What Will You Do Then?

My dog, Hershey, is loving her "new" backyard. This is the first time she's had a bit of a woods to run toward. It's not really a woods; it's more of a line of trees between us and the house behind us, but to Hershey, it's a great forest that deposits little animals in her back yard. I can always tell when she's spotted something—a squirrel, usually, and sometimes a cat. She'll be at the sliding door that leads to the deck and she'll start whining. Then, if I don't notice that, she'll start sort of jumping up a bit, doing a dance. And if I let that go too long, she starts pawing the back door. She needs to get out of the house!

And when I open the door, she takes off like a shot, making a bee line toward the squirrel. This time, she's sure, she's going to catch that thing. Of course, the squirrel is already alerted to her presence, so he jumps up on the fence, runs along the top of the fence to the tree line, jumps up into the tree and then sits out of Hershey's reach and laughs at her. It all happens in a matter of seconds (probably in less time than it took you to read about it!).

Hershey will jump around the tree for a while, then finally she gives up and comes back in. As she walks through the door, I usually ask her, "What do you think you're going to do with that squirrel if you catch him?" She just looks at me, seems to shake her head, and walks on. Silly humans. You just don't understand.

Or maybe we do, all too well. In the church, we're told we're to invite people to church, to follow Jesus, to become a Christian...and any number of other things. So we take off, sometimes, like Hershey chasing the squirrel. Gotta catch 'em. We don't really expect to, but when we do, and they show up at church, we often don't know what to do then.

After 9/11 (was that really 14 years ago?), people returned to church in record numbers, at least in some parts of the country, because they needed answers, hope, something. Within a year, church attendance numbers had returned to where they were before—because we weren't ready, and we didn't know what to do with the people who were "caught." Why aren't people returning to church now, when there are numerous terrorist attacks each month and fear is in the air? Because they don't believe anymore that we have answers, or that we know how to help someone really become a disciple of Jesus Christ. We failed that time; we aren't being given a "second chance."

Just like Hershey, we might "chase" them (invite them), but we don't have any idea what to do then. It's a crisis of discipleship. When people believe in Jesus, when they're "caught"...what then?

Church, it's time to wake up and not be content with invitations. Instead, we need a call to discipleship, to growing deep in the faith, to helping people really follow Jesus and now just "know about" him. Don't just "chase." We must know what to do "then." Jesus didn't tell us to make converts or church members. He told us to make disciples. And that's a lot more than praying a prayer or showing up at church. Making disciples is a life-long process and a life-demanding process. We're not called to chase squirrels. We're called to make disciples.