idea people, you will be ignored. They will gladly plug you into one of their cookie cutter ministries, but you better fit the mold. An open church, which most church plants are naturally, allows those with gifting to serve and implements any new idea that is useful in reaching out. Established churches need to figure out how to open things up and allow God, through the people He has gifted, to lead rather than allow the Old Boys' Club to continue on.

In pointing out that Intel became successful when it started marketing to the end consumer rather than marketing to computer manufacturers who actually made the decision to put the chips in computers, I was struck at the difference between a church that "does church" for those already in the pews compared to a church that is willing to do whatever it takes to share the Gospel to all. The former approach always leads to stagnation and death if not changed. The latter leads to life and vitality. Although you might lose some of the Christians who do not want to reach out along the way, a church that is focused on outreach will always be blessed more than an inwardly-focused church.

There might be problems in the immediate future when an established church changes focus, but change is necessary if we want to see the trend of dying churches stopped and enter into an era of vibrant local churches throughout the communities around us. It's either change or remain stagnant and die. Many are in churches that face this decision, and it is not an easy decision to make. People who have been catered to, have always heard the messages they wanted to hear on their pet doctrines that would not challenge them, and have controlled what is done in the church do not take kindly to a church changing its focus from pleasing the pew sitters to loving the community. The key is letting God control what we do rather than any person in the pew, no matter how much they have paid for that seat. It's His Church; it's His mission; He will provide what we need to fulfill that task if we are open to Him, His changes, and His will.

God Will Add to His Community - The Church that God Builds - Faithfulness, not Effectiveness

The vision of the Antwerp Church of Christ (soon to be Riverside Christian Church)

Community * Passion * Love * Transformation * Community

We are about have real, authentic relationships with one another. We want to be family and friends, not just strangers doing church together. We want to be the church.

We want to have a passion for Jesus and his work in this community.

We want to love everyone in real, tangible ways.

Those are the three things that we do: Community, Passion, Love.

As a result of doing those things, it is our hope that God will transform people in the community.

This leads us to what I am going to talk about today. It is my hope that he will then add people to this community, for it is God that adds to the church.

We focus on being faithful. God does the effectiveness. As long as we do what God would have us do, he will provide the results. We are in his will as long as we are faithful in doing what he has called us to do.

As you have also probably experienced, we know couples who have had trouble getting pregnant. Unfortunately, some have never been able to have children. My heart and prayers go out to them. Others, after making some changes in their life, have been able to reproduce.

Around half of the instances when a couple cannot conceive, it is a result of male infertility.

UPMC (a conglomeration of Pittsburgh medical centers) published an article addressing this:

Factors that negatively affect sperm development and motility include drug and alcohol abuse , diabetes, and bacterial infections. Environmental factors include toxic exposure to chemicals or radiation and overheated testicles. The reasons for many cases of low sperm quality go unresolved. As a matter of routine, many fertility clinics suggest that men trying to conceive should wear boxer shorts instead of briefs or tight-fitting underwear.

Sometimes becoming fertile is as easy as changing from whitie-tighties to boxers. Crazy. All it takes is a little change. Other times it is much more difficult. The changes are life changing.

A WebMD article, "Getting Pregnant: Easy Ways to Encourage Fertility," talked about increasing fertility and gave these tips.

"If you're having trouble getting pregnant but you're not quite ready for fertility treatments, there are things you can try on your own."

1. Eat Healthy – We had friends who were able to conceive after changing their diet.
   
2. Weight Control – Either high or low weight can hamper productivity. We had another friend who lost some weight and was able to conceive when she previously could not.
   
3. Reduce Stress – Unhealthy stress reducers like alcohol and smoking hurt fertility.
   

The list continued on but we are not a science class. You can check it out on your own if you would like.

The key here is that reproduction problems are due to a problem within our bodies. It might not be pleasant to say that our bodies are not functioning properly. Nobody wants to admit they are unhealthy. But the stark truth is that a couple who is having trouble conceiving can oftentimes fix the problem in their body that is preventing reproduction by making changes, sometimes as small as switching from whitey tighties to as big as changing all the food one eats. For others, the problem is not curable.

This leads back to the idea I expressed early. We cannot control results. We can only control whether we are making the changes we need to make. God desires faithfulness, not effectiveness.

