Are You Missing Out On The Most Profound Experience of Life?

I am often asked, “Why discipleship? Why should I commit to a discipleship program like Impact195?”

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Because truly following Jesus is tough — We all need equipping!

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The road to maturity in Christ is a narrow one. There are lots of detours and distractions along the way. Jesus warned that the way that leads to destruction is broad and many are on it. But the way to life is narrow, difficult and few find it. The reality is that the majority of people you ask direction from are on the wrong road and will happily point you straight to destruction. So few are truly following the path Jesus took that most Christians rarely get confronted with an alternative approach to living – one that involves radical dependance on God.

Consider these stats on the spiritual state of America today*:

• 1% of people are unaware of sin
• 16% are aware and indifferent to sin
• 39% are worried about the implications of their sin
• 9% have confesses and received forgiveness for their sin
• 24% are committed to faith activities
• 6% are experiencing a prolonged period of spiritual discontent
• 3% are experiencing personal brokeness
• 1% are choosing to surrender and submit fully to God
• 0.5% are enjoying a profound intimacy with and for God
• 0.5% are experiencing a profound compassion and love for humanity

Did you catch that?

99.5% of people in America are missing out on the life God intended for them

Clearly Jesus intended for us to get to the place where we were experiencing profound intimacy with God and a profound love and compassion for our fellow man. Surely He didn’t come and die on the cross so that we could just go to church. Yet, 76% have not yet moved past church attendance towards a life fully submitted to Jesus. Going to church once a week or twice a month isn’t discipleship – it’s life support! It’s the bare minimum necessary to get you to heaven, but not enough to bring heaven to bear in your life and the lives of those around you!

We have a discipleship crisis in the church in America today!

The current discipleship crisis is so profound and pervasive that we don’t even realize how far we have fallen from the normal life of faith that God intended. We encounter so few people that are on the narrow and difficult road that we are unaware that there even is another road we could be taking. All the while the majority keep directing us down the broad, comfortable, easy road. The call it the road of personal responsibility that is really a road of self-preservation. What ever happened to the road of Christian responsiveness? What ever happened to risking in all for the cause of Christ.

Where are the young men and women of this generation that will respond to the call of God to fulfill the Great Commission?

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*Barna, George (2011). Maximum Faith: Live Like Jesus (p. 25). Metainformation, Inc.