Life-Threatening Situations Call for Extreme Measures

Our discussion this week started off with a look at three action steps you can take right now that will pay off big time this fall.  It continued with a look at how to recruit additional coaches for what you’ll do this fall.  Before we take the third step in the discussion, I want to be sure we share a philosophical assumption.

Here’s the assumption:

In view of the life-threatening situation at hand, you’ll need to take some extreme measures.

Let me explain what I mean.  First, I use the expression life-threatening to describe the danger of not being connected to a group where you can experience life-change.  I believe that the reality for most of the unconnected people in our congregations is that they are one tough event away from being gone and out of the environment completely.  Divorce, illness, job-loss, parenting challenges…all often lead to the disappearance of unconnected people.  Rather than seek help, the easiest thing to do is to drop out.  It’s life-threatening.

Beyond the danger associated with being unconnected, I also believe that unconnected people will almost never experience true life-change.  They’ll have some defibrillator experiences where they feel spiritually renewed but they won’t experience the kind of life-change that can only happen where there’s life on life exchange.

Second, life-threatening conditions always call for extreme measures.  Out of the ordinary measures.  When there is a life-threatening illness, when the economy is in a tailspin, when a marriage is on the brink of collapse…there is not time for a remedy with a long ramp-up time.  You need help now.  In addition, more of the same or a higher dose of the same is not what you need.  In order to correct the collapse, you need help now and you need a new and different remedy.

Disclaimer:

You may not believe you’re in a life-threatening situation.  If you don’t, there will be many times when what I write here seems extreme and way beyond what’s actually necessary.  It may seem like the potential reward is not worth the risk (like allowing someone who just volunteers to open their home as a host for a new group).  You might feel like further study is warranted before taking extreme measures or that the symptoms might just fade on their own if you’re patient.

But can I tell you something?  To refer to my Titanic illustration, the only people who feel that these aren’t life-threatening times are the ones already in a life-boat.  The people who are in the 28 degree water of the North Atlantic are certain this is a moment unlike anything they’ve ever faced.

So I want to urge you, before you dismiss desperate measures, to be sure you really know the situation in the water…in the lives of the unconnected.  You might be a little readier to take some risks.

What do you think?  Want to argue?  You can click here to jump into the conversation.