How church leaders are discipling people into half-hearted faith …

Somewhere along the way, in a culture increasingly allergic to discomfort, many church leaders began assuming that the best way to help people follow Jesus was to ask less of them. Not more. Sermons started sounding like TED Talks with a few Bible verses. Discipleship groups became safe places to process rather than sacred places to obey. And from the pulpit to the small group leader’s guide, a quiet but dangerous message began to echo: Take your time, just take baby steps.

Now, baby steps have their place. A bruised reed he will not break. But Jesus also called for full commitment. In fact, the real Jesus — the one who walked the shores of Galilee, who upended religious pretense and shattered half-hearted allegiance — never offered the lowest common denominator of faithfulness. He demanded the full measure of a person’s life. And when He called people to follow Him, He didn’t shrink the invitation to something safe and manageable. He raised it higher.

Jesus never made the call to follow Him smaller
If ever there was a moment to lower the bar, Jesus had plenty of them. But He didn’t.

To one man who offered to follow Him after handling family business, Jesus said something so abrupt it would be considered pastoral malpractice today:

“Another of his disciples said, ‘Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.’ But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me now. Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead,'” Matthew 8:21–22.

No soft transition. No step-by-step onramp. Just an all-consuming priority: follow Me now.

Later, He told a crowd:

“If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it,” Matthew 10:38–39.

This was not spoken to elite apostles. This was said to ordinary people listening in the crowd. The bar was not lower for newcomers. It was the same: take up your cross.

The same chapter includes another staggering demand:

“If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine,” Matthew 10:37.

There is no way to sand down the edges of these words. No one listening to Jesus that day mistook His invitation for “spiritual baby steps.” It was a call to absolute allegiance. To a new center of gravity for life. To a redefinition of loyalty, identity, and purpose.

And just in case anyone thought Jesus might eventually ease up, He only intensified the call:

“But Jesus told him, ‘Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God,'” Luke 9:62.

Jesus never said, Try to walk behind the plow in your own time. He said if you look back — if your gaze is divided, if your heart is halved — you are not fit for the kingdom.

Why do so many church leaders preach a softer invitation?
The answer isn’t as cynical as we might think. Many leaders are afraid that strong calls will drive people away. Or that pressing too hard will cause people to shut down. Others remember their own spiritual immaturity and don’t want to put on others the kind of pressure they once resented.

But this misses the point.

Jesus’ strong call was never harsh. It was clear. The clarity of His words didn’t crush people, it clarified reality. It exposed the heart. Some walked away, yes. But others heard in those piercing words the voice of truth, and they followed.

When church leaders spend their energy finding the lowest entry point to obedience, they may fill rooms, but they do not make disciples. We end up asking less of people than Jesus did. We unintentionally train them to believe that serious faith is reserved for spiritual overachievers. And we normalize half-hearted allegiance as the mature path of wisdom.

We must stop doing this.

Jesus did not call people to spiritual minimalism. He called them to a narrow road.

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it,” Matthew 7:13–14.

This is not a burdensome vision of faith. It’s the true one. It’s the one Jesus gave. And it’s the one the early church lived.

Following Jesus is never casual
Discipleship is not a class or a 12-week course. It’s not a slow, curated lifestyle change. It is a death and a resurrection. It is the total surrender of the old self, and the holy joy of obedience. Jesus never asked for less than all.

“Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me,” Luke 9:23.

That is the daily call, not just the call for missionaries or martyrs. It’s the ordinary call to every man, woman, and teenager who claims the name of Christ.

And when pastors, elders, and teachers lower the call, they do not honor the grace of God, they dilute it. The Gospel is good news, but it is not cheap. It cost the blood of Jesus. It demands the whole self in return.

The goal is not pressure. It is faithfulness. The goal is not to exhaust people with constant demands. It is to awaken them to the holy worth of the One who calls them.

And once they see Him clearly, once they understand what He’s truly worth, we won’t need to lower the bar at all. They’ll run to meet it.

Scotty