Your Faith Feels Like It Should Be More

Do you get that nagging feeling that your faith should be...more? Not more religious activity or more church programmes, but something deeper, something that actually changes how you live Monday to Friday?

Mark Buchanan joins us to challenge how we think about discipleship, because simply attending church doesn't make you a disciple. Saying a prayer 15 years ago doesn't make you a disciple. Reading the Bible occasionally doesn't make you a disciple. So what does?

Pupils vs Disciples

A pupil attends an institution to acquire knowledge. A disciple joins a community to develop character - specifically, the character of Jesus.

Pupils attend at set times and have holidays. Disciples sign up for an all-day, every-day thing.

Pupils learn different things from different teachers. Disciples learn everything from one teacher.

Pupils select their school of choice. But Jesus chooses his disciples - he makes the offer to us all, but he's looking for disciples before disciples are looking for him.

Think about Jesus' twelve disciples. He didn't choose them based on their knowledge or position. "He chose them based on who he knew they would become," Mark explains. "It's a bit of a motley bunch, isn't it?" Somewhere between four and seven fishermen, a tax collector, a treasurer, and a zealot - part of a quasi-paramilitary political organisation trying to reestablish a kingdom by any means necessary, including violence.

Not exactly the A-team you'd pick to change the world. Yet those twelve shaped the history of the entire planet.

"Jesus was looking at people thinking, I know who you could be if you follow me," Mark says. "I find that encouraging because I think we can dare to believe that Jesus is looking at us and saying, I know who you can be. I know what's in you. I know that if you have my character, there are all sorts of things that you will be able to do."

What Jesus Actually Demands

Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Notice the clear command here. You don't fall into discipleship by accident. You decide to engage.

Then comes the teaching part.

"If you are not willing to be a pupil, you can't be a disciple," Mark points out. "But being a disciple is much more than just being a pupil." There are things to learn, understand, and study. And then comes the tricky bit, which is being obedient to everything Jesus commanded.

"There has to be a submission where we choose to obey what we've learned about the nature of Jesus, the character of Jesus, the wishes of Jesus. We're basically saying as a disciple, I don't get to call the shots anymore."

That sounds heavy. Which is why the last bit of that verse matters: "Surely I'm with you always, right to the very end of the age."

We're not doing this alone.

Mark then moves to Mark 8:34: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

Three requirements: deny ourselves, take up our cross, follow him.

"Being a disciple is you are on a journey," Mark explains. "When Jesus called disciples, he said 'follow me.' It means there's gonna be movement, there's gonna be a journey, and Jesus has already decided where that journey is. He's not actually gonna ask where I think we should go. Being a disciple is about following without questioning, and I find that very difficult."

We have to deny ourselves - it's not about getting our own way. We have to take up our cross - that bit of us that always wants to do what's good for me has to go on the cross daily. Otherwise, there's constant tension between what Jesus asks and what our flesh wants.

"I don't think we should make light of being a disciple," Mark warns. "There's a cost. I can't be a disciple and get my own way all the time. I can't be a disciple and find it convenient all the time. I can't be a disciple and play it safe, and I certainly can't put myself first."

The Real Test

Mark takes us to John 13:35, where Jesus says: "By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."

Wait - that's the test? Not memorising scripture verses or praying for the sick or knowing the Ten Commandments?

"What an interesting acid test to apply," Mark observes. "If you are sitting at home, you might be on your own, but if you are with anybody, just turn to them and say, you know what? Only Jesus could love somebody like you."

He's joking, of course. Sort of. The point is profound: "Only disciples of Jesus could love the other disciples that they're taking this journey with."

Consider the twelve who were distinct characters with different personalities. Some lovable, some difficult. A really motley crew. Yet because they were all following the same Lord, they found friendship, relationship, fellowship, and love among each other.

"People found it strangely attractive," Mark explains. "In those early days, people were coming to find out what was happening and they just felt safe. They felt this is a group that I could be part of. These are people who I feel comfortable with, even though they're nothing like me."

That's what Jesus is looking for. The love that comes from being a disciple is the powerhouse. Not just the programmes or the services - the love.

When Faith Isn't Convenient

During Conversation Street, Anna Kettle gets honest: "I've definitely had seasons of life where it's been very exciting and I've been passionate about my faith, and seasons where I've been very discouraged and life's been hard, and I'm like, oh, I don't really know if I wanna do this."

Matt Edmundson nods. For him, busyness is the enemy. "You get married, you get kids, work starts, work gets hard. I run my own business - there's always an excuse to do something. Discipleship becomes about prioritizing not just going to church on a Sunday, but actually my growth in Christ."

Mark Buchanan shares about coming out of a horrendously difficult season. "Sometimes you just because you don't understand it and you can't make any sense of it, it shuts you down. There's a natural tendency to just curl up into a ball and hide."

But even then, God sends people with encouragement. "I felt him almost audibly speaking to me a few weeks ago saying, but based on what you know of me, do you really think I would just leave you swinging in the wind? And I thought, no, I know you wouldn't."

That's discipleship in the hard times. "As a disciple, we have to say, yeah, but I committed to this journey. I committed to following Jesus and the fact that he's walking through a raging storm, I have to follow him through it. If I stand still, he'll keep on walking and then I've lost him."

