A recent article in Business Week, Lessons of a $618,616 Death, told the tragic account of a family’s struggle with a terminal disease and the associated costly treatments extending the life of the husband. Terence Foley was diagnosed in 2000 with kidney cancer at 61 years of age. A Chinese historian who earned his PhD in his 60s (my kind of guy), Terence played 15 different instruments, spoke 6 languages fluently, was a father of 2 teenagers and a noted expert on dairy cattle. He died on Friday, December 14, 2007.
The total amount billed for the medical care over seven years to keep Terence alive was $618,616, two-thirds of which were spent in the last 24 months. There were approximately 4,750 pages of medical records from six hospitals, four insurance companies, three oncologists and one surgeon. The New England Journal of Medicine reports (cited in the article) that 31 percent of health care costs are spent on paperwork and administration meaning that approximately $191,771 had little to do with actually extending Terence’s life.
Once the cancer reaches the final stage an average patient diagnosed with kidney cancer (this type and stage) without any treatment lives three months. The average patient receiving the same treatment of Terence is 14 months. Terence was blessed with 17 months of life. In those 17 months Terence visited Spain, moved his son into his college dorm, celebrated his anniversary with his wife by a carriage ride through Philadelphia and spent Thanksgiving Day with his family.
If an economist were to evaluate this scenario, he would say that it cost $242 a day for Terence to die. If a loved one evaluated the same set of numbers, he or she would say it only took $242 a day for Terence to live.
What does it cost for a church to die?What does it cost when church members are apathetic to basic discipleship and content to sit idle with a profession of faith that never impacts the harvest, never intercedes in prayer, never develops leaders and never builds strong relationships? What does it cost when churches never engage their community to lead the lost to Jesus, never feed the hungry, minister to the homeless and never reach outside their own walls? What does it cost when pastors compromise the power of the Holy Spirit for the methods of seeker sensitivity? What does it cost to keep denying the evidence of death and practice the rituals of religion?
What does it cost for a church to live—really live—not exist on life support?
How much Kingdom resource is expended that actually has nothing to do with the Great Commission?
What does it cost for each Christ-follower to participate in:
- Daily prayer,
- Periods of fasting,
- Consistent Bible study,
- Weekly worship,
- Community service,
- Godly relationships,
- Biblical stewardship, including faithful tithing?
What does it cost to stay alive? It will cost your time to devote yourself to a disciplined lifestyle of prayer, fasting and Bible study. It will cost your money (it is really not yours anyway according to 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “What? Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s”) to tithe faithfully, support missions and give generously to those in need. It will cost your affections to surrender habits to holiness. It will cost your pleasures to develop mentoring relationships. It will cost your friendships to reach those who are unreached. It will cost your comfort to work when you are weary.
It will cost more to die than to live.In the words of Terence’s wife, “He had a passionate willingness to endure discomfort for a chance to see his daughter and his son graduate from high school.” A man was willing to endure ceaseless pain for the love of his children. True biblical discipleship offers nothing less—a pure willingness to endure undefined costs for the fulfillment of seeing our next generations mature in their faith and reach their destiny. We must see that eye to eye.
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