The unfortunate thing is most people do not want to change their body and would prefer to rely on the quick fix of drugs. That works for many people having fertility problems, but there is not a quick fix for spiritual problems. There is no spiritual pill that a pharmaceutical company can provide for us to make us right spiritually. Jesus is willing to heal us, but that will come with changes.

Our spiritual health might be preventing us from being contagious disciples to those around us and it might be preventing us from being the church God wants us to be. No drug has been manufactured that we can take for spiritual reproduction. God wants us to make disciples of those around us and to be the type of people that he can add seekers to, but that is just a side effect of us being the people God wants us to be.

Jesus taught that if we seek, we will find. I believe he honors that teaching to the point of it being a promise.

[These verses were on the Powerpoint but I did not read them.]

But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 4:29).

For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:8).

If we seek, or if someone else seeks, God will reveal himself to us or them. If we want to be involved in that work, we need to make sure that we have a heart surrendered to God, a heart that God wants to send a seeker to. Oftentimes, we hold back areas of our life. We resemble the Pharisees of Jesus' time who were worried about outward appearance while not having surrendered hearts. Too often, we have not yet surrendered our lives completely to God. We cannot utter the words that Paul wrote when he said, "I urge you to imitate me."

When it comes down to it, God adds to the church. When we add to the church it will not stick. We can add through guilt, manipulation, extravagant shows, and coercion. But when God adds, he adds because he wants the seeker to be surrounded by the people who can be imitated. There are seekers out there that God wants to plug in to healthy churches and have them surrounded by faithful followers. Are we the type of people that God wants to add to?

Let's now go to a passage in the book of Acts about the founding of the church in Antioch.

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:19-26).

What we see here is a typical Pharisaical, Old Testament Jewish, and, unfortunately, modern-day Christian tendency to not be willing to share the good news of Jesus with everyone. We like to keep the faith to people like us. We wouldn't want to upset the church by bringing in someone with a lot of tattoos, piercings—someone who is known around town as a drunkard, a whore, or some other sort of perversion—someone with a more outgoing, experiential or a more introverted, shy personality type. Whatever dislikes we have of other people, we need to make sure that we don't exclude someone from the kingdom of God before giving them the chance to respond.

The Jewish Christians were dispersed throughout the Roman empire due to the persecution in Jerusalem. Similar to Jonah when he fled from the Ninevites, rather than go there and tell them to repent, the Jewish Christians did not want the Gentiles to be part of their church, but some of the Jews, ones that the Bible does not even give us their names, were crazy enough to share with the Gentiles the good news of Jesus. They didn't know any better, and God used their "foolishness" to start what was one of the most influential early churches in the city of Antioch when the Gentiles there responded to their message and gave their lives over to the Lord. What a predicament for the Jewish church. Now they had to deal with Gentile Christians.

I want to share one of the most amazing stories I have ever read. It comes from Tony Campolo's The Kingdom of God is a Party: God's Radical Plan for His Family. Tony is a pastor, speaker, and professor of sociology at Eastern College in Pennsylvania. This excerpt is a little lengthy, but it reveals that if we keep our eyes open and hands ready, we can be used in simple and practical ways to show God's love to those who have a tough time seeing it. We just have to be ready to be bold and a little foolish. It's about showing God's love in incredible, yet simple ways.

Tony was on a trip Honolulu to speak at a Christian Conference. On his first night there, he awoke sometime after three (jet lag from a six hour time difference was keeping him from adjusting to Hawaii time - he's from Pennsylvania) and left the hotel in search of a place to get something to eat. Eventually he found a tiny diner, with one man behind the bar who served him coffee and a doughnut. Tony was the only customer until, quite suddenly, the coffee shop was filled with girls. Some sat at small tables, others at the counter near Tony. From their conversation he learned an astonishing amount about Honolulu's night life, for the girls were discussing their night's work and their male clients. These girls were prostitutes. He tells the story:

I overheard the woman sitting beside me say, "Tomorrow's my birthday. I'm going to be thirty-nine."

Her friend responded in a nasty tone, "So what do you want from me? A birthday party? What do you want? Ya want me to get you a cake and sing 'Happy Birthday?'"

