June 16, 2008 - Coach's Disciples

At this time of year on the basketball scene there is a lot of news about college players declaring for the NBA draft, transferring schools, etc. Yet there is also a lot of news of coaching changes. Often times as schools are looking for a new head coach they will get a guy that has been an assistant under a successful head coach.

I love the stories when the pupil meets the teacher in the coaching world. Usually the teams will play very similar styles because the new head coach is carrying on with the training he received as an assistant. That is called “mentoring.” (Or in the Christian world we call it “discipling.”) You can almost always see the joy in the old head coach’s face as his disciple leads his new team.

I just tonight had that similar type of joy. I received an email from a young man that is serving as a coach for us at InBounds Ministries. He is a gifted young man both athletically and in communication. He has worked numerous camps with me, including the camp we did in the Czech Republic. I love his zeal for sharing the Gospel!

As I read his email he mentioned that he had shared the message at a camp in Indianapolis tonight about Christ as our “Substitute” in the “game of life.” He went on to say that he realized he was flying solo on this one because I was usually there at these camps. It brought me great joy to know he is actively sharing this message.

One of the men observing at the camp mentioned that he had never heard the Gospel shared with this analogy and that he loved it. I had a newspaper reporter interviewing me last week and he too said he had never heard it put in that way. The reporter even point-blank asked me to explain using the term “Substitute.”

(And praise the Lord he even put in print that we are referring to Christ suffering as the “Substitute” for the sin of the world. You can see this article at:

http://www.statesville.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=SRL/MGArticle/SRL_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173355632083

My son Clay is in a sleeveless white T guarding a guy under the basket – the reporter wasn’t 100% accurate with his quotes but did get some good stuff in for us.)

The reason I am bringing this up is that I hope we will all get excited about telling this great news. I recall Jesus using an analogy when giving the Gospel that initially confused a guy. The guy was named Nicodemus and Christ told him he had to be “born again. Read John chapter 3.)

Two things to do:
1. Share the message of our “Substitute,” our Savior Jesus Christ!
2. Disciple someone – it is awesome when you hear of them at work!