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We have come out of the Christmas season this year, doing something a little different. Instead of taking our conversations a completely different direction, we decided to dive deeper into the incarnation of Jesus. The message of the incarnation is that God has become a man; that he has come here to be with us. It\\u2019s about his presence.\\xa0

We want to know what that looks like in our lives in a practical sense. What does that mean for me Tuesday morning at work, or at soccer practice Thursday night; or at our family\\u2019s table when we finally get a chance to sit down and have a meal together.\\xa0

This is a year where we want to learn how to practice the presence of God; to be carriers of the presence of God. We want to learn how to literally \\u201cflesh\\u201d out our faith.

Jesus made the announcement that he had come to establish his kingdom in the world; it is a new and different way of living life. So what does it look like to live as he commanded, now that the kingdom of God is here on earth.\\xa0

Before he left, Jesus made a remarkable statement. Jesus said "I\\u2019m going to give you the keys of the kingdom." I\\u2019ve taught you, I\\u2019ve shown you, but I\\u2019m going to go now, so here are the keys. He turned the success of things over to us. And we are not doing so well with those keys, at least not in our part of the world.

80 years ago, close to 80% of Americans attended a church. In 1980, only 40 percent were attending. In 2012, it was around 25 percent, and by 2020 some say it could be as little as 10 percent of the population actually going to church (much less following Jesus). If we continue to be Christians like we are, and if we keep doing church like we are, we will be as unchurched as Europe or anywhere else in the west, where people no longer look to Christians or the church for spiritual help. And this is why we need to have a serious look about what it means to follow Jesus. What it really is to establish the kingdom of God.