What are we missing?

"And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth have 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.'" Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)

I am currently meeting on a regular basis with two guys from my church in a Discipleship Group. What that means is that we work through a study on discipleship, discuss scripture we read over the past week, hold each other accountable, and pray for each other. We have only met once so far but through that one meeting my view of discipleship has changed dramatically.

What is discipleship? The verse above is well known as the Great Commission, but for years I have read it and looked past some deep questions that I have to answer as a believer. Through our study we were asked a simple question: How is disciple-making to be carried out? Well, from the Great Commission it seems like we need to baptize and teach people. Unfortunately, we already do that in the Church but I don't believe that there are many disciples in the Church today. So, what are we missing?

Does the word baptism refer to something other than dunking people under the water? Does the word teach refer to something other than Sunday School and Bible studies? We do all these things in the Church, but over all the Church is still a mile wide and an inch deep. I believe that being a disciple is more than being dunk and going to Sunday School. Being a disciple is devoting your entire life to reading, studying, and LIVING out the Gospel message that Christ lays out for us in His Word.

So, I end with this question: Why is the Church of Christ full of mile wide, inch deep believers instead of mile wide, mile deep disciples? What are we missing?