I've Been Sandwiched
I am aware that bread is "the staff of life." But I have reached the point where I don't like bread any more. This is particularly true of loaf bread. This is what happened:
I received a letter from the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene which was written on the back of a bread wrapper from a bakery in Lubbock. The letter stated that James W. Nichols, John S. Cayce, and Don Morris were going to contribute the equivalent of 111,562 slices of bread to the Herald of Truth in 1962. About the same time, I received a copy of the Christian Chronicle which said the price of half a loaf of average-size bread would send the gospel to 56 souls through the Herald of Truth. And I received a document from the Gospel Press which said they could reach 10,000 souls with each $17.50 contributed to them. I got to figuring and I got confused. And now I can't eat loaf bread.
To show you exactly how I became confused, and to keep you from being confused, I will give you the benefit of my "calculations" and also a "key" to the terms used in my "operations." First, the key: HOT will be used to designate the Herald of Truth; BB will stand for Baldridge's Bakery; BBB is Baldridge's Batter Whipped Bread; and GP will represent the Gospel Press.
Before I give you the figures with which I became confused, I will present some questions which I tried to answer before I started figuring: How did HOT and BB ever get together in this advertising scheme? Why would BB want to advertise their bread on the back of a letter sent out by a church? Why would HOT want to beg for money on the back side of a bread wrapper? Did BB furnish the wrappers and let HOT do some free advertising? Did HOT furnish the letter and let BB do the free advertising? Did they "cooperate" in the enterprise with one or the other "taking care of the details"? These were the questions in my mind when I started figuring. And following are my figures:
HOT can reach 56 souls with the price of half a loaf of bread, whereas GP can reach 10,000 souls with a $17.50 contribution. The average price of a loaf of bread is 25. Half a loaf would come to 12. Now $17.50 will buy 70 loaves of bread which breaks down into 140 half-loaves. With this 140 half-loaves of bread HOT can reach 7,840 souls. But with the price of these 140 half-loaves of bread GP can reach 10,000. So it is that GP can reach 2,160 more souls with 140 half-loaves of bread than can HOT.
There are 20 slices of bread to the average loaf. By dividing the 111,562 slices of bread by 20, I found that Nichols, Cayce, and Morris were going to contribute the equivalent of 5,578 loaves of bread to HOT this year. Now, 5,578 loaves of bread are equal to 11,156 half-loaves. I multiplied 11,156 half-loaves of bread by 56 souls and found that HOT could reach 624,736 souls with this bread. But GP could sell these 5,578 loaves or 11,156 half-loaves of bread for $1,394.50. I divided this $1,374.50 by $17.50 and multiplied the results by 10,000 souls and found that GP could reach 854 000 souls with the price of this bread. Thus I learned that GP could reach 229,264 more souls with these 111,562 slices of bread than could HOT.
But on the back of the above mentioned HOT letter" was the bread advertisement. This advertisement said BBB doesn't have any poor end slices. Without end slices; that would mean 18 slices per loaf instead of 20. So, if Nichols, Cayce, and Morris make their contribution in BBB -they will contribute 6,203 loaves or 12,406 half-loaves. Multiplying these 12,406 half-loaves by 56 souls I found that HOT could reach 648,736 souls with this kind of bread as against 624,736 it could reach with 20 slices of bread. But figuring on the basis of BBB instead of regular 20 slice bread I found that GP could reach 920,000 with these 12,406 slices, I saw that this 684,736 souls HOT could reach with 111,562 slices of BBB was still short of the 854,000 GP could reach with regular 20 slice bread, but was 60,000 MORE than HOT could reach with 20 slice bread. But with both HOT and GP using BBB, I found that GP could reach 235 264 more souls with 111,562 slices of bread than could HOT.
