July 26, 2021 - "I Got To Tell Him He Won!"

I just finished up a week of leadership/hoops training with a group of high-school-aged girls; during it I went through John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success (Building Blocks for a Better Life), which I talk about… write about… think about… often. I love Coach Wooden’s perspectives on life/team… 

During the week, I had the girls help run a kids’ hoops clinic with me… to learn how to implement our “mission” into the teaching of the game. One young man that participated showed to be a really good athlete/player for his age. (Not to mention the HS girls thought we was “so cute”!) The boy’s name is Crocker, and I immediately could see that he not only loves to play, but is used to being successful, based upon his solid motor skills and understanding of the game. During one of the days a friend stopped in, that knows Crocker and his family, and told me that Crocker is even a better baseball player. Then Crocker’s mom mentioned that he had a swim meet coming up… let’s just say the boy is a good, old-fashioned, all-around athlete.

I tell you all of this due to a post I just read this morning from Crocker’s mom. Over the weekend he competed in a state swim meet… and I was anxious to see her post to see how this little “stud” athlete did. The momma started by sharing about Crocker’s sister and her great commitment to the sport/team… then she moved on to Crocker with these words, “Crocker has had a tough swim season and is having to learn a lot of lessons, and to learn to cope with disappointment and loss. No medals at all this year.”

Losing is hard… especially when you are used to being one of the better/more talented players. For a young guy, or an old one, it is truly a lesson of humility and growth. Yet, something I have taught (that I adapted a bit from Coach Wooden’s philosophies) is that sports not only build character, but in the words of Wooden, they reveal character. Crocker’s momma is right, these are times of “lessons”, but also she got to see a revelation…

Momma went on to say, “Crocker comes home so excited for his friend who showed out big time in the last lap of a race. The very friend, who he could have spent all summer jealous of. But, he was so proud of him! Then his (the friend’s) mom sends me the picture of him (Crocker) helping him out of the water. Crocker’s words to me were ‘Mom, I got to tell him he won!’ That right there, that is why. That is why I am more proud of him this weekend than I think I could ever be if he had won that race himself. I want my kids to love others more than they love themselves. And I think he learned how rewarding that can be.”

Wow! I think I could just stop there, but the purpose of this weekly devotion is to expound on “game plans for life” as found in God’s “Playbook.” Crocker just gave a great illustration of what the body of Christ should look like…

1 Corinthians 12:26-27 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ (TEAM), and members individually.

John Wooden, “I once heard team spirit defined as a willingness to lose oneself in the group for the good of the group… I changed ‘willingness’ to ‘eagerness.’ Willingness is more like, ‘I will if I have to.’ Eagerness communicates an attitude of ‘I’ll be happy to sacrifice personal accomplishments for the good of the team.’”

ARE YOU EAGER TO SERVE THE TEAM? ARE YOU EAGER TO SUFFER WITH ONE ANOTHER? ARE YOU EAGER TO REJOICE IN THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF OTHERS?

July 19, 2021 - Shortcuts lead to Short-Term Success

It would take too long to type out how busy we have been the past few weeks… and even now I am in my office after a full day with a group staying with us for a residential hoops/leadership training camp. So now, I am trying to get my weekly duties for InBounds taken care of… including this week’s devotion. 

My insanely busy schedule has me tired and this week’s devotional offering comes from a reminder I received while starting to go through John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success with the players. I try to live out the first building block of The Pyramid… the one of Industriousness (Hard Work.) Wooden states, “There is no substitute for work. Worthwhile results come from hard work and careful planning.”

This week’s camp, yesterday’s sermons I preached, last week’s lesson I taught at a conference, the basketball camp I ran I ran the week before that… all involved a large amount of hard work and a HUGE amount of careful planning. And honestly, when I am sitting still, feeling so exhausted, and at times overwhelmed, the question becomes “Why”?

I think Wooden’s quote gives the answer… Why? Worthwhile results! We all want to be successful in our goals, and there are not shortcuts to that… shortcuts tend to lead to short-term “success.”

The Scriptures say is very clear… I love the Proverbs and the consistent reminders of the benefits of hard work and planning, and the consistent warnings of the results of laziness.

Proverbs 21: 5 says, “the plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty; but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.”

