The Cost of Ministry-Focused Business

January 31, 2013 ~ Issue 38

Hello Friends,

Recently, we received a letter kindly asking us to explain our policy for rotating some of the LOLACHE benefits and also our pricing of products. Since we really want you to understand us, know us, and support us, we thought that all of our members may benefit from our answers.

It is truly a challenge to structure a ministry-focused business, and we think that perhaps mis-understandings arise about some of our decisions based on lack of information, and also from some common wrong assumptions. Here are some things for you to consider.

LOLACHE Seminars—It has been our intention all along to provide rotating material for our members, where we remove older material while continually producing new. The recent removal of the first 3 Love’s Actions audios is part of our ongoing process of rotation, as was the first 5 Lifestyle of Learning™ Beginnings Interviews that we removed from the LOLACHE website many months ago. We do not wish to merely stockpile on the website for years to come everything we produce, for at least three reasons.

First, new members would simply be overwhelmed. Even with our efforts to limit our library, new members often tell us they don’t know where to start with all the valuable choices they have. For instance, we produced a total of 61 audios in our first year of operation! This can be daunting to those just starting out. However, we have been keeping audios on the site for many months and even up to a year before removing them.

Second, we will always want to provide material for our members that is exclusive to members, otherwise membership would not be valuable. When we make a product available for sale to non-members, it is no longer exclusive, and so we intend to remove it from the member’s site after it’s been free to our members for many many months. We will always warn our members of material that is being removed. If you would like any audio that is being removed, we encourage you to download it to your computer, so you will have it as your own at no extra charge to you. Our materials are at an extremely low cost compared to similar materials produced by other businesses. We are keenly aware of this since we are in a position to purchase these types of materials from other businesses, and we obtain business advice on pricing from other well-established businesses. We realize that homeschooling families often have less available income, and so we strive to price our materials as low as possible, and often under what they cost us to produce, and against the business advice we know is standard. This leads to the third reason we rotate our materials.

Third, if we cannot eventually make enough money to live on through the sale of our materials, we will have to stop this ministry in order to go find work that pays enough to survive on, for we simply cannot work more than full time jobs, and not be paid for that work. It is likely your family cannot do that either—work full time for nothing or next to nothing. It is common to lack understanding about how much work and money is required to do what we are doing. The Making Heart-Level Connections mini coaching programs are an example. They are not included in membership benefits due to the high cost of time and money to produce them. We would have to raise member joining fees to a price not many could or would pay. Our member benefits have to be fulfilled on a week-to-week basis by volunteers who are not getting paid, (except for the audio editing and transcripts which we contract out). It requires several people every week to prepare the weekly benefits for LOLACHE members.

A common wrong assumption—It is common for Christians to believe that Christian material ought to be free or very cheap simply because people need it and want it. If we look at this assumption logically, it means that someone having a need or a want constitutes an obligation that someone else provide it. This thinking is simply not true. There may be many things we both need and want, but that does not mean that it is right to expect someone else to provide it for us at their expense. Indeed we have many needs and wants for this ministry, yet we are not expecting anyone to provide them to us at their expense. We are very blessed when someone voluntarily offers to contribute at their expense to what we are trying to do, but we don’t expect them to, or obligate them to, or require them to.

Indeed the Gospel is free. Anyone is free to study, learn, grow, and press into the Lord as I have done, and as I have taught Barbie to do, and as we have taught many others to do. However, discipleship is not free. Discipleship and life coaching are processes of involving oneself in the life of another on an on-going basis to help bring them to maturity. One cannot simply sell a book and be done with it! However, we are seeking to provide more practical materials as our only way to make ourselves available to more people more often.

The materials we produce and the hundreds of hours and dollars it costs us to produce them are not free, and cannot be free. Our pricing is based on how much personal involvement is required of us. For instance, coaching programs require far more preparation than do the 1-hour conference calls that we hold twice a month. We also contract out the editing and transcribing services for these products. However, we are still confident that we are providing prices that are competitively much lower than similar materials elsewhere. We are also confident that our ministry is unique, and as such we could be charging much more, but again, this is a ministry-focused business, and we want to reach as many people as we possibly can!

We are completely aware that if a person were to connect in with the Lord in the way we work at describing, they will indeed no longer need our services at all, and that is actually what we hope for!—people to connect with Our Savior and be led and directed by Him alone for their whole-life, Holy-Spirit-led education and discipleship! Until that happens, we do our best to be available by providing products and services that will help others to connect to the precious work God is trying to do in them and their families.

You can be further informed about cost comparison by this video: http://homeschoolcurriculumoflife.com/?tab=4

If you have non-LOLACHE-member friends or extended family members who need and want Lifestyle of Learning™ materials, we encourage you to relationally invest in your friendship and concern for them by purchasing, from our regular eStore, the materials that the Good Lord has used to work in your own life, and bless them with your gift of help!

We pray abundant spiritual blessings as you consider these things, and as you press into the Lord for your family’s growth and education!

Marilyn Howshall and Barbie Poling for Lifestyle of Learning™ Ministries

[Lifestyle of Learning™/LOLACHE eNewsletter ~ January 30, 2013, Issue 38]