When You Don't Buy Your Own Product

You can tell how reliable an insurance agent is based upon how much insurance coverage he has himself.  If he’s not willing to buy with his own money the very thing he sells, how can he convincingly (or honestly) persuade others?

If you are in the music business, but you never buy tickets or downloads, can you really empathize with the people you’re selling to?

If you work for a non-profit organization and you don’t give money to charity, what exactly are you doing with that job?  

And the real shame is that this inactivity on their part keeps them from experiencing the very emotion that they try so hard to sell.

You see, it’s easy to embrace an ideal, a value, even a mission, and not participate in it yourself - while exhorting others to do what you yourself do not do.

Let’s talk church, shall we?

I interact with a good number of church people, aspiring leaders, and ministers, and I’m sensing a breakdown precisely along these lines.

• They say, “We are serious about the Great Commission," but cannot name a single unchurched person that they have personally witnessed to or even invited to a church service. Ever.

• They claim to make disciples who are willing to die to themselves, but neither they nor their family seems to be willing to serve in the bowels of the ministry, whether that be mopping a floor or tending a child.

• They love to preach and teach, but not listen and learn.

The result?  Ministry becomes little more than a way to create a platform for ones personal fulfillment and ambition.  Consequently, we do not experience the very life we so energetically try to sell.

And the more that disconnect grows, the less we will succeed.