"Come on!" said the woman sitting next to me. "Why do you have to be so mean? I was just telling you, that's all. Why do you have to put me down? I was just telling you it was my birthday. I don't want anything from you. I mean, why should you give me a birthday party? I've never had a birthday party in my whole life. Why should I have one now?"

When I heard that, I made a decision. I sat and waited until the women had left. Then I called over the fat guy behind the counter and I asked him, "Do they come in here every night?"

"Yeah!" he answered.

"The one right next to me, does she come here every night?"

"Yeah," he said. "That's Agnes. Yeah, she comes in here every night. Why d'ya wanta know?"

"Because I heard her say that tomorrow is her birthday," I told him. "What do you say you and I do something about that? What do you think about us throwing a birthday party for her right here tomorrow night?"

A cute smile slowly crossed his chubby cheeks and he answered with measured delight, "That's great!..."

"Look." I told him, "if it's OK with you, I'll get back here tomorrow morning about 2:30 and decorate the place. I'll even get a birthday cake!"

"No way," said Harry (that was his name). "The birthday cake's my thing. I'll make the cake."

At 2:30 the next morning, I was back at the diner. I had picked up some crepe-paper decorations at the store and had made a sign out of big pieces of cardboard that read, "Happy Birthday, Agnes!" I decorated the diner from one end to the other. I had that diner looking good.

The woman who did the cooking must have gotten the word out on the street, because by 3:15 every prostitute in Honolulu was in the place. It was wall-to-wall prostitutes...and me!

At 3:30 on the dot, the door of the diner swung open and in came Agnes and her friend. I had everybody ready (after all I was kind of the M.C. of the affair) and when they came in we all screamed, "Happy birthday!" Never have I seen a person so flabbergasted...so stunned...so shaken. Her mouth fell open. Her legs seemed to buckle a bit. Her friend grabbed her arm to steady her. As she was led to sit on one of the stools along the counter we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her. As we came to the end of our singing with "happy birthday dear Agnes, happy birthday to you," her eyes moistened, when the birthday cake with all the candles on it was carried out, she lost it and just openly cried.

Harry gruffly mumbled, "Blow out the candles, Agnes! Come on! Blow out the candles! If you don't blow out the candles, I'm gonna hafta blow out the candles." And, after an endless few seconds, he did. Then he handed her a knife and told her, "Cut the cake, Agnes. Yo, Agnes, we all want some cake."

Agnes looked down at the cake. Then without taking her eyes off it, she slowly and softly said, "Look Harry, is it all right with you if I... I mean is it OK if I kind of... what I want to ask you is...is it OK if I keep the cake a little while? I mean is it all right if we don't eat it right away?"

Harry shrugged and answered, "Sure! It's OK If you want to keep the cake, keep the cake. Take it home if you want to."

"Can I," she asked. Then looking at me she said, "I live just down the street a couple of doors. I want to take the cake home, OK? I'll be right back. Honest!"

She got off the stool picked up the cake, and, carrying it like it was the Holy Grail walked slowly toward the door.

As we all just stood there motionless, she left. When the door closed there was a stunned silence in the place. Not knowing what else to do, I broke the silence by saying, "What do you say we pray?"

Looking back on it now it seems more than strange for a sociologist to be leading a prayer meeting with a bunch of prostitutes in a diner in Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning. But then it just felt like the right thing to do.

I prayed for Agnes. I prayed for her salvation. I prayed that her life would be changed and that God would be good to her. When I finished, Harry leaned over the counter and with a trace of hostility in his voice, he said "Hay! You never told me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?"

In one of those moments when just the right words came, I answered, "I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning."

Harry waited a moment and then almost sneered as he answered, "No you don't. There's no church like that. If there was, I'd join it. I'd join a church like that!"

What would a Christian be hanging out with and loving prostitutes? I don't think we would be comfortable with a minister or church leader who behaved in such a way. But then we probably wouldn't be comfortable with Jesus leading us either. Here are some relevant Bible verses:

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him" (Matthew 21:32).

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you" (1 Corinthians 5:9-13).

