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The Story Behind
Living the Natural Way®
Isolated from the World's Needs
I had
worked for a denominational publisher for many years. The work was
challenging, and the Lord was blessing it.
But
in my worst moments, I saw the denomination as a big machine off
someplace in a corner of the world. It was preoccupied with itself
rather than engaging the needy world all around. I saw myself
as a mechanic spending my life just servicing the machine, keeping
it running. I felt I was not doing what I needed to do in the
world in which I lived.
Fulfilled but Frustrated
As
the years went by, my personal relationship with Christ became
more meaningful and satisfying on a moment-by-moment basis. The
more that relationship grew, the more I realized that Christ could
be perfectly satisfying to absolutely everyone around me. Age
didn't matter. Intelligence and educational level didn't matter.
Personality didn't matter. Culture, financial status, none of
that mattered. Christ could be personally, completely fulfilling
to each and every person around me.
But
I had no way to tell them. I would go out in public, to shopping
malls and sporting events, and realize that Christ could bring
peace and meaning to absolutely everyone there. Yet I had no way
to tell them, and I was frustrated.
I
am painfully shy. Striking up a serious conversation with a stranger
is one of life's scariest tasks for me. I didn't see any way I
could communicate the truth about Jesus Christ to the people around
me.
The Question Comes
Then
one Saturday in February 1995, my wife, Gloria, and I went shopping
on Metcalf, a main thoroughfare near us. Johnson County, Kansas,
here in the Kansas City area, is one of the wealthiest counties
in this part of the country, and Metcalf is one of its main shopping
districts.
We
went to a home decorating show. The huge exhibit hall was crammed
wall-to-wall, elbow-to-elbow with people spending their resources
to make their homes more homey.
Driving
out, I passed a huge store on the right—nothing but sporting
goods; people seeking leisure for the physical body.
On
the left was an electronics super-store—nothing but electronic
entertainment.
I
drove north to a large bookstore—a huge store overflowing
with people looking for intellectual stimulation.
The
road in-between was crowded with people as well, all shopping,
all seeking something. They were willing to spend their living
in hopes that something would make their lives a little more satisfying.
The
frustration returned. But on this day, something happened.
I've
never heard God speak audibly. Usually He speaks to me through
impressions on my mind and heart. But on this occasion, as I pulled
into the parking lot of the bookstore, it seemed like God was
speaking to me in my mind, using these very words: "What
could you do if nothing else mattered?"
That
question stopped me short. I didn't know the answer. But I felt
that because God asked the question, He was going to do something.
A seed of anticipation was planted.
The Search
His
question started me on a search. I was reading 1 John at the time,
and I came across chapter 2, verse 6. It says that if we claim
to follow Christ, we should walk as He walked. So I started a
study of the Gospels, looking for answers to these questions:
How
did Christ walk?
And therefore, how should I walk?
I
noticed in the Gospels that to reach people, Jesus didn't build
a church and invite people to come. He ministered among them.
He took whatever opportunities afforded Him to speak to people
where they were: in the marketplace, in the streets, over meals,
in homes, in chance personal encounters.
I
began to think how I might communicate with people. I was a writer,
with experience in publishing. How could I use that to communicate
with the people around me who needed to know about Jesus Christ?
I
looked at the major means of communication in our society. We
have a large, well-developed Christian media, but secular society
generally ignores it. And we have a large, well-developed secular
media, but they want little to do with the gospel.
So
I thought about "underground" ways of communicating.
A newsletter? Tracts left in restaurants, doctors' offices, etc.?
Neighbor to Neighbor
About
that time our local church put out a call for people interested
in joining a task force—a task force focused on reaching
the community around our church for Christ. My wife, Gloria, saw
the announcement, and both of us showed up at the first meeting.
We were part of the formation of what came to be Neighbor to Neighbor
Ministries, a systematic, noninvasive way of drawing people, not
necessarily to our local church, but to Christ himself.
I
became the writer for the ministry. I wrote a series of 12 monthly
mailers that went out to each home in our community under the
nonthreatening name For Your Consideration. As a sequel
to that, I wrote another 12-month series titled Living the
Natural Way®,
dealing with life issues from a Christian perspective. Soon I
was also asked to teach a Sunday School class for new Christians,
which we called Living the Natural Way.
Living the Natural Way
Is Born
During
this same period, starting in October 1995, the Lord began prodding
me toward the possibility of self-publishing some of my own writing.
Working in the Christian publishing industry, I had low regard
for self-publishing efforts. For that matter, I had no interest
in being an entrepreneur and starting my own company. But as every
other door to getting published closed, the Lord kept steadily
steering us, both Gloria and me, toward our own publishing ministry.
After
several years of prayer, research, thought, and planning, Living
the Natural Way did its first mailing on September 1, 1998.
Its purpose is to provide innovative resources for drawing
people to Christ. Our focus is reaching people who wouldn't
go into a Christian bookstore and buy and read a book—unbelievers
and seekers, as well as believers. We want to give them scriptural
resources that are practical yet thought-provoking, designed for
the contemporary lifestyle:
—pocket-size
books that are easily read, that can go anywhere
—books on disk that allow local churches to weave the material
into their own publications
—eventually devotional songs and recordings distributed
via the internet
Our
initial publications have grown out of the materials written for
our local church. The series of monthly mailers titled For
Your Consideration became the book Knowing
God. The title of the second series of mailers, Living
the Natural Way®,
became our company name, and the contents of the mailers became
the book The
Most Beautiful Way to Live.
When
teaching the Sunday School class for new Christians, I started
each lesson with a brief devotional thought leading into a simple,
one-sentence prayer for them to pray during the week. That material
became Simple
Prayers.
Growing Realizations
During
the intervening years, I've reflected back on my encounter with
God in February 1995. I had been asking Him the question, "What
can I do?" Often during His earthly ministry, Jesus would
answer a question with a question. He would turn the matter back
to the questioner, as if saying, "You don't need more information.
You need more faith!"
That's
what He had done with me. My question, "What can I do?",
was based on my feeling of helplessness. He turned my question
back on me, asking, "What could you do if nothing else matters?"
His question pointed out that my inability to communicate Christ
was not helplessness. It was a lack of commitment—a lack
of faith.
God
is still turning me from an in-grown Christian into a witness
for Him. Learning to write for unbelievers and seekers has been
challenging. It's easy for us to continue to talk only to evangelical
believers because we're comfortable with them. We share a common
viewpoint and a common language. We easily forget about the rest
of the world.
But
God doesn't forget. He never forgets. We easily
turn inward to the comfortable, familiar world of the Christian
family. But God's heart continually, fervently burns for each
and every person who desperately needs Him. He's still leaving
the 99 to look for that one sheep. He wants us to seek that
one sheep as well.
We
cannot let the walls of the church circumscribe our efforts at
drawing people to Christ. That's not the way Jesus worked, and
it's not the way God is working today.
We
cannot make the same mistake that ancient Israel did, forgetting
that our calling and our chosenness are not to the privileges
of a small, elite group. Our calling is to be His servants to
the entire world.
God Is Faithful
God
is continuing to guide and provide for our ministry day by day.
We're still learning and growing, and the process is fun.
During
the years spent planning our company, I asked the Lord if He was
sure He wanted me to do this. I'm not an entrepreneur by
nature. In addition, a burnout earlier in my life has left my
physical tolerance for stress quite low. But when I brought my
reluctance to Him, He answered, "You do what I tell
you to do one day at a time, and leave everything else to Me."
He
has been true to His word. And we are continuing to approach our
daily ministry with God's original question sounding in our minds:
"What could you do if nothing else mattered?"
Ken
Bible
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