We still had some figuring to do. During the Newbern debate, Guy N. Woods admitted that, according to Brother Cawyer, the overhead alone for HOT last year was $100, 000.00. Of course the financial report shows the overhead to be much more than that. But I figured on the basis of this admitted $100,000.00. I noted that at 25 per loaf this overhead alone would purchase 400,000 loaves of bread or 800,000 half-loaves. When we multiplied these 800,000 half-loaves of bread by 56 souls we discovered that if HOT could use this overhead for preaching the gospel instead of overhead, they could reach 44,800,000 souls. When we multiplied these 800,000 half-loaves of bread by 12 and divided the result by $17.50 and then multiplied that result by 10,000 we found that GP could reach the staggering total of 57,140,000 souls by using just the overhead of HOT.
But we approached the matter from another angle. The GP told us there were 2,000,000 members of the church of Christ. If each member would contribute one loaf of bread we would have 2,000,000 loaves of bread or 4,000,000 half-loaves. With 4,000,000 half-loaves of bread, HOT can reach 112,000,000 people at 56 souls per one half-loaf of bread. But GP could convert these 4,000,000 half-loaves into $250,000.00 We divided this $250,000.00 by $17.50 and multiplied the result by 10,000 souls and found that GP could reach 142,000,000 with this bread. Thus, GP could reach 30,000,000 more souls with this brotherhood bread than could HOT.
But, now, just as we get ready to go to press, comes another letter from HOT. This letter isn't advertising any bread. In fact, this letter doesn't even mention bread. This letter tells us that HOT can reach 417 souls for each dollar contributed to them. We figured that if HOT was able to reach 417 souls with each dollar contributed, they could reach 7,297; souls for $17.50 as against 7,310 they contribution is in slices of bread and only 7,297 if the contribution is in cash, could reach if the contribution were in half-loaves of bread instead of cash. But this would still fall short of the 10,000 GP could reach if the contributions were in money instead of bread.
From the foregoing, several conclusions are apparent. First, since HOT can reach 7,840 souls with $17.50 if the any contribution to HOT should be in bread and not in money. And, since more souls can be reached with BBB than with regular 20 slice bread, contributions to HOT should be in BBB and not in bread which has end slices. But, inasmuch as GP can reach more souls than HOT regardless of the kind of bread contributed, and since GP can reach more souls than HOT even if the contributions are in money, the 2,000,000 Christians should consider sending their money (or bread as the case may be) to GP instead of HOT.
But we are not so sure that either money or bread should be sent to either GP or HOT. We have other agencies among us who may be able to reach more souls with less bread than GP or HOT. No figures are available as to how many souls they can reach with each dollar or with each slice or bread. However, the Youth Hobby Shop (YHS) of Nashville. Tennessee, and the Western Kentucky Youth Camp (WKYC) are baptizing people right and left. It may well be that the YHS and the WKYC can put your dollars and your loaf bread to better use than either the GP or HOT! So, I recommend that you sell what bread you have on hand (provided you have more on hand than you can eat) and "lay by in store on the first day of the week" with your money at least until figures are available as to how many souls may be reached by YHS and WKYC with each slice of bread.
In closing, I would like to appeal to the directors of HOT. Brethren, did you know that, according to your own figures and the figures of GP, that every time the equivalent of 70 loaves of bread goes to you instead of to GP that 2,160 souls may DIE WITHOUT CHRIST? Isn't there enough of the milk of human kindness in you, and aren't you interested enough in the salvation of the souls of these people, to just go out of business and let people send their bread to GP? Think of the 57,140,000 souls who may die WITHOUT hearing the gospel just because you consume so much on overhead! And think of the THOUSANDS of Christians who will LOSE THEIR SOULS in the DIVIDED CHURCHES on account of your activities.
My appeal to GP is, please check vrItit YHS and WKYC and see if they can reach more soul_ ,;th less bread than you can. If so, why don't you quit too? After all, God's people should be GIVING bread, not BEGGING it. In fact, the Psalmist said he had never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Psa. 37.35. Poor Old David! He couldn't say that now!!!