How does a Christian compete?

This “rant” (although I’m not really sure I’m ranting – more just questioning true ethics of competition) is in response to the following article:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482825,00.html

 

OK – so if you didn’t read the article, I’ll give you a summary. One girls basketball team is playing against another. The winning team beats the losing team 100 to 0. That’s right , the losing team didn’t score a single point while the winning team reached the century mark. This is where it gets weird for me.

The winning school issues an apology for beating the losing team so badly, because apparently, the girls on the winning team were still shooting 3-pointers in the 4^th quarter and the coaches were cheering for the girls more and more the closer they approached 100 points. The winning school apologized to the losing school for having a “non-Christian” attitude toward playing, which is an issue because the schools were Christian schools.

The coach disagreed, saying that his girls played with integrity, and then was fired – but we’re not given the exact reasons why.

So – here’s the issue to me. Is it really “unchristian” to beat a team 100 – 0? I mean – I was pretty lousy in track when I was in high school, and I never accused the winners for being unchristian, regardless of the margin of victory. I never asked them to slow down to make me look better, or accused them or humiliating me.

I think the situation that team found themselves in would have to be one of the hardest coaching situations around? How do you keep your girls excited to play when you are destroying another team? Is it really your team’s fault the other team doesn’t score? Would of it made a huge difference if the score had been 75 – 0? Or 50-0? It’s humiliating for the other team, either way.

Here’s how I would view it as a coach. If my team is destroying the other team, I know the tendency would be for my players to begin to feel sorry for the other team – to begin to play sloppy ball to give them a chance. It’s the way I sports with my kids. I intentionally don’t play as hard – because I know they don’t have a chance. But if I were to play that way against people my age, it would be humiliating to them. This used to happen with our church softball team. Occasionally, we’d get in a hitting streak and the other team was playing really bad defense. They had some kids playing on their team, and for whatever reason, just couldn’t get an out. We made a “rule” that if a team scored 10 runs in an inning, it was the same as 3 outs, but when that happened – the other team looked humiliated, not just because we scored 10 runs, but because they couldn’t get us out. Our guys started trying to hit pop fly’s to give them a chance – but that’s the last thing you want to do… Bad habits are hard to break – so if your team starts taking it easy, or playing light, then you have a problem later on.

So – as a coach, you find new things to motivate. You put in your reserves, and if they are still blowing the other team out, you set a goal. Hey guys – keep playing the way you know you should. Get some good playing time, and lets see if we can score 100 points. Why? Because if you don’t set a goal in front of your players they will begin playing down to their competition. If you don’t keep them motivated, they’ll begin playing sloppy to give the other team “a chance.” You don’t want bad habits in your team.

All the other team had to do was play basketball. If your team can’t score a single bucket, that is NOT the opposing team’s fault!

Honestly, I’d be more humiliated if I was on the opposing team and saw them start playing “keep-a-way” just to keep the score down. If they start playing out of their game and running out the clock and holding the ball for minutes at a time (which you can do in high school basketball because there is no shot clock) I would feel more embarrassed. At least when a basket is made, I get a new chance to try to score. If I lost 100-0, I’d be embarrassed – but I certainly wouldn’t blame the other team.

This coach made the best of difficult situation, in my opinion. But, I could be wrong? What do you think is the Christian thing to do? Should he have told his girls to let the other team score? Should he have talked to the other coach at half time and just had the other team forfeit the rest of the game? Would that have been fair to his 2^nd (and may be 3^rd string) that got time to play? Should he have played keep-a-way? Was there a good way to win this game – and isn’t the margin of victory relative after a certain range? If the score would have been 50-0, would it have really been any different?

Maybe I’m seeing this poorly because of my own competitive side – so post your perspective so we can learn from each other!

Confessions of a lifer…

I don’t have much time – but this came to mind during my reading this morning.

I was, for the most part, raised in the church (not literally – but as long as I can remember, we were going to every church function offered.) The Bible has always been special to me – I remember sleeping with my Bible when I was 12-14 years old. I would fall asleep reading it and wake up to read it. I love God’s word.

Last year, I finished reading the Bible for the 10^th time – 5 times in the last 3 years. I love the book.

