The only value of numbers is in comparison; that's why you find statistics in columns.
—Wayne Jacobsen

Lucy finally met him face to face among the trees in the soft moonlight. She had seen the great lion earlier but had been dissuaded from following him because of the taunts of her friends. Now the lion Aslan, after a gentle rebuke, tells her what she must do: "Go and wake the others and tell them to follow. If they will not, then you at least must follow me alone."

In my office hangs a large sketch of a lion that depicts this scene from C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. The eyes of the lion, who symbolizes Christ, seem to plead, "Why won't you simply follow me and not worry about what others think?"

I needed that encouragement and correction as I pioneered a new church. I remember the time five people showed up for a Sunday morning service for which I had prepared a keynote sermon on that body's development—and two of those were visitors. Back home I went into my study and wept. Not for ...

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