Within a year of graduating from seminary, I saw Doug Hall's cartoon (right) in Leadership. I'd already had enough experience in ministry to identify with that pastor.

As a church staff, we'd lamented the gap between church activity and the spiritual progress we longed to see. Leadership contributor Roger Judd quoted a pastor who, looking at his church's multiple ministries and cluttered calendar, said, "Our philosophy of ministry is "

Spiritual maturity is what we're after, and that doesn't happen automatically, even for those people we manage to woo into the church. What does it take?

It helps to understand what we seek. America loves stories of "changed lives." Andrew Carnegie the pauper becomes Carnegie the industrialist and philanthropist. Michael Jordan, cut from his junior high basketball team, rises to become "His Airness." Bill Gates the computer nerd becomes Bill Gates, the world's wealthiest man.

Then there's Jared Fogle, ...