Pillar Four: Adventure

Let’s be honest about the story most Christian families are living.


Work hard. Pay the mortgage. Help the kids with homework. Get to church when the schedule allows. Try to be kind. Survive the week. Repeat.


That’s not a bad life. But is it a great story?


Author Donald Miller asks a question that stays with you: if your life were a movie, would anyone want to watch it? Not because it needs to be dramatic or spectacular, but because a good story requires something more than comfort and routine. It requires a character pursuing something worth pursuing.


The fourth pillar of a Kingdom Outpost family is Adventure, and it’s the most outward-facing of all four pillars. It’s the invitation for your family to stop being the audience of someone else’s story and start being a team on mission in God’s.


The Nest vs. the Team

Most families, if they’re honest, function more like a nest than a team.


A nest is a place of comfort, safety, and recovery. It focuses inward and shelters its occupants from the outside world. A nest has value because families need safety and belonging. But a nest that never launches anything is just a very comfortable dead end.


A team is different. A team brings together people who commit to a shared mission and move together toward something that matters. Teams face challenges. Teams sacrifice for one another. Teams have a reason to show up beyond their own comfort.


The Adventure pillar asks a simple but powerful question: Is your family a nest, or a team?


From the very beginning, God designed the family as a team. In Genesis 1, God gave His mission to a family, not to an individual or an institution: be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth as image-bearers. The family was God’s original mission structure. It still is.


Family ON Mission, Not Family AND Mission

One of the most important distinctions we make in Kingdom Outpost training is the difference between three approaches to family and mission.

Family OR Mission: Some Christian families opt out of mission entirely. They focus on raising good kids who do not let the world corrupt them. Beyond that, there’s no margin, no energy, no bandwidth for anything outward. They leave mission to other people: single people, empty nesters, and ministry professionals.


Family AND Mission: Other families try to do both but keep them carefully separated. Mission is what dad does on Tuesday nights. Family is the rest of the time. The two rarely touch, which leads to burnout and a family that misses the transformative benefit of being on mission together.


Family ON Mission: This is the Adventure pillar. It means integrating discipleship and mission into the fabric of daily family life by inviting people into your meals, your rhythms, and your stories. It means your family isn’t in the way of mission. They are the way through which God accomplishes it.


Mother Teresa once said: “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” Theologian Wolfgang Reinbold, studying how the early church grew from 120 people to the dominant religion of the Roman Empire in just 300 years, found that the primary engine was not superstar evangelists. It was ordinary families who raised their children in the faith and shared it with the people immediately around them. One family at a time. One neighbor at a time.


The family on mission is not a modern innovation. It is the original strategy.


Finding Your Family’s Mission Field

Adventure isn’t only about big trips or dramatic gestures, though those have their place. It begins with identifying where God has already positioned your family to make a difference. We call this simple framework P.I.E.S.


Proximity: Who is right around you? Your neighbors, your apartment building, or the families at your kids’ school? These are the people God has placed in your immediate orbit. Proximity alone is a form of calling.


Interests: What does your family love to do? Sports, cooking, music, outdoor activities, or board games? Shared interests create natural relational bridges to people who don’t yet know Christ.


Experiences: What hard things has your family walked through? Addiction recovery, blended family challenges, loss, financial hardship, or disability? The places where you’ve suffered are often the places where your story has the most power to encourage others.


Service: Where are there needs around you that your family could meet together? A food bank, a neighbor who needs help with yard work, or a family going through a hard season who needs a meal. Serving together shapes a family’s character in ways that instruction alone never can.

Start there. Not with a grand plan, but with a next step. Invite one neighbor to dinner. Volunteer somewhere as a family once a month. Make hospitality a regular practice rather than an occasional event.


What Adventure Does to a Family

When a family lives on mission together, something happens that no other experience can produce.


In the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller writes about a dad who didn’t “fix” his daughter’s life with a better argument or a stricter rule. He invited her into a bigger story. And that story gave her something to live for that was more compelling than the small one she had been living.


This is what adventure does to families. It builds something between parents and children that ordinary life rarely generates: shared purpose, shared sacrifice, and shared memory. It gives teenagers a reason to engage with their family rather than seek significance elsewhere. It gives young children a vision for the world that extends beyond their own happiness.


And it plants something in the soil of a family that grows for generations.


The Bigger Picture

The Adventure pillar is the most outward-facing of the four, but it depends on the other three. A family with multigenerational vision understands why mission matters beyond their own lifetime. A family that embraces the Priesthood of the Family knows they carry God’s presence wherever they go. A family with strong culture has the rootedness to engage the world without letting the world shape them.


