Why does discipleship matter so much?

We do not receive the salvation of God just to go to heaven. We receive the life of God in us - the very life of Jesus through his Spirit - so that we might slowly, surely, be conformed into the image of Jesus.

This is discipleship. Yes, we are changed when the Spirit enters us. Yes, we are a new creation. Yes, we are dubbed "righteous." But that creation is not static. We have been given a citizenship, and now we learn what it means to live that out.

This is discipleship.

It is why discipleship is so important, but also why the WAY we do discipleship is so important. Bad discipleship is worse than no discipleship at all.

Much of our Christian discipleship seems to be about protecting young people from the world. This is wrong-headed. The world should be seeking ways to protect itself from discipled young people!

When we take people out of contextual life - out of Church, out of real-life scenarios, out of neighbourhoods - and sequester them in all-Christian-context bubbles and sub-cultures, then we are not really doing the work of discipleship. Discipleship happens in the world, or it does not happen.

Discipleship happens when people gather with those who are unlike them, maybe even those who they have been taught to avoid, those they have learned to think of as the "other" or even the "enemy". In those gatherings, we learn to love. But this is not romantic or heroic. This is not easy. It is not always safe. We learn to love people who still really bother us, who still mess up, who are still incomprehensible to us, who come from wholly different cultural assumptions than us. We learn to love people - in practice, in real life -  who do not look, smell, talk or think like us. That sounds cool, but it is only cool for awhile. This is the way Holy Spirit grew his Church in Acts. Comfort was not a high priority.

Discipleship is hard.

And so we tend to choose the lesser options, the easier options, the controllable options, the "safe" options. But in so doing, are we not in danger of creating disciples who are lesser, easier, controllable, and safe? Does that sound like Jesus?

Discipleship is learning to deny ourselves and pick up our crosses. This does not happen in isolation, in carefully vetted environments, in Christian "safe zones". This happens when Jesus sends us out like lambs among lions, and we learn to trust God or go home.