“Apple has done an about-face on an app for Exodus International — and the Christian organization is not happy about it, saying Apple has “caved, yet again” to pressure from “gay” activists.”

This is not the first time something like this has occurred and the Church gets all hacked about it.  My father sent me an article like this several months ago about the Manhattan Declaration App.  First, I understand why the Church gets hacked, so don’t think I am some kind of left leaning whack-job.  BUT, the Church does not have any right to be hacked.  Apple is not a Christian organization, and it is a publicly held company, so why would it cater to the cause of Christ?

What the Church sees as unfair… the favoring of the Gay Community over Exodus International is at the end of the day, “all about the benjamins.”  The same rule cited to reject the Operation Exodus application is the same rule that keeps, porn, the Klan, and other undesirable elements out of the App Store.  It is a rule that makes the app store a very safe place for my children in comparison with the internet at large.  I live in fear of the day when someone tells my kid he should Google “Boobies” or something worse.

The answer is not to get hacked off and act like, well, the church…  separate ourselves, demand boycotts of Apple and iPhones and such, but to produce other Apps, commercially viable apps… GAMES, Utilities… that bring value to the user:  entertainment, education, etc. and make a lot of money.  Buy stock in Apple.  If Rovio, the developers of Angry Birds was a Christian owned company, Apple would listen.

Additionally, as a professional consultant in the mobile space, I have a great deal of experience in the conception, design and development of mobile applications.  One of the most fundamental errors that is made in building an application is a lack of business plan.  An application done well is a real investment.  So when anyone undertakes to build an application, they should determine at least a lemonade stand business plan.  What is the product (the app is actually the vehicle and not the product.)?  Who is the audience?  And what is the intended Return on Investment?

Because I have the article handy, let’s look at the Exodus International app.

Exodus International vice president Randy Thomas admits his organization is disappointed by Apple’s decision.

“Our app was simply a resource app to help people who have questions about homosexuality and Exodus International, to learn what we’re really about,” he explains. “Unfortunately gay activists misconstrued the purpose of the app and successfully pressured Apple to remove our app.”

What is the product?  ”a resource app to help people with questions about homosexuality and Exodus international…”

Who is the audience?  You want to say homosexuals, but that would be wrong, but I’ll come back to that in a second.  Let’s assume the audience is intended to be homosexuals.

What is the Return on Investment?  Let’s go with the pat answer first… homosexuals who find Christ and come out of the LGBT lifestyle…

So, if the app was meant to be a resource for homosexuals, to have questions about homosexuality answered, and to gain an understanding of Exodus International, resulting in homosexuals repenting and coming to Jesus and becoming heterosexual, then why did it get kicked off the App Store?

So reread Randy Thomas’ description:

“Our app was simply a resource app to help people who have questions about homosexuality and Exodus International, to learn what we’re really about,”

What is the product?  Exodus International, not a changed life, not Jesus Christ, but Exodus International.

Who is the audience?  ”People.”  Which people?  Well, hang on…

“And unfortunately they have removed an app that appeals to a large percentage of their customer base,” he notes. “I think Apple has really done themselves a disservice in not representing the true diversity of opinion concerning homosexuality and Christianity.”

I am not sure who Randy Thomas thinks is a “large percentage of their customer base”  But with 100 million iPhone, and 10 million iPads… along with countless iPod touches…  But it ain’t Evangelical Christians… as I pointed out earlier, if it was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

And it certainly isn’t the LGBT community either, but rather “everyone else.”  But unfortunately Randy Thomas appears to split the world in two halves… the classic “Us and Them,” or in this case “homosexuality and Christianity.”  And there is the rub.  Thomas indicates that the app is actually intended for a Christian non-homosexual audience.

What is the ROI?  To be a resource for people who have questions… about Exodus International. With over 300,000 apps in the App Store, odds are, Randy Thomas has gotten more press and exposure for Exodus International by getting rejected from the App Store, than by having his app disappear into the white noise that 300,000 apps creates.

Thomas and Operation Exodus should return to the drawing board and plan.  Create a product.  And try again.

This is a from a section about George Lopez in Peter Guber’s Tell to Win. I want my children to understand this lesson.  Character is so ignored today.  Celebrity has stolen the role of Character in our society, and Celebrity requires no character whatever.

How can we raise children of character?

Hopefully our children don’t have to lose their arms to sharks in freak surfing accidents like Bethany Hamilton, but what a story of character.  In 2003, she was surfing and was attacked by a shark and lost her arm.  Not long after considering the trauma of the event, Bethany made the U.S. National Surfing team.  What a heroine… but what’s more, and this caught me by surprise, her story hits the big screen on April 8, because she had the chutzpah and faith to share her story with Peter Guber.

“Then some time later, in one last attempt to get our involvement, Tice prompted Bethany to visit me when I was in Kauai.  She wore a sleeveless top and no prosthetic arm and seemed completely at ease.  I was impressed and asked where her self-confidence came from.  She credited her deep-seated faith.  Her belief in Jesus Christ, she said, had guided her and her family through the aftermath of her attack.

‘And now I see the bigger purpose for my life,’ she told me.

‘You mean as a surfing champion,’ I said, thinking that was the center of her story.

‘No, purpose from God,’ she explained.  ’To help others know His love.’  Then she quoted a passage from the Bible, about the child prophet Jeremiah. “For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.’”

This young woman, a woman of character, Eishat Chayal… a woman of valor, convinced Peter Guber to make her story into a movie.

Faith, the Word and heroes of faith… amazing.

Faith forms the center, the Word makes the center concrete and reinforces it, heroes show us how to live it.  This is where the true gravity comes from.  If our children our centered on Jesus, their gravity is greater than that of the world.  The Word feeds this, builds it up, keeps it alive and vibrant, and heroes model the how.

God give me the grace to walk with my children through this process.

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?

How often do we as believers use this phrase to be critical of a wealthy or successful non-believer?  Does it not follow however, that “It Profits a man much to gain the whole world and win his soul…”   Ok, so it doesn’t quite have that pious spiritual deprecation…  But it makes one think.

What should our actual relationship be to the world?  We are quick to cite verses like “Come ye out from among them, and be yet separate.” (2 Cor 6:17) but we don’t want to do the first part of 2 Cor 6, verses 1-10: “And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain—for He says, “AT THE ACCEPTABLE TIME I   YOU, AND ON THE DAY OF SALVATION I HELPED YOU.” Behold, now is “THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,” behold, now is “THE DAY OF SALVATION”—giving no cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited, giving no cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report; regarded as deceivers and yet true; as unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things.”

In 2 Cor 5, Paul pleads the gospel so  that the Corinthians should repent and “become the righteousness of God in Him.”  In 2 Cor 6, Paul continues his plea, but gives specific instructions:  Live your lives “so that the ministry will not be discredited…”  The ministry is that “we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (v. 20)  Therefore as an Ambassador we must be stationed, c0-missioned to those outside the people or Person who has sent me.  The United States does not therefore send an Ambassador to the State of Ohio, but to the Nation of Britain, or Pakistan, or China… a dissimilar people, and oftentimes the enemy.

So why do we believers live in what Briner (Roaring Lambs) has rightly called a Christian Ghetto?  We retreat into a bubble of christian community in which we are protected from the world and temptation, and sin… “come ye out from among them…”  We write each other books, and music, and separate our businesses, and avoid the world like the plague… and yet all the while, the world seeps in as an infection… like a rot.

But we are called to be Ambassadors.  We are called to live among those dissimilar from us and those who are His enemies.

John 17:13-18

“But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.  As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”

A Christian Life lived in the Christian Ghetto is safe.  The only risk is to be found somehow less spiritual than another.  A Christian Life lived in the world has stakes.

The article argues that endangered species policy and specifically trade bans have done little to preserve the endangered species because they have resulted in higher black market prices for illegally obtained and traded goods.  The article goes on to assert that”the best way to save a species is to make it valuable to people who may have other uses for the land. “ One of the offered sustainable solutions is eco-tourism, “One way that suits everybody is tourism. The gorillas in the Virunga mountains of Rwanda attract a lot of money from visitors. They are doing well, unlike their cousins over the border in Congo which do not earn their keep, and are prey to hunters who want to clear them out and take their land. Tourism is one way to help the Indian tiger, which is much rarer than people thought.”  Clearly eco-tourism requires stable governments and sufficient infrastructure to allow wealthy tourists comfortable ingress and egress, so this may not be an immediate solution for every country, but as the examples in the article demonstrate, and as Costa Rica and Belize have shown, it does have its merits. (www.bzecotourism.com,  www.costarica-ecotourism.com )

The article goes on to state, “A second, less popular way to make money is to exploit animals sustainably. Killing individual creatures need not harm populations. Many animals may be farmed or ranched to create a valuable legal trade. That is what has happened with the vicuña, and with crocodiles and their kind. Rhino horns can be cut off without even killing rhinos.”  “Sustainable exploitation is not easy and it will not always work. To start with, you need a valuable product. You need the rule of law and government backing. Local people must feel secure in their ownership of the animals and what they produce if they are going to put in the effort to manage and protect them. But exploitation has a crucial edge over straight bans: it earns money. And that is why it can save animals.” 

The March 2008 edition of Scientific American contains an article, “The Bluefin in Peril.”  (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-bluefin-in-peril) The author, Richard Ellis, states in his subtitle, “The only way to save the bluefin tuna, one of the most marvelous and endangered fish in the ocean, may be to domesticate the species.” 

• “The surging popularity of sushi and sashimi has devastated the bluefin tuna. Overfishing has slashed populations in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, push­ing the species toward extinction. Regulatory bodies have failed to set sufficiently strict catch quotas, and illegal fishing is rampant.”  
• “Captive breeding of the bluefin could save the species, but the effort will be challenging. Research groups in Japan and Europe have bred the tuna in laboratories, and now an Australian company is attempting to perform the feat on a commercial scale.”

I was surprised by the coincidence of finding two articles in two very distinct publications with such a similar point of view.  The bottom line is in fact, the bottom line.  Conservation is best served cold with a side of practical capitalism.  The best way to conserve our natural resources, at least our living, breathing resources is to make them economically significant.  Bluefin is at the zenith of significance, bringing as much as $349 per pound for its meat on the legitimate market, but unless effective production means through domestication are implemented, there will not be any Bluefin to buy.

So here is the 500 pound gorilla in the MissionsTech room… what does the commercialization and domestication of conservation have to do with Missions?  I would argue quite a lot.  First, there is a distinct correlation between the unreached people groups of the world and the exploited ecosystems of the world.  These articles argue that there are financial and conservation rewards to be reaped through the effective implementation of sustainable domestication, utilization, and exploitation of animal and ecological resources.  The first benefactors of those rewards should be the unreached people groups who share the ecosystems with the plants and animals in question.  Therefore it is eternally and spiritually relevant for the Body of Christ to seek out these types of opportunities, to develop micro- (and macro-) enterprise solutions, and to implement them appropriately and efficaciously to the glory of God and the saving of souls.

For lack of a better question, with the intention of advancing the Kingdom of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who needs what?