Together, these four pillars describe a family that is genuinely dangerous to the powers of darkness, not because of its own power, but because it surrenders to God. That family puts down roots deep enough to live outwardly and faces outward enough to leave a legacy.

That is a Kingdom Outpost.


And it starts with a willingness to stop living a small story and ask God what a bigger one looks like for your family.


Making It Practical: Where to Start

Adventure does not begin with a mission trip or a major commitment. It begins with a next step: one decision to turn your family outward. Here are a few places to begin.


Map your P.I.E.S.

  • Sit down as a family and identify who is already in your Proximity. Write down the names of neighbors, families at your kids’ school, or coworkers you see regularly.
  • Ask what Interests your family shares with people around you: sports, food, music, and outdoor activities. Those are natural bridges.
  • Talk about your Experiences: what hard things has your family walked through that might be exactly what someone else needs to hear?
  • Identify one simple Service opportunity your whole family can do together in the next 30 days.


Start with your table.

  • Hospitality is the most accessible form of family mission. Pick one family or individual to invite to dinner in the next two weeks.
  • Make it simple. The goal is connection, not performance. A meal does not have to be impressive to be meaningful.
  • Make hospitality a monthly rhythm before you try to make it a weekly one.


Name the story your family is living.

  • Ask your kids at the dinner table: If our family were a team, what would we be playing for?
  • Ask yourself: What is our family doing right now that is bigger than us? If you can’t answer that question, it’s not a failure; it’s an invitation.
  • Write down one sentence describing what you want your family to be on mission for over the next year. Post it somewhere you will see it.


Take one step toward a shared adventure.

  • It could be a local service project, a family mission trip, or simply committing to pray together for someone by name each week.
  • The size of the step matters less than the direction. Families on mission are not extraordinary people; they are ordinary families who said yes.
  • Your next step will become the story your children tell their children. Make it worth telling.


This is the fourth of four pillars that define a Kingdom Outpost family. The first pillar, Multigenerational Vision, anchors a family in something larger than itself — a legacy of faith built intentionally across generations. The second pillar, Priesthood of the Family, names who is responsible for building it.  The third pillar, Culture, defines the values, rhythms, and boundaries that intentionally form daily life within the home.