Are we bold enough to be Jesus in our communities? To discard all prejudices and stereotypes? In this small country town that we live in, I do not know of prostitutes, but there are definitely people in this town that it would not be "appropriate" to hang out with and minister to. But it is these very people that Jesus came for. It is these very people that Paul said that we need to "associate" with. Are we really willing to be Jesus to those around us? Or do we cling to the Jewish Christian tendency, to the Jonah tendency, to the Pharisee tendency to not share the Gospel with everyone.

Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul (Acts 11:27-30).

What we see is that God uses those who are willing to be used. He added to the church, he sent Barnabas and Saul to them to train them. And then he used them. The Jewish Christians in Jerusalem were provided for by the converted Gentile Christians in Antioch.

Do you want to be used by God to transform the lives around you into what God wants them to be? I know I do. I don't want to just get together on Sundays and do church. I want to be the church. I want to be a church in real, authentic relationships with one another. I want to have a passion for Jesus and his work. I want to love my neighbor, you guys, and my enemies as Jesus would have me to. And when I do that-when we each join together to do that-we'll be the church that God adds to. And if he does not, that is his choice. We are called to be faithful, not effective. God has better days ahead of us. He has people he wants to send to us and he has people he wants to send us to. God adds to his community. The question we must ask is, "Are we ready?" Are we willing to continue to change? Are we willing discard all unhealthy traditions and stereotypes? To strive to be the community God wants us to be? To be the church that God wants to add to?

Reproductive Health, Infertility, The Church, Our Heart, and Seekers

As you have also probably experienced, we have known some couples who have had trouble getting pregnant. Unfortunately, some have never been able to have babies. My heart and prayers go out to those couples who have struggled with this issue. Others, after making some changes in their life, were able to reproduce.

Around half of the instances when a couple cannot conceive, it is a result of male infertility. UPMC (a conglomeration of Pittsburgh medical centers) published an article addressing this:

Factors that negatively affect sperm development and motility include drug and alcohol abuse , diabetes , and bacterial infections. Environmental factors include toxic exposure to chemicals or radiation and overheated testicles. The reasons for many cases of low sperm quality go unresolved. As a matter of routine, many fertility clinics suggest that men trying to conceive should wear boxer shorts instead of briefs or tight-fitting underwear.

A WebMD article, “Getting Pregnant: Easy Ways to Encourage Fertility,” talked about increasing fertility and gave these tips. ()

If you’re having trouble getting pregnant but you're not quite ready for fertility treatments, there are things you can try on your own.

1. Eat Healthy – We had friends who were able to conceive after changing their diet.

2. Weight Control – Either high or low weight can hamper productivity. We had another friend who lost some weight and was able to conceive when she previously could not.

3. Reduce Stress – Unhealthy stress reducers like alcohol and smoking hurt fertility.

They had more but we are not a science blog. You can check out the link on your own if you would like.

The key here is that reproduction problems are due to a problem within our bodies. It might not be pleasant to say; nobody wants to admit they are unhealthy. But the stark truth is that a couple who is having trouble conceiving can oftentimes fix the problem in their body that is preventing reproduction. The unfortunate thing is most people do not want to change their body and would prefer to rely on the quick fix of drugs. That works for many people having fertility problems, but there is not a quick fix for spiritual problems that are prohibiting us from reproducing.

Our spiritual health might be preventing us from being contagious disciples and churches. No drug has been manufactured that we can take for spiritual reproduction if we refuse to be the people that God wants us to be. He wants us to make disciples of those around us and to be the type of people that he can add seekers to, but that is just a side effect of us being the people God wants us to be.

Jesus taught that if we seek, we will find. I believe he honors that teaching to the point of it being a promise. If we seek, or if someone else seeks, God will reveal himself to us or them. If we want to be involved in that work, we need to make sure that we have a heart surrendered to God that God wants to send a seeker to. Oftentimes, we hold back areas of our life. We resemble the Pharisees of the Jesus’ time who were worried about outward appearance while not having surrendered insides. We have yet surrendered our lives completely to God. We cannot utter the words that Paul wrote when he said, "I urge you to imitate me."

When it comes down to it, God adds to the church. When we add to the church it will not stick. We can add through guilt, manipulation, extravagant shows, and coercion. But when God adds, he adds because he wants the seeker to be surrounded by the people who can be imitated. There are seekers out there that God wants to plug in to healthy churches and have them surrounded by faithful followers. Are we the type of people that God wants to add to?