A couple of years ago, one of our girls came home with a troubling look on her face.  She was flushed and downcast.  Her typically joyful seven-year-old attitude was gone.

“Daddy, my throat started hurting at lunch time and it’s still hurting.”  My wife and I knew that strep throat was going around, but we tried to remain optimistic.

“Let’s get some medicine and maybe you’ll feel better by bedtime.”

The next day, she woke up with a fever and the doctor eventually confirmed what we feared…strep.  To make matters worse, it was already making its way through our family.  Soon, our three-year-old was sick.  Then, my throat started hurting.

As I took the three-year-old to the doctor, I knew exactly what would happen.  She would get a shot in the arm.  She would scream and cry, like a three-year-old.  I would get a shot in a meatier portion of my backside and would want to cry like a three-year-old, but would resist the urge because I’m too manly for that.  We didn’t want the pain associated with the shots, but we needed the medicine.   We had strep…a contagious virus.  And in order to get rid of it, we needed medication.

I have to admit that I like living in an instant-fix culture.  I like being able to get medication for my ailments and getting back to normal life within hours.  I appreciate those doctor visits…even with the painful shots… much more than I appreciate the visits where I hear, “You need to lose weight and change your eating habits.”  There’s no good medication for that problem.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a healthy-weight-loss-without-changing-your-diet pill?  I would be willing to swallow that pill…or even take the shot.

Let me redirect the focus of these thoughts. 

What do you do when your church gets sick?  What’s the remedy for families walking out the back door?  What do you do when the offerings are down?  How do you alleviate the pain of a church that won’t move outside the walls of its building?

For the last several decades, the church growth movement has given us a simple answer…there’s a program for that.  Just like there is an app for almost anything in the electronic world and just like there is a quick-fix medication for almost any aliment, there is a church program available for almost any imaginable problem. 

• Need to shut the back door?  There’s a program for that. 
• Need to move people from worship into small groups?  You need more than an announcement to move people along…you need a program for that, too.
• Need to cover a building project or a shortfall in the budget?  You might want to hire an outsider…or…find the most cost effective program on the market.
• Need more volunteers?  Yep.  There’s a program for that.

The church in the U.S. has bought into the idea of taking our quick-fix medicines.  In fact, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that we have over-medicated our churches.  As a result, people are getting resistant to our quick-fix programs.  Church members and even some outside the church are getting weary of our programs.  Instead of quick-fix programs, they want authenticity.  They want a process for true discipleship and life change…not another medicating program.

As unpleasant as it sounds, we need to stop medicating the church and go back to the “old-school” process of making disciples.  We need to re-evaluate the practices that keep our churches healthy.

At GenerousChurch, we believe in the process of Biblical generosity.  We’ve seen it work.  It may take a little time, but it works.  It’s more like losing weight than taking a shot, but the results are lasting. 

The process of Biblical generosity may not change your church in the span of a four-week preaching series.  But, as you build holistic generosity into each ministry environment at your church, you will begin to see a shift happening.  As you inject generosity into the regular rhythms of your church life, you will experience a culture change that begins to imitate the ways of Jesus.

Take, for example, Old Cutler Presbyterian Church.  About a year and a half ago, Old Cutler wanted to shake their members out of complacency and help them move beyond a mentality of “playing it safe” when it comes to faith.  Therefore, they engaged GenerousChurch and went through our three part pathway (assessment, leadership development and church-wide infusion).  The culture of generosity that was developed within the church played a role in the adoption of five children from Russia and also spilled over into some incredible community relationships.  Recently, the Old Cutler planned a work day to help the Agape Women’s Center with some physical needs.  This local relationship has now blossomed into an open-air community-wide worship service that will take place this weekend (May 18, 2014). 

Old Cutler has experienced some wonderful growth in the area of generosity.  Do you know why?  They made a conscious decision to stop looking for the quick-fix medication and start building generosity into their DNA.  They went beyond a sermon series and a program to find a process for unleashing generous disciples.

We need to stop medicating the church.  That means more intentional work for all of us.  But, it also leads to a healthier church in the long run.