Discipleship According to Karl Barth

I recently picked up The Call to Discipleship by Karl Barth. I knew that he was an ifluential Theologian, but had never actually read any of his work. I was blown away by his deep insight in the area of discipleship. I want to quote a lengthy passage from it, due to the fact that I could not do any better.

Discipleship is not the recognition and
adoption of a programme, ideal or
law, or the attempt to fulfill it.
It is not the execution of a plan of
individual or social construction
imparted and commended by Jesus. If the
word "discipleship" is in any
way used to denoted something general and not a cocrete and therefore a
concretely filled-out event between Jesus and this
particular person, the
command "Follow me" can only be described as quite
meaningless. For
the only possible content of this command is that this or
that specific
person to whom it is given should come to and follow, and be with,
the
person the one who gives it. In this one, and the relationship that it
establishes between him and the one he calls, a good deal more is
involved. But there is nothing apart from him and this
relationship...what
Jesus demands is trust in himself and therefore, in the
concrete form that this
involves, trust in God. He demands faith in
the form of obedience;
obedience to himself. This is the commitment to
him that constitutes the
content of the call to disicpleship...his summons
is, however, that they should
give to him and therefore to God a true and
serious and total faith: not a mere
acceptance of the fact that he is their
Lord nor an idle confidence that they
are helped by him; but this acceptance
and confidence as a faith that is lived
out and practiced by them; a faith
that is proved to be a true and serious faith
by the fact that it includes
at once their obedience...Faith is not obedience,
but as obedience is not
obedience without faith, faith is not faith without
obedience.

From The Call to Discipleship (Pages
12-17).