More Thoughts on Discipleship

I'm still reading a lot of Dallas Willard (it's pretty heavy stuff...must be taken slowly in small doses) during my study on what discipleship should be about . Here's a lengthy quote that challenges churches and pastors to rethink their priorities when it comes to discipleship.

A fundamental mistake of the conservative side of the American church today, and most of the Western church, is that it takes as its basic goal to get as many people as possible ready to die and go to heaven. It aims to get people into heaven rather than to get heaven into people...[this] creates groups of people who may be ready to die, but are clearly not ready to live. They rarely can get along with one another, much less those 'outside'...They have found ways of being 'Christian' without being 'Christlike'.

As a result, they actually fall far short of getting as many people as possible ready to die, because the lives of the 'converted' testify against the reality of 'the life that is life indeed'...When we are counting up results we also need to keep in mind the multitudes of people (surrounded by churches) who will not be in heaven because they have never, to their knowledge, seen the reality of Christ in a living human being.
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart