Church growth and discipleship

This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"

From The Forgotten Ways:

We can’t seem to make disciples based on a consumerist approach to the faith. We plainly cannot consume our way into discipleship. All of us must become much more active in the equation of becoming lifelong followers of Jesus than what consumption can produce. Here’s the problem at least as I see it; consumerism is detrimental to discipleship and church growth in its conteporary form is almost completely built on a consumeristic model. That’s just one of the reasons why we must move from it to a more missional model that values the centrality of discipleship in the central element in the equation of church.