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Pillar Three: Culture

June 3, 2026
Imagine you invited a stranger into your home for a week. Not a guest who’s on their best behavior — just an observer, present for the whole unfiltered reality of your family’s daily life. What would they conclude about what your family believes? Not from a plaque on the wall or a Bible on the shelf. From the way mornings start and evenings end. From how conflict is handled and how forgiveness is extended. From how much screen time is allowed to whose needs come first. From what your family protects on the calendar and what it surrenders without a fight. That observer would walk away with an accurate picture of your family’s culture — the real one, not the aspirational one. And for many of us, that picture is shaped far more by the culture around us than by anything we have deliberately chosen. The third pillar of a Kingdom Outpost family is Culture. And it begins with the conviction that the formation happening inside your home every day is either intentional or accidental — but it is always happening. Family culture is the atmosphere of your home: the values you live by, the rhythms that give your days and weeks their shape, and the boundaries that protect what matters most from being crowded out by what matters less. Values are what your family stands for — the non-negotiables that shape how you make decisions, treat one another, and engage the world. Rhythms are the repeated practices that keep those values alive in daily life. Boundaries are the things you’re willing to say no to in order to protect what you’ve said yes to. Together, these three elements create the hidden curriculum of your home — the education your children are receiving every single day, whether you planned it or not. The Problem: Most Families Are on Autopilot The honest reality is that most families’ cultures are not primarily shaped by their values. They’re shaped by the default settings of modern life. The calendar fills with activities. Screens absorb the margin. Busyness becomes the ambient condition of family life. Meals happen quickly or separately. Spiritual conversations get crowded out by logistics. Before long, the culture you’re building isn’t one you chose — it’s one that assembled itself around whatever was most urgent and most available. This drift isn’t a moral failure. It’s what happens to families who are trying hard in a culture that is not designed to support what they actually care about. Aaron Renn describes the world we now live in as a “negative world” — one that doesn’t just ignore Christian values but actively treats them as backward or harmful. In that environment, the default is not neutral. It is working against you. Which means the families who are winning this battle are not the ones who are trying hardest. They're the ones who are living most intentionally. Values: What Does Your Family Actually Stand For? Every family has values. The question is whether they have been named, agreed upon, and lived out — or whether they exist only as vague aspirations that quietly lose to whatever is most convenient. Naming your family’s values is not about writing a mission statement for the wall. It’s about answering the question: what is non-negotiable for us? What do we refuse to let the culture define for us? What commitments are we making to one another — about how we treat each other, how we spend our time, how we use our resources, and how we engage the world? Different families will arrive at different values, expressed differently. That’s appropriate. There is no one-size-fits-all set of family values. Each family has to do the work of discerning how God wants to uniquely express His Kingdom through them. Research shows that children raised in homes with clearly articulated and consistently modeled values demonstrate better outcomes across virtually every dimension: emotional health, academic performance, resilience, and faith retention. Values don’t just guide behavior — they form identity. Rhythms: Making Values Visible in Daily Life A value without a rhythm attached to it is just a sentiment. Rhythms are how values become real — the repeated practices that keep what you believe alive in the texture of ordinary life. Think in three categories: daily, weekly, and annual. Daily rhythms might include a morning affirmation, a family prayer at meals, a bedtime routine that includes blessing each child by name, or a question at the dinner table that opens the door for real conversation. These are small practices — but done consistently over years, they are profoundly formative. Weekly rhythms might include a family meal that is unhurried and phone-free, a Sabbath practice that creates margin for rest and reconnection, or a one-on-one time between parent and child. These become the heartbeat of the family week. Annual rhythms might include a family planning conversation at the new year, holiday traditions you deliberately connect to what your family believes, a family mission opportunity, or a getaway without the kids to intentionally invest in your marriage. These become the anchors of your family’s story — the moments children remember decades later. Boundaries: The Things You’re Willing to Protect If rhythms are what your family says yes to, boundaries are what your family says no to. And in the current environment, the ability to say no — clearly, consistently, without apology — is one of the most important skills a family can develop. Technology is the most obvious frontier. Teens now spend an average of nearly nine hours a day on screens — not counting schoolwork.[1] Fifty percent of teenagers report feeling addicted to their mobile devices.[2] The research on the impact of early smartphone access and social media exposure on adolescent mental health is sobering. Families that have navigated this well have not done so by accident — they made a decision, held the line, and protected something. But boundaries extend well beyond technology. They include how you protect time together on the family calendar, what you will and won’t allow to crowd out a weekly family meal, how you handle the pressure of travel sports or overscheduling, and what relational dynamics you will not allow to take root in your home. Here is the paradigm shift that changes everything: boundaries are not about limiting freedom. They are the environment in which real freedom grows. When you protect the time, the relationships, and the spiritual health of your household, you are creating the conditions for your family to actually thrive. Making It Practical: Where to Start You build intentional culture incrementally incrementally — one decision at a time, one rhythm at a time. Here are a few places to begin. Name your values. Sit down with your spouse (and your kids, if they’re old enough) and ask: What is non-negotiable for us? What do we want to be known for as a family? Write down two or three values. Keep them short enough to remember. Post them somewhere visible. Refer back to them when decisions get hard. Build one daily rhythm around those values. A morning affirmation. A question at dinner. A prayer before bed. Choose one and protect it. Consistency matters more than complexity. The same small practice repeated over years becomes part of who your family is. Once it’s locked in, add another. But do not add another until the first one is actually happening. Set one boundary you’ve been avoiding. Technology, overscheduling, a relational dynamic that is quietly doing damage — name it. Decide together what you are going to protect, and what you are willing to say no to in order to protect it. Hold the line, even when it’s uncomfortable. Boundaries are not walls — they are the environment in which your family actually gets to breathe. Do a culture audit. Spend one week paying attention. What rhythms are already running in your home? Which ones are you proud of? Which ones happened by accident and are forming your kids in ways you did not intend? You cannot change what you have not named. Naming it is the first act of intentional culture-building. A Final Word: The Culture You Build Is a Gift The culture you intentionally build inside your home will outlast you. Children raised in homes with strong, consistent family culture carry it with them. They recognize it when they encounter homes that don’t have it. They bring it into the families they build. The investment you make in shaping your home’s culture today is one of the most lasting investments you can make across generations. You don’t have to get it perfect. You don’t have to overhaul everything at once. Start with one value you want your family to be known for. Build one rhythm around it. Set one boundary that protects it. Small steps, taken consistently, build cultures that last. This is the third of four pillars that define a Kingdom Outpost family. The first pillar, Multigenerational Vision, anchors a family in something larger than itself — a legacy of faith built intentionally across generations. The second pillar, Priesthood of the Family , names who is responsible for building it. Footnotes https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/8-18-census-integrated-report-final-web_0.pdf https://www.commonsensemedia.org/press-releases/new-report-finds-teens-feel-addicted-to-their-phones-causing-tension-at-home

