I found out the hard way that if we don't disciple people, the culture sure will.

Mission is the practical demonstration, whether by speech or by action, of the glorious lordship of Jesus.

If we are going to make the change from community to communitas, and not just end up with an unsustainable adrenaline-junkie culture, we must have a sophisticated process to form people into adventurer-disciples.

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

You plant the gospel. You don't plant churches.

We will have to take risks, to chance failure, to be willing to walk away from the familiar paths that have brought us to this point.

Interestingly, it's as though the gospel story of Jesus is the archetypal heroic journey, the embodiment of the very adventure that all people in every epoch have desired.