Playing to Our Strengths
I recently had the pleasure of coaching a baseball team with Matt and Amanda Richard. It was quite the experience! The league was made up of 3rd through 5th grade boys. As if coaching that age group wasn’t challenging enough on it’s own…we were also coming off a year of no baseball, as last season was cancelled due to COVID. So these kids were rusty. Some of them had only ever hit the ball off a tee. While I’m at it, let me lament once more…some of those boys had never played the game of baseball in their life. Some of them had never been taught how to throw a ball, hold a bat, or run the bases. And there we were, at our first practice, blown away by the work load we had just inherited. Imagine a deflating balloon. That was us as we looked at our baseball team for the first time. Now, don’t get me wrong, there were a few really strong players. But they were very few! We had just a few weeks to whip these boys into shape before the games started. Coach Amanda was a much better coach than I was. She saw a lot more potential than I did. I was too focused on what they weren’t doing right while she focused more on their strengths. I was the pessimist; she was the optimist. The first day of practice I had already figured we weren’t going to win a game this year. There was just so much work to do.
Sure enough, we lost our first game, 8-12. Better than I thought it would be! What really surprised me was how much better these kids did in a game setting than in practice. They made a couple good plays. Their bats were moving. This was a good sign! That was the most any team scored on us the rest of the season. Sure, we went on to lose most of our games, but not all of them! In fact, we won our first playoff game and ended up just barely losing to the number one team in the semi-finals. As we took a knee after our last defeat, Coach Amanda encouraged the boys. She pointed out all the areas of growth. Never once did she focus on their weaknesses during that time. She wanted them to know how encouraged she had been by their progress and she encouraged them to sign up for ball next year.
I could take a page or two out of Coach Amanda’s book. Yes, for baseball. But what would it look like if I applied that to parenting, too? How about pastoring? I was the guy that was too focused on the negative the entire season. Do I do that at home? Do I do that with the believers under my care? Don’t get me wrong, corrections need to be made here and there, and we can’t shy away from that. But why put all my focus there? Why not celebrate the strengths more often?
The last sermon I preached was from Eph. 1:15-19a. In verses 15 and 16 Paul encourages the believers by explaining what he sees them doing well. He commends them for their “faith in the Lord Jesus and [their] love toward all the saints”. He’s thankful for what they are doing right! These imperfect people were growing in faith and love, and that was enough for Paul to be thankful! Of course, Paul desired more for them, as seen in the following verses. He wanted them to grow in other areas, but He was most delighted in the evidences of their salvation.
Grandview, I am convicted. I want to see your growth in the major things, not your faults in the minor things. We can work on “minor” things together with time. But I don’t want to see our church (or the individual members) for our shortcomings, as I did my baseball team. I want to remember that some of you are seasoned players, and some of you have never been involved in church life before, but we are all here for the love of the game (or rather, our love for Christ). I want to be encouraged by our faith in Christ and our love for each other. I want to see us play hard together and rejoice in our (His) victories. I want to see us all be encouraged by what we do well and not get caught up too much on the peripherals. This is the heart of a team, right? If we constantly badger (or even snub) each other over our failings, we lose a certain effectiveness as a team. We can’t be cohesive.
Challenge me, Grandview, if I ever fall short here. And I’m challenging YOU to take a page from Paul’s playbook and look past the imperfections to see the encouraging realities of faith and love. Start there and work your way out.
--Pastor Joel
