“People are leaving the church not because we have asked too much of them but because we have not asked enough of them. We are giving people a shallow and generic spirituality when we need to give them distinctive Christianity. We have tried to treat our discipleship disease by appealing to the lowest common denominator, oversimplifying discipleship, and taking the edges off what it means to follow Christ. Put simply, we have settled for a shallow approach to discipleship, believing that breadth will lead to depth. We have adopted philosophies of ministry that focus on growing crowds instead of growing Christians. We have asked our pastors to be marketers, not ministers of the gospel. In the church we focus on keeping people, but if they want to grow, they have to go outside the church. We think about how to keep people rather than how to form people.”

English, J.T.. Deep Discipleship: How the Church Can Make Whole Disciples of Jesus (pp. 8-9). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.