Pillar Two: Priesthood of the Family

May 4, 2026
Nearly 3 out of 5 young people raised in the church walk away from their faith after high school. Read that again. More than half. We have more churches than ever. More Christian content, more ministry conferences, more resources for parents, more youth programming than at any point in history. And yet the faith of the next generation has never been more fragile. Something is clearly not working. The data, and Scripture, keep pointing to the same diagnosis: we have outsourced the spiritual formation of our children to professionals (pastors, youth workers, teachers). Professionals, no matter how good, cannot do what parents were created to do. Professionals should complement the primary work of parents, not replace it. This is the second of four pillars that define a Kingdom Outpost family. The first pillar, Multigenerational Vision , anchors a family in something larger than itself — a legacy of faith built intentionally across generations. This pillar, the Priesthood of the Family, names who is responsible for building it. God has not assigned that work to professionals or institutions. He has given it to parents — and this pillar is about equipping them to own it. The Outsourcing Problem It happened gradually. As modern life became more specialized, the instinct to find a professional for every need crept into the church. We have children’s ministers, youth pastors, small group leaders, and discipleship coordinators. All of these roles serve important functions. But somewhere along the way, many Christian parents began treating them as the primary spiritual leaders of their children, rather than as support for what was supposed to happen at home. The result is a generation of children who know more about what their youth pastor believes than what their father believes. Who have had more spiritually formative conversations with a camp counselor than around their own family’s table. This is not primarily a church problem. It is a home problem. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 clearly lines out where spiritual formation takes root: “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Not at church. At home. In the ordinary, repeated, unhurried moments of daily life. What Is the Priesthood of the Family? For most of church history, the word priest called to mind a specially trained, officially ordained religious professional — someone set apart from ordinary life to mediate between God and everyone else. If you wanted access to God, you went through them. The Protestant Reformation blew that door open. First Peter 2:9 says it plainly: "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession." Not the clergy. You. Every believer. In Christ, you have direct, unmediated access to God — to His presence, His Word, His voice. You don't need a go-between. The veil was torn. The door is open. And that access comes with a calling: to minister to those in your care, beginning with the people under your own roof. Martin Luther captured it with a simple phrase: "a priest at every elbow." He meant that in any gathering of believers, you are surrounded by priests — ordinary men and women who carry the presence of God and are called to serve one another. No title required. No seminary degree. Just a life surrendered to Christ and a willingness to lead. When you apply that to the family, it becomes one of the most clarifying truths in Scripture: you are the priest of your home. Not the youth pastor. Not the children's minister. Not the most spiritually gifted person at your church. You. The parent at the dinner table, the one tucking kids in at night, the one your children watch when life gets hard. That is not a burden reserved for the especially qualified. It is the calling that belongs to every parent in every home. Three Functions of a Family Priest What does it look like practically to function as a priest in your home? Scripture points to three primary responsibilities. We summarize them as: Create, Carry, and Call. 1. Create an environment where your family can meet with God. In ancient Israel, the priests didn’t design the tabernacle. God did. But they prepared it. They maintained it, kept it pure, and set it apart so that His presence could dwell among His people. In your home, this means intentionally shaping the rhythms and spaces where God is welcomed, a dinner table with room for spiritual conversation, a bedtime routine that includes prayer, a weekly Sabbath that creates margin for rest and connection with God. This doesn’t need to be elaborate. It needs to be consistent. 2. Carry the presence of God. The priests of Israel carried the ark through the wilderness and into battle. Wherever they went, the people were reminded that God was with them. As parents, we carry His presence into our homes through how we live, how we respond to stress, how we handle failure, how we treat each other, how we receive grace. Here’s the honest reality: your children are watching not for your best moments but for your most unguarded ones. When you lose your temper and come back to apologize, you are teaching them something profound about repentance. When you face a hard season with faith rather than panic, you are teaching them something about the character of God. The presence you carry is not just about what you do in your organized family devotional. It is about who you are when no one is performing. 3. Call out identity with words of blessing. The Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6 was not a priests’ invention. It was God’s. The priests were commanded to declare over Israel what God had already promised: that His people were chosen, loved, and set apart. Their words didn’t create that identity. They confirmed it. As parents, we do the same. We speak God’s truth over our children before the world speaks its own version. We name who they are in Christ before peer pressure, social media, or cultural confusion tries to name them something else. The words you speak over your children, consistently, specifically, rooted in Scripture, become one of the most powerful forces shaping their identity. What About Imperfect Priests? Every honest parent will read this and feel the weight of their own inadequacy. The failures, the missed opportunities, the seasons of spiritual passivity. We have all been there. But notice who God chose to establish the pattern of multigenerational priestly faithfulness: Abraham. A man who lied to Pharaoh, doubted God’s promise, and tried to engineer his own solution through Hagar. His failures are extensive and well-documented. Yet God called him faithful. Because faithfulness is not the absence of failure. It is the persistent posture of returning. Abraham kept coming back to the altar, kept listening for God’s voice, kept leading his household in the direction of covenant faithfulness. That’s the model. Your children don’t need a perfect priest. They need a present one. One who is honest about their failures, quick to seek forgiveness, and unwilling to quit. Where to Start If this is new territory for your family, the most important thing is not to find the perfect system. It is to begin. Start with one daily rhythm, a prayer before bed, a brief moment of Scripture at breakfast, a question at dinner that opens the door for spiritual conversation. Build from there. Over time, these small repeated practices become the architecture of a family that knows how to meet with God together. The spiritual development of your family is yours to lead. That is not a burden. It is one of the most significant privileges you have been given. You are the priest of your home. Now walk in it. Making It Practical: Embracing your role as the priest of your home does not require a seminary degree or a perfect track record. It requires a willingness to begin with what you have. Here are a few concrete places to start. Establish a daily rhythm. Choose one consistent moment each day, breakfast, bedtime, or the dinner table, and anchor it with a brief prayer or a question that opens spiritual conversation. It does not have to be long. Five minutes done faithfully beats an elaborate plan that never happens. Write it on the calendar if you need to. Protect it like you would any other appointment. Speak blessing over your children. Before bed or before school, say something specific and true about who your child is in Christ. Name a character quality you see in them. Pray a short blessing over them out loud. Do this consistently, and watch what begins to take root in them, and in you. Let them see you receive grace. When you fail, and you will, do not disappear or deflect. Go back and own it. Apologize to your kids when you need to. Ask God’s forgiveness out loud where they can hear it. This is not weakness. It is some of the most powerful priestly leadership you will ever model. Build toward a weekly family practice. Once daily rhythms begin to take hold, add one weekly practice: a family devotional, a meal with intentional conversation, a Sabbath rest that creates space for connection. Start small. One rhythm, done consistently, builds more than ten rhythms attempted and abandoned. The goal is not a perfect family. It is a home where God is present and your children know it. A Final Word The spiritual direction of your home does not form by accident. Someone shapes it, and God designed that responsibility to rest with you. You do not need to have every answer, but you do need to lead. Your children are not looking for a perfect example. They are watching a faithful one, and they are learning what it means to follow God by watching how you follow Him. Start where you are. Stay consistent, and keep coming back. The leadership you carry today will shape what your family believes, how they live, and who they become. That is worth leading well.

