This submission to the threshold of a cross is at the very root of our following Jesus; it changes the game completely.

If we could be freed from our aversion to loss, our whole outlook on risk would change.

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.

It is vital to see ourselves as part of an ongoing journey started by our heroes in the Scriptures.

When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God's purposes in and through his people.

Many church folk, in their self-conscious attempt to be overtly morally upright, emit all the wrong signals, thus messing with people's perception of the gospel.

Go among the people. Don't assume you know what church looks like.