Problem is that I really like the shrubs they like. Bummer. But since my allergies are bad I have to have a pretty low maintenance landscape. I did the “shake the bugs into a bucket of soapy water” thing every day for a couple of weeks last year. It worked well, but my shrubs still looked terrible.

Let me know how your new method works.

My wife, four kids, and myself recently went back to Chicago for an extended weekend visit. I was shocked by some of what I heard and what I saw at our old church. Short term focus to get mediocre results with little to no long term goals or planning (with few exceptions of course). We had looked forward to returning and worshiping, what we came into was lots of people needing counseling – the beatles had invaded, the pesticides overwhelmed. We everyone there, bumps bruises and secrets and we pray, even more so now for them.

Persistence. Patience. Prayer in faith.

Hope you have a good growing season!

My wife an I are trying to run our farm using sustainable methods. It blows my mind that some folks in the Church consider the whole idea of sustainable living as some plot by the antichrist. They turn the whole thing into some kind of wacky conspiracy.

I don’t get people sometimes, especially in the Church.

As to patience, I think all the reasons youmention are valid. Our business mentality translates into our churches as if we’ve got to be profitable quarter after quarter or the shareholder will revolt and kick the board and CEO out. No long range plan or goal exists.

But that’s insane. And it’s insane not only in our churches, but in our businesses. The Asian countries and their businesses are going to clean our clocks one day because, to them, it’s all about long term strategies. They possess remarkable patience.

The Church used to have remarkable patience, too, but we adopted our culture’s and business’s love of the short-term. That ruined much of what we do. Now we operate with impatience and reap the results.