But sometimes, I get to familiar passages, and I find myself wanting to skim through it. It’s the old “I already know this” mindset.

So, this morning I got the 2×4. I was reading in Luke 8 – and I came to the very familiar Parable of the Sower. I know the parable, know the explanation, etc. – so I was just kind of skimming through. Then, I came to verse 16 – and again, very familiar – you don’t put a lamp under a bed or a basket… Then, verse 18. Here’s how it reads in the Holman CSB:

Therefore, take care how you listen. For whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.

Wow! I’m sure those in the church have discussed that verse in different ways in the past – but as I was skimming this morning, God was reminding me – take care how you listen, Mike. In every passage, those who have will receive more – but there’s the requirement of having care while we listen. Skimming isn’t going to get the job done – have care while we listen.

In the same way – falling into patterns of just showing up, singing familiar songs, hearing familiar passages, saying hi to familiar people isn’t going to cut it in church, either. If we want to keep growing – we need to have care how we listen. Then, if we have, we’ll receive more – but if we are careless – even what we think we have will be taken away. There really is no plateau in the Christian faith – you’re either growing, or shrinking.

And we see that, if we’re honest, don’t we? We see that people don’t really remain at a level of spiritual growth. If they don’t keep growing, they begin to be overwhelmed by the cares of the world. They begin to drift off center.

So – it was a good message for me, this morning – a reminder to not skim – but to listen carefully. Hope it’s a good reminder for you also!

My Cousin’s Wedding

Yesterday I got the opportunity to see a bunch of the Picconatto extended family again – I had a cousin who got married. It was a beautiful ceremony, beautiful reception – only bummer was we had to cut out a little early. Elissa and I danced one dance together and then off we went. We got a little turned around getting back to Elissa’s parents (who were watching the kids), then it took us awhile to get everything loaded up – so we weren’t on our way out of the cities until 9:45 pm. Since I try to go to bed by 10:30 on Sunday nights, this morning is going to be a bit of a challenge!

The priest said something interesting to Emily and Eric during his homily that I found pretty interesting. He warned them that what they were about to do was a very dangerous thing – they were about to commit their lives to another person for the rest of their lives. He warned them that doing such a thing was a dangerous thing.

It made me think – those wedding vows, they are a pretty impressive thing, aren’t they? I mean – you’re literally committing your whole life to another person’s life as long as you both shall live.

There’s a guy in our church who’s modeling that right now. His wife has advanced Alzheimer’s disease, and he continues to gently care for her. Dressing her each day, taking her on walks when possible, bringing her to church and to family functions. He’s a beautiful model of “in sickness and in health.” It’s certainly not what he would have planned for over 5 decades ago when he asked his wife to marry him, but it’s what he committed to – and he’s faithful to his commitment.

It’s kind of surprising to me how often we try to talk to people about the good sides of things without warning them of the potential for pain. IN wedding vows, there is that warning – it’s a vow for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. There’s the hope for the good, but commitment no matter what!

I wonder why we don’t do that for other things. We want life with a warranty, don’t we? Even in our faith, we want all blessings, no pain. We want all success, no heartache. We want all joy, no sorrow. Certainly – that’s a great thing to look forward to. We know that in heaven we’ll have no more tears, no pain, no sickness, no death – but in the meantime… Why do we so often ignore the clear teachings of scripture that faith comes with trials, persecutions, and struggles.

I think that it’s because we’re scared that people might not think it’s worth it. Maybe subtly they think that no one will take faith if it doesn’t get rid of all the problems of life.

But that’s like saying you don’t want to get married unless the person is only going to be rich or healthy. The relationship is worth the suffering that comes with it. The joy of knowing the presence of your spouse is worth the potential heartache. In a relationship with Christ – it’s even greater! The joy of knowing and being known by God and the joy of knowing that your Savior is with you and has your maturity and best interests in mind makes the inevitable difficulties of life worth going through.

Anyway – I’m sleep deprived and need to finish preparing myself for the morning ahead.

The word “sin.”

