When Jesus said to go into all nations and make disciples, He meant it. Maybe He also meant that when we go into all nations proclaiming the gospel, we become disciples ourselves.

My mentor and life-long mission "mobilizer," Seth Barnes, once told me that he didn't get involved in missions because of some great calling to evangelize the world in five years or because he came from a family of traveling revivalists. He got involved in missions because he heard the call of Jesus to make disciples, so he responded. As he grew to know the Lord more, he found himself loving discipleship more and settled on a way that worked—missions.

Discipleship isn't a word I heard growing up. I was caught off guard when I started to read the Bible for myself and found something that looked a lot different than what I had experienced in church. I kept seeing a single word: Go. God told Abram to leave his country and Moses to lead his countrymen out of Egypt and Nehemiah to leave his position as the king's cupbearer to restore Jerusalem. God's people move. They go.

Take a Risk

Most ministry leaders (especially youth workers) would agree that in a culture that promotes individualism to an extreme, discipleship is hard to pull off. It's challenging enough to get people to schedule regular times of worship into their busy routines much less in-depth spiritual formation. The best most of us can muster is a weekly one-on-one meeting over coffee with a mentor or a group Bible study.

Yet, we see so little of these methods in the gospels. With respect to discipleship in North America, something crucial isn't present. What's missing, exactly? Risk. Adventure. Faith. Sacrifice.

"Follow Me." When Jesus spoke those two words to His early followers, He was proclaiming what it means to be a disciple for all generations. He neither was starting a club for armchair theologians nor waxing philosophical and throwing another school of thought into the mix of ideologies. He was introducing a new way of living, and He was declaring that He actually embodied that new way.

Jesus doesn't segment theology from practice as we do. In John 14, He links the way we live our lives, the truth we believe and the hope we have all to a single entity—Himself. The only way to participate in this life is to join Him, to walk beside Him, to ask Him stupid questions (e.g. "Should I call fire down upon these people?"), to respond to His invitations and commands.

"Follow Me," He says, "and I will make you fishers of men." The early disciples chose to do this, and we have the very same choice before us today.

Truly a Sacrifice

Let's face it: In our culture today, there aren't many opportunities to introduce young people to what it really means to follow Jesus. The closest thing to biblical discipleship in many churches is entertainment.