In reply to Pastor Steve Bartell.

Pastor Bartell, I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say "That's not real growth anyway." If you are referring to the "insufficient reproduction" in your previous sentence, I take great exception to it. "Simple survival?" "Real growth"? I would argue that it is the "realest" growth there is--for it is God-given growth *2* times. First, when the Lord gives the blessing of the child in conception and birth, and second when the Lord gives the Blessing of the 2nd birth in holy Baptism. Is it "better" than reaching out to those who are already born and have not heard Christ's Gospel so as to receive the gift of faith? Of course not. But "real growth" is real growth--whether it's a 60-year-old who confesses Christ and is baptized, or a newborn. Remember the very first "evangelism" that took place was the birth of Cain, Abel and Seth, et al. When we give up trying to "control" how successful our evangelism ("natural" or "outreach") is, and remember that it is all a gift of God, which He gives through our faithful confession of Christ in the vocations He has given us, and simply focus on that confession and those vocations, I strongly suspect we will "outreach evangelize" more courageously and faithfully, and perhaps even, (according to the will and grace of God) more "successfully." There's something I seem to recall about how it is "God who gave the increase."