Funny thing happened yesterday as I was getting ready for our church service. We’ve decided to try to make the time before church starts, at least in our sanctuary, a time of “preparation” from a spiritual point of view. We built a new entry way and sanctuary in 2003 – but before that, the entry way was small and the sanctuary itself was often used as just an overflow entryway. Lots of visiting, chatting, etc. We decided we wanted to give people a space to prepare their hearts for the worship service, and since we have the entry space to do that without taking away the also very important visiting, reacquainting, friendly space, we’re navigating the change.

Anyway – to help make this a meaningful time, I’m making some powerpoint slides to help give people some things to think about as they’re quieting their hearts before the service. I decided to use the A.C.T.S prayer model – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication and give some descriptions, Bible verses, and instructions on the slides. Basic format is to give the word, say what it means, give some instructions, give some supporting verses. Adoration works fine – here’s the definition, and now – the instruction is to “Spend some time Adoring the Lord.” Pretty basic…

Then I get to C. I cut and paste a definition for confession, and then get to the instruction aspect, and find myself struggling with how to word it. This is the odd part for me. Spend time adoring the Lord – no problem. Spend time Thanking the Lord – no problem. Spend time “Supplicating” – or asking the Lord to meet your needs – no problem! Spend time confessing your sins – problem. For some reason, I kept finding myself wanting to soften it. I typed out “asking God to forgive you for the things that come between you and Him.” Erased it. I typed “Spend time…. Examining your heart.” Erased it. I even typed and erased spend time “Confessing your sins.” Several times, but erased it. It just seemed so harsh – and then I had to really ask… Why is this such a big deal for me this morning? It wasn’t a prompting from God that was leading me to not put the words “Confess your sins” up there – it just made me nervous that it might (*gasp!*) make someone upset that I was calling them a sinner.

But we are! All of us. We’re all guilty, and all sinners, and all in desperate need of the forgiveness only God has to offer.

So finally – I just typed the words and put them up there.

Made me curious, though. I wonder why I reacted so strongly to those words yesterday. I think that, inside, there’s always a part of us that doesn’t like being told that we’ve done something wrong. Perhaps that part was rearing up yesterday. Just thought I’d share something I found strange.

New Year!

Ah – my first blog of the New Year. And, in case you hadn’t really noticed – my first blog in quite some time.

The reason I’m writing today is actually about that thing. I’ve noticed that, in my life, the time necessary for introspection often gets crowded out by the time needed for tasks. Those tasks vary, as they do for everyone. For me, most of my deep thinking ends up going into the sermons I prepare on a weekly basis and the Bible Studies I lead on a weekly basis, and the time left over ends up going to tasks at home – sometimes the necessary cleaning and cooking, remodeling, etc. – and then the “spare” time, I tend to squander in front of the x-box or TV. Often, the TV time is spent with my bride at my side, and we laugh or shake our heads together at what we’re seeing – so that’s not really “squandered” time, but anyway, the point remains that… I don’t spend much time being introspective, and that is to my detriment.

I spend time doing, or acting, or reacting – but not much time asking why did I do, or act, or react. I find myself asking cultural questions – like “Why is our society like this?” or “Why are we so blind to this?” but fail to ask the same questions about myself.

In part, that’s a hard thing to do in a public forum – a journal feels very private, but a blog is more… well – it exposes the inner workings of my brain for other people to comment on, and I’m not always comfortable with the vulnerability that creates.

But, as a pastor, I don’t always have a forum to simply throw out what I’m thinking and have people respond to it. My thoughts are supposed to be “spiritual” all the time, and “correct”, and I’d prefer this forum to be someplace I can throw thoughts out and not get creamed for it.

I long for the days when all the guys used to retreat into a smoking room and air their thoughts, argue about it, and be able to come out more educated for hearing everyone’s thoughts. Almost a sense of public introspection – things in my brain get expressed and other people comment on them, and I’m not insulted but I’m grown. I’d like this to be that kind of atmosphere, but I’m not sure I’m always willing to be that public, or capable of taking the shots to my thoughts that would allow this to be that forum. I become so attached to my ideas that I take intellectual criticism personally – not necessarily a good trait.

Anyway – I’ll work on it this year, and try to post some introspective thoughts at least once a week, and we’ll see what happens.