The world is overflowing with the idea of fertility and generations. From the beginning of human history, one of God’s first directives to His people was to be “fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). From a physical point of view, that means, “have sex and make babies.” God’s creation reflects this theme through every living being. The survival and legacy of any living thing, be they animal or plant, is seen in its ability to reproduce: butterflies must lay eggs and bear caterpillars, sheep must bear lambs, trees produce seeds and seedlings. This is portrayed all the way down to the microscopic world.

What if followers of Jesus realized fully the importance of reproducing a new generation of God-loving, Jesus-following, Spirit-transformed men and women? Easy believism, privatized faith, and inch-deep-mile-wide religion are not God’s purpose or plan. Clearly, these do not reproduce mature, healthy offspring. Infertility can be a problem in our impersonal, at-a-distance, big audience type of spirituality. Even a blog can’t get done what is meant to happen person-to-person in the context of everyday life!

My wife, Pam, and I are committed to helping others personally, in a way that supports and encourages them to pass along the grace and goodness of God to others.

How about you? Are you fertile and reproducing? What are things that stand in your way, that keep you from building into the lives of others, that they too might follow Jesus?

Read more: Check out Daws, a biography of how Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators, came to have a passion for generational impact through the lives of people.