Generations Strengthen Each Other

May 4, 2026
Chuck had led a small men’s group from his home for years. Like most groups, attendance shifted with the seasons. Some weeks ten men gathered. Other weeks only a few showed up to open Scripture, talk honestly about life, and pray together. One summer evening, something unexpected happened. A new name appeared on the group signup list. Chuck assumed an older man wanted to join. Instead, when the doorbell rang, an eighteen year old stood on the porch. He walked into a room of men mostly in their thirties through sixties and immediately joined the conversation. He spoke openly about his faith, served in children’s ministry, and attended church consistently. Before the night ended, he asked a simple question. Could he invite some friends? The following week, he returned with three more high school seniors. Over the next several months, those young men became part of the group. They showed up ready to engage, read Scripture daily, invited others to church, and demonstrated a depth of faith that stood out. “These guys inspired us as much as we encouraged them,” Chuck said. “They pursued Jesus in a way that made all of us want to grow.” As the relationships deepened, something else became clear. These young men did not simply attend. They pursued wisdom. They wanted to spend time with older men who had faced real challenges and could speak honestly about faith, failure, and growth. That pursuit stirred something in the group. During a Sunday service, Chuck sensed a clear prompting. One of these young men should attend the Youth Leadership Initiative, a wilderness leadership experience that challenges young leaders and helps them understand what it means to lead with purpose. At first, he considered sending one. That conviction did not settle. Why send one when four were ready? Chuck shared the idea with the men in his group. He hesitated to ask for financial support, knowing some carried real financial strain. Within an hour, every man committed to give. By the end of the week, they raised more than enough to send all four. “One of the men had just gone through bankruptcy,” Chuck said. “And he still gave. Every man stepped forward because they believed in investing in these young men.” They kept the plan quiet. At the next gathering, they asked the students to come because they had something to share. When the moment came, the group told them the cost was already covered. All four could attend. One of the young men struggled to accept it. The next day, he told Chuck he did not feel worthy. He believed someone else deserved the opportunity more. Chuck reminded him that leadership in God’s Kingdom does not depend on background or status. God forms leaders where He places them. After that conversation, he agreed to go.