Of Discipleship

I posed the question to my College gang last Sunday night:

"Who are you discipling?"

Like, if Jesus left us asking us to make disciples (that Great Commission thing), that meant that he really wanted us to make disciples. Like a rabbi did. Training people in the Way.

So why don't we do that? And why, when it actually happens, is it so haphazard?

Jesus walked up to dudes and just straight asked them. "Hey, follow me?"

Do we lack the confidence that we'll actually be leading people in the right direction? Or are we so proud as to think that we don't have to ask...that people will just flock to us? And when did relational, rabbinical instruction get morphed into large-scale teaching via microphone and video projector?

If I picked three guys that I felt like I needed to lead, do you think they would agree to follow me? To challenge me and learn with and from me? Would I stick with them when they flake out or buck up? Would I spend years with them, know them for who they really are, and love them for who they're not?

And then what would I even do with them? Book study? Weekly meals? Rabbi Jesus spent 24/7 with his posse. I would get a couple hours a week? And a few reTweets from Twitter?

We've lost discipleship.

And yet I challenge my college students to lead, to teach, to disciple...

...without having hard evidence in my own life of true rabbinical discipleship.

I guess we march on, figuring it out together. What does discipleship look like in 2011 America?