There is a story about two men from New York City who had never been out of the city. They decided they had enough of city life and so they would head out west and try to live off the land like their ancestors did. As they arrived in the mid-west they decided they would need a mule to help them with the plowing. So they found the local general store and asked the owner if he had any mules for sale. The owner of the store told them, "No, I'm afraid not, boys." The two men then noticed a stack of honeydew melons against the wall.

They asked the storeowner, "What are those things there?" The store owner decided to have a little fun with these two city boys, and he told them, that they were mule eggs, and they were welcome to take a couple with them. He said, You just take those eggs home and wait for them to hatch, and you'll have yourself a couple of mules. The two men from New York thanked the storeowner kindly and set two of the honeydew melons in the back of their pickup truck. As the two men were driving down the road they hit a big bump, which caused one of the melons to bounce out and bust open on the road.

Looking back they saw that they had lost one of their mule eggs and they immediately stopped the truck and got out to take a look and see what had become of it. As they were getting out of the truck a long eared rabbit crossed the road, and seeing the melon busted on the ground hopped right in the middle of it and began eating the melon. As the two men came around the truck, the one exclaimed, "Hey, our mule egg has hatched! Let's get our mule." The two men moved toward the rabbit, but it took off hopping. They chased it this way, then that way, trying to corner it somehow.

Finally after about what seemed like an hour of chasing that rabbit the two men gave up. They both collapsed on the ground. The one man said, "Well I guess we lost our mule." The other man nodded grimly. "Yes, but you know," he said, "I'm not sure I wanted to plow that fast anyway."

We all want to see the Church of Christ grow, we all want to reach the lost for Christ, but often, like the two city boys, our expectations differ from reality. We try to grow the church in our own manner without the proper understanding of how God brings growth to a congregation.