What makes anyone think that a bunch of people who are fairly content with their lives and who are moving 'up in the world' might want to make that a secondary priority to 'taking up their cross daily' and following Jesus?
Why would your average middle class suburbanite sacrifice the pleasures and self gratification of life as they know it to live a counter cultural life of discipleship? How do we communicate that kind of a call to people?
My ego is interested in seeing a 'bigger church', but I'm really quite unimpressed with just more people if we have no more disciples, no more people choosing to live life like Jesus would. I know this whole thing is a process etc etc. Blah blah blah... but some days I look at how hard it is to make disciples out of those who are in the church and I wonder how the hell are we going to make any kind of a dent on those outside...
Some days I look in the mirror and I am reminded that if I've been at this for 30 years and I am still struggling along then what can I expect from people who have no concept of who Christ is?
So my quesiton is, have I sacrificed ANY of the pleasures of this life in order to be His disciple? Not sure. I could probably find things that I have done and efforts I have made. But they have all been around the edges; they have not gone to the core of my life. The sacrifices I have made have been no real threat to my standing and security in the world.