Cultural Christianity vs Real Discipleship

In places where being a Christian is easy, it's easy to be what Anna calls a "cultural Christian" - someone who claims the label but doesn't follow Christ's example.

Mark Buchanan brings up Iran, where there are now a million Christians despite horrendous persecution. "When being a Christian makes your life absolutely dire, you wouldn't dare say you were a Christian unless you were gonna be a disciple. You wouldn't do it unless you'd really come to know that following Jesus has to be taken seriously."

But here, where we face minimal persecution? "It feels like it's possibly two different things," Mark admits.

Anna connects it back to character: "There's a difference between head knowledge and just learning information about something, and being a disciple, which is more about learning and practicing and building character as you do it. Where you've counted the cost, that's how character grows."

What Discipleship Actually Looks Like

So practically, what does this look like? The conversation reveals three main patterns:

Structured one-to-one relationships: Anna shares, "I've certainly had seasons of life where I've had kind of one-to-one discipleship where I've maybe just made a commitment to meet with someone who's a bit further on in a walk with God and just a bit further on life stage as well. We'd regularly meet up, pray, chat about how my life's going, anything I might be struggling with."

Peer-to-peer community: Anna also describes her current setup: "At the moment I'm part of a small group of women who are all kind of in the same life stage as me right now. Similar age, similar. We meet up every few weeks and just catch up, pray together, share what's going on in our lives, and just kind of encourage each other and push each other on a little bit. Without anyone kind of leading another."

Life-on-life proximity: Matt describes how he and Sharon just "open your home a lot and just have people over to hang out and just be with you and see how you live. And it's exactly what Mark said."

Matt became a Christian at 18 and had a discipleship programme, but he's clear about what matters most: "Discipleship is definitely not a program. Jesus did not have the book, you know, 101 ways to disciple your friends here. I think he just did life with them. For me, discipleship is about doing life with people that have this common belief in Christ who will spur you on."

He describes his relationship with Dave Connolly: "Dave and I get together quite a lot. Most of the time he tells me off about something stupid that I've done. He's great, Dave. Love the bones off him."

Anna sums it up perfectly: "I don't think discipleship was ever meant to be, and following Jesus was ever meant to be a solo sport. It's not. I don't think it's coincidence that Jesus' disciples, he had 12 disciples - they did it as a group. They were like a team. It wasn't a solo sport."

Growing Through Different Seasons

Anna shares her journey as a pastor's kid: "I grew up knowing a lot about Jesus before adulthood and really understanding fully what that meant. It was much more of a gradual figuring out what that meant for my own life. Not fully mentally consenting to become a disciple and understanding what that meant and really counting that cost until early adulthood."

She describes how it moved from head knowledge to a personal relationship. Then came seasons of dying to self - particularly around her and Andy's journey with infertility and miscarriage. "Dying to a lot of my own desires and trusting that God will take my life and make it into what he wants it to be. When you know that God is good and that he's for you and that he loves you one hundred percent, then there's nothing to be scared of anymore."

Matt reflects on discipleship as a journey: "At the start of the gospels, we read Jesus going to the fishermen going, come follow me. You fast forward through the gospels and that becomes pick up your cross - come and die. Jesus doesn't start with that. He leads with come follow me. And then as you go through the gospels, his invitations draw you in deeper and deeper."

The point? "If you're new to the Christian faith or just starting out, some of these ideas, you go, man, that's a bit intense. And it's like, yeah, but you don't need to get there tomorrow. Just let God take you on the journey and let him work some of these things out with you."

The Challenge

Mark Buchanan closes with what might be the most important words of the evening: "Just urge everybody - go as radical as you dare and then push a bit harder. It's scary, but it's phenomenal. And if we don't do it, we will never really understand what the Lord has in store for us. Let's treat it as if it's not optional."

Matt quips, "Go as radical as you dare then push a bit harder might be the title of the talk."

Anna encourages anyone wanting to go deeper: "Seek people out, whether that's through Crowd Church or people you know in your own community. Just someone that you respect and you think, wow, I really love their faith. Like seek these people out and just say, can I go for a coffee or come over for dinner one day."

Matt adds his own recent experience: "A couple of guys from the States have reached out to me and said, 'Listen, I need to talk to you on a regular basis. Can we do that over Zoom?’ And I'm like, sure, let's do it. It's been great. But do seek people out. And if you can't think of who to seek out, pray and God will definitely open those doors."

The Real Question

So here's what it comes down to: are you a churchgoer, or are you a disciple of Jesus? Are you fully paid up, absolutely sold out, deeply committed, or are you doing it as and when you can spare the time?

The challenge isn't to beat yourself up. It's to recognise that Jesus is looking at you right now and saying, "I know who you can be. I know what's in you."

He's not asking for perfection. He's asking for commitment to the journey. For the willingness to let him shape your character. For the courage to love people you otherwise couldn't love. For trust to follow him even when the path leads through storms.

That nagging feeling that your faith should be more? That's Jesus inviting you to stop being a pupil who just collects knowledge and start being a disciple who's transformed by walking with him daily.

As Mark says, "It's gonna pan out brilliantly. But there's a cost to being a disciple."

The question is: are you willing to pay it?