The way Jim Russell sees it, the state of the United States can be explained simply.

We aren't following Jesus.

Russell, 71, a Lansing man who founded the national Amy Foundation, has surveys that show 85 percent of Americans believe in the life, death, resurrection and spiritual existence of Jesus Christ.

Russell has written a book, Awakening the Giant, published in April by Zondervan, subtitled, "Mobilizing and Equipping Christians to Reclaim our Nation in this Generation."

It is the first book for the successful Lansing businessman who founded a business forms company, RBF Inc., 32 years ago. Russell has been president of the National Business Forms Association and his company has won more forms design awards given by Business Forms, Labels & Systems than any other company.

His official biography states that his discipling vision is interwoven into every aspect of life -- his business, his family and his foundation. Russell has been married to Phyllis for 46 years. They raised five children and have 10 grandchildren.

In 1976 Russell founded the Amy Foundation to promote the communication of a biblical truth. The Amy Writing Awards contest gives $34,000 a year to writers of articles published in secular publications that contain a biblical quotation.

The 1996 first prize of $10,000 will go to Suzanne Chazin, a Reader's Digest senior editor, for her article, "The Player of the Game." It was awarded Thursday at the Michigan Prayer Breakfast at the Holiday Inn South in Lansing.

Awakening the Giant has spawned a second writing award program, co-sponsored by the Amy Foundation and the Evangelical Press Association. It will give $10,000 in prizes to articles that challenge the Christian church to disciple the nation, published in Christian publications.

Russell, who has no formal theological training, wrote the book based on his reading and his life.

"My personal experience with Jesus Christ," Russell describes it. "I read the Bible every day, at least one chapter every day."

He reads nonfiction voraciously, he says, including books about aviation (he is a pilot), business and the media.

Speaking about his new book, he says, "I figured 10 months. It was like an assignment. I would sit down and write. Then the next day I always went over everything I wrote the previous day. I continued to refine it to my own sense of order as it relates to the expression."

This book is aimed at the American Christian and the message is simple: change your life and obey Christ's teachings.

The breakdown of the family, teen pregnancy and violence can be traced to a failure to obey Christ, Russell says.

Russell writes that media attention is focused on sports despite the fact that people contributed $56.7 billion to religion in 1992, compared to $4 billion on sports such as baseball, football and basketball.

The dramatic increase in the number of Christian schools corresponds to the Supreme Court decision to remove school prayer from public schools and suppress the teaching of moral and religious values, he writes.

"The correlation among the banning of prayer, declining Christian presence, elimination of any hint of religious symbol or expression and the increased evil of violence and disorder along with a measurably reduced learning experience should hold some lesson for all of us," Russell writes.

Russell has been a member of Bretton Woods Covenant Church on 925 Bretton Road, for 35 years.

"I think that he is on to something when he says the main problem of the church in America is a discipling problem, not an evangelism problem," Pastor Don Lindman says.

Lindman has reviewed the book for several Christian magazines. He says the main theme of the book is similar to one in a book called "In His Steps," written 100 years ago by Charles Sheldon and still in print today.

"It's a novel," Lindman says. "He asks what would Jesus do if he were in my shoes. That's the same thing Jim is saying when he says we have to make disciples out of people."

It is a well-known phenomenon among pastors that the people who say they are Christian and attend church exceeds the number of people who attend church, Lindman says.

"What do you do to make them into people who are following Jesus in their life?" Lindman says.

Lindman, who has been at the Bretton Woods for a year, says he is fascinated by Russell.

"The man's life is consistent with what he's saying," Lindman says. "It's not too often I run into that. He runs his business the way he talks. His family life is consistent with what he preaches."

Source : Sheila Schimpf, " Demand for Disciples, Christians need to practice and obey the teachings of the Bible, author says", Lansing State Journal, May 25, 1996, 1D-2D.

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