What is needed to keep growing us all closer to Jesus?

• Our strategy (ultimate goal) is to love (hesed) the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength (particularly via loving our families as our selves).
• Our tactics include various spiritual disciplines (tools and tasks).
• Operational Discipleship is ensuring we accomplish the right objectives (management), which is what aligns tasks (execution) with goals (leadership). 

The paradigmatic verse for this is Luke 9:23, where we escape the cultural identity of Christendom by:

1. Denying the current version of our Self (personal, relational, societal)
2. Taking up our cross daily (the very thing our homeostatic self doesn't want us to see, much less do)
3. Following Jesus (after the cross as our new self, not just before it as our old self)

References:

• Speck to Beam to Cross: Responsive Discipleship
• From Christendom to Christ: Religion vs Relationship
• My Thick Geas: Growing Closer to Christ / Through His Cross
• Discipling By Jesus