At Chancy Lutheran Church in Clinton, Iowa, the kids from VBS were preparing for their grand finale production of "The Good Shepherd." Guests slipped into their seats and checked their watches. The special stars of the show were two sheep, kept in a pen outside the church.

Then things got complicated. Ten minutes before the play was to start, the sheep…, well…they were lost. They ran away. Just got scared (stage fright, maybe?), hopped over the fence, and lit out for points unknown. The play's director, Sandy Mussman, along with her two kids, ran through town, chasing the sheep. "At one point," she later reported, "we passed a lady who was out in her yard. She said, 'Did I just see what I thought I saw?'"

Eventually, they tracked one of the sheep down near Clinton Community College, but at last report the other one was still on the lam, though several people reported seeing it around town. The church's pastor was even out looking. According to Mussman, "When people asked what he was looking for he'd say, 'A lost sheep.' Then he'd have to tell them he really was looking for a lost sheep, that he wasn't looking for sinners."

I suspect that in the finest tradition of the theater, the show went on. After all, the first act was entitled "The Lost Sheep."