In the last twenty-five years, forty million people in America—roughly one in four regular churchgoers—have simply stopped attending church. They didn't all deconstruct. They didn't all have church hurt. Most of them just... drifted away. Got busy. Decided Jesus wasn't asking that much of them anyway.

Here's a thought experiment: Imagine you own a factory where only every fourteenth item off the assembly line is a cup—which is what the factory is supposed to make. Would you say that factory is good at making cups? Of course not.

Now let me ask an uncomfortable question: Are the current systems of the Western church actually good at making disciples of Jesus? Or is a Jesus-follower more of a happy accident that emerges despite our systems rather than because of them?

Because when forty million people walk out the door, that's not a marketing problem. That's a systemic problem.