like a fire

USATODAY.com - Seeking teens, marketers take risks by emulating MySpace

Well it only took a couple of months before big companies figured this one out.

Marketing Exec - “What are teens into?”

Consumer Reply - “We like Myspace. It lets us tell our stories in public.”

ME - “Well, we can do that. Let’s create a site like Myspace that let’s people tell stories on our site.”

CR - “But I already have Myspace. Why would I want to do your lame thing. My friends aren’t on there and it looks contrived and all the things that I don’t want to think Myspace actually is.

ME - “Well what could we do to get you to use our site? How about some free crap left over from our last campaign like t-shirts. Yeah, t-shirts are big now.”

CR - “Wait a minute. It might be fun to get on there and make fun of your product. Yeah, this might be fun after all.”

ME - “Well were not going to let you do THAT.”

CR - “…”

ME - “Hello?”

Better yet, in ten years, churches will clue in and do the same thing.

I have been thinking about discipleship a lot and what the big hang up is with people. Everyone would agree, no doubt, that discipleship is good and essential for maturity. It is a necessary part of the journey. Yet few people actually know what it is. Fewer still practice it and even fewer are the result of it. Why is the church so bad at the thing that Jesus said we ought to be so committed to?

Enter the great game of hide-and-go-seek. This is a great childhood game where someone is “it” and everyone else hides. The “it” goes and tried to find the ones hiding. This game is great fun if played right. First of all, there have to be lots of places to hide. It works even better in the dark. The people who are hiding have to want to not be caught, but there is added excitement if you get caught and can make it back to home base without being tagged (a variation of the game). The more compelling the place and the better the people are at their roles, the more fun the game is.

Churches have always been great places for playing this game. Especially if you think of it as social hide-and-go-seek. The church has great places to hide like programs that allow people to not be real, Sunday school that is superficial and small groups that address the surface without asking what is beneath. Add to that a couple of pastors that really do want to find people and people that love to be missed. Sounds like a lot of fun right?

It seems that people are afraid of being caught and yet deep down they really desire to be caught. They want to be known for who there really are, but are afraid of showing themselves for who they really are. It’s a vicious cycle that is the anethema of discipleship.

If our number one job is to go and make disciples, then what are we to do?