Unless the church is equipping believers to embrace the values and vision of the kingdom of God and turn away from the materialism, consumerism, greed, and power of the present age, it not only abandons its biblical mandate, it is rendered missionally ineffective.

Our point isn't to make an examination of popular film but to illustrate that the yearning for a heroic adventure lies just beneath the surface of our consciousness; film, television, literature, sports, and travel are in a sense vicarious adventures.

But herein lies the rub: Christianity has been on a long-term trend of decline in every Western cultural context that we can identify.

Judgments about who belongs in the Hall of Fame are extremely subjective.

Building community for its own sake is like attending a cancer support group without having cancer.

In missional churches, the baby birds have been pushed out of the nest and are learning to fly for themselves.

The quest for heroic adventure then is a quest for the gospel, although it might not be seen that way by everyone.