Over the past year or so of writing these reflections, I’ve found myself returning to a handful of themes repeatedly. I’ve argued that the Kingdom invites us to prioritize character over outcomes, execution over results, and to broaden our understanding of flourishing beyond ourselves and our institutions to include our neighborhoods, our cities, and ultimately the world around us.

Running beneath all of those ideas, however, has been a quieter question.

Paradigm shifts always sound exciting when they’re discussed in the abstract. New ideas. New possibilities. New ways of thinking. But every meaningful shift also carries a cost, and I don’t know that I’ve been honest enough about what that cost might be, and candidly, I think I have probably undersold it.

Perhaps that’s why Jesus spoke so often about counting it.

He didn’t simply invite people to follow Him. He invited them to deny themselves. To leave their nets. To sell what they owned. To love Him more than family. To take up a cross. Repeatedly, Jesus framed the Kingdom not just as something to gain, but as something that would require surrender.

Somewhere along the way, I think we’ve become remarkably good at celebrating the benefits of the Kingdom while quietly minimizing its demands.

Last month, I wrote about the difference between rivers and lakes. Rivers are defined by movement. Lakes are defined by accumulation. Neither is inherently good nor bad, but they produce very different environments.

To be clear, there are extremely understandable reasons we have oriented to become lakes: they are easier to manage, they allow for stability, resources accumulate, and culture becomes more predictable. Planning becomes easier. If no one is moving, then no one is leaving. Leaders stay. Giving remains consistent. Programs become dependable. There is a real sense of safety in stillness.

None of those things is wrong. In fact, every leader I know feels the weight of stewarding people and resources well. Buildings need maintained. Staffs need paid. Ministries need coordinated. Institutional health matters because people matter.

But as I wrote last month, institutional health and Kingdom health don’t always move in perfect lockstep. Healthier disciples almost certainly become harder for institutions to hold onto.  Healthy disciples are sent. They leave comfortable roles to plant churches, serve neighbors, move into overlooked communities, launch ministries, change careers, or simply invest themselves more deeply in the places God has called them.

Movement is beautiful, but it is also massively disruptive.

What a peaceful idea to imagine revival simply layering itself onto our existing structures – as though the Kingdom can move in unprecedented ways without asking us to loosen our grip on anything we’ve spent decades building.

I believe the pieces are in place to see an unprecedented move of the Kingdom in our generation. Never before have churches, businesses, nonprofits, and civic leaders been able to connect, collaborate, and mobilize the way we can today. I believe the opportunity before us is nothing short of extraordinary. At the same time, I also believe we would be naive to think it won’t cost us something significant, even things that feel critical. There’s so much comfort in predictable growth, comfortable patterns, cherished traditions, beautiful buildings, secure jobs, or the quiet confidence that comes from knowing what tomorrow will look like.

But rivers reshape their banks. They always have.

The question is not whether God is willing to move.

The question is whether we are willing to let Him, even if His movement reshapes the very systems and institutions we have spent our lives building.