Taking Responsibility for Our Growth
by Jon Schrock, Field Coordinator for Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee
Growth has rewards and responsibilities. Each JBS member is inherently responsible for the continued growth of the Society. Sharing and proclaiming the foundational principles and beliefs of The John Birch Society, along with educating and informing fellow patriots, are skills worth learning for every member. To quickly achieve this ability to share and proclaim, one must be actively learning. ShopJBS is filled with opportunities for learning. Birchers are learners, and learners are recruiters. Growth does not happen by accident; it is deliberate. Your growth will become contagious, and you will have natural growth from this. Stale, old information is unattractive, but updated and accurate information draws those desiring to keep our Republic.
Let’s not neglect responsibility for growth post-recruitment (also known as member integration or activation). If you emphasize steps for action when activating a member, you will grow your recruitment metrics. Patriots are looking for and craving action. Bite-sized actionable steps will gain you new members and momentum, and there is no shortage of actionable steps for JBS members. Continued attachment to a chapter only comes when members feel they are being engaged. Tireless hours of monotonous repetition do little to move the needle of success toward less government. Holding meetings simply for the sake of meeting will create disillusionment and eventually lead to a reduction in membership. Let it never be said of a Birch meeting that we failed to provide solutions or actions to address problems. Simply gaining membership is futile and ineffective; a body that is educated, empowered, and engaged is much more potent. Some organizations proclaim how mighty they are due to their numbers, but numbers for numbers’ sake will lead to a dilution in effectiveness.
Misinformation is a tool of the enemy; our weapon in this battle is truth. Truth is defined in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary as, “Veracity; purity from falsehood; practice of speaking truth; habitual disposition to speak truth; as when we say, a man is a man of truth.” As the Bible states in John 17:17, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” Our long-standing record of truth in a battle of misinformation stands as a monument that we must highlight. We should find guidance in Joshua 4, where the Israelites built a monument as a sign of God’s truth and power. Some may ask, “Do you believe us now?” Our believability will increase instinctively and resonate in the hearts of patriots when they learn of the rich history of the JBS.
As part of a daily action plan, all JBS members should investigate (or review) the history of The John Birch Society. When was the last time you read The Blue Book? Dust it off, pour yourself a hot cup of coffee, and read again the words of our founder. Have you recently reignited your knowledge of John Birch? It would do us all well to remember the namesake of our Society. Pour that second cup of coffee and begin a journey of fact-finding as you read The Life of John Birch. Armed with the aforementioned ideas and truths, you will have little trouble recruiting and retaining Birchers.