[“Careful planning puts you ahead in the long run; hurry and scurry put you farther behind.” (Prov 21:5 The Message)]

So, what are you striving for in life? Are you carefully planning? Are you faithfully executing those plans? 

July 12, 2021 - Play Your Role For The Good Of The Team!

I must confess that most of my teaching/writing tends to gear toward the individual believer… and I was that way as a coach also. I truly did not see the overall team picture like some of the other guys I coached with… So thankful for guys that made me look much smarter than I am, but also learned that I saw some details in individual players that others didn’t. The fact that we saw things from a different perspective, actually made us a better coaching staff. 

There is an old phrase that says, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” Mathematically that does not make any sense… if you add the numbers, you get the sum. But in things such as sports, that is not the case. The fact that a team has bigger or better individual players, does not mean they will be the better team; the better team will be the one where each player accepts and performs his/her role.

A simple example would be: A team executes a beautiful half-court play that ends with a high-flying alley-oop dunk… who is the star of the play? Some would say the guy that can jump so high… some would say the guy that can make the beautiful pass… but I wonder also about the guy that cut through the lane to draw the defenders out of position… what about the guy that that set a pick to free up the passer… or the guy that set a back screen to free up the high-flyer?

The point is that in team sports, it is truly not about individuals shining on their own, but in individual parts producing a greater whole. I loved teaching and showing players the beauty of executing their roles properly… which meant being in the right place, doing the right things, at the right time.

I bring all of this up, as I was privileged to speak and listen at a Free Grace Alliance Summit this past weekend. The overall theme of the conference was “Identity” which seems to fit well in my style of teaching/coaching… as “identity” lends itself to talking about the individual. As I stated in the intro, much of my teaching revolves around that. Yet, I was in a speaker’s line-up at this conference that included some guys I truly consider all-stars… guys that, due to my association with them, made me look a lot smarter than I am. One of those guys is Grant Hawley, the Executive Director of the Free Grace Alliance. Grant has an incredible grasp of the Scriptures and an understanding of the original languages. Each time I sit under his teaching, I am blown away with how he sees the “overall team picture” of the body of Christ!

I love teaching/coaching/mentoring individuals to be the best they can be… but truly see more and more that the goal is to be the best we can be for “the team”!

Ephesians 2:10 is a verse I have taught/written about MANY times. In fact, it is one I LOVE to use to motivate serving the Lord.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Eph 2:10)

After reminding individuals of the incredible Gospel message found in Eph 2:8-9, that our salvation is totally based upon what God has done for us, (“by grace… through faith”), I then have regularly pointed out the idea that the all-seeing God who is not bound by time, (knowing who would “believe” in the finished work of Christ), started designing plays (“good works”) to run (“walk in”)… showing individuals that the God not only wants to use them, but has designed “plays” for them.

BUT in seeing the beauty of the mystery of Jew and Gentile becoming one through the work of Christ… the emphasis on the new team that is found in the verses following in chapter 2, I see verse 10 in a different light…

We (plural) are His workmanship (singular)… the “team” is the beautiful work of art… the good works that God “diagramed” beforehand does involve each of us “playing” our role… but they are “plays” intended for the “team”! WE ARE IN THIS THING TOGETHER! Sometimes one’s role may be to score… or maybe to throw the pass… or maybe to set the screen.

God wants to use us together!!! Teamwork makes the dream work! Accept and perform your role…

July 5, 2021 - Playing With A Sense Of Urgency

This week’s “game plan” involves more complexity than the usual offering… it is one of challenge… one of conviction (and confession)… one of concern/desperation… More of that in just a bit…

As I sat taking some notes over the past few days for some upcoming speaking engagements, it has been done with also thinking through our ministry. And it brought me to thinking about “why teams do a full-court press”?

The most common reason teams put on a press, is that it is late in the game, and they are behind on the scoreboard; this allows them to try to get the other team to make careless plays and turn the ball over… Some teams will sporadically put on a press (maybe full-court… or ¾Court… or half-court) to simply change the rhythm of the game for the other team, again trying to get some turnovers… And some teams simply play pressure-basketball, always trying to speed up the other team… to wear them down… to turn them over… Why do turnovers matter, it gives an opportunity to go on offense and SCORE!

Just so you know, I am a coach that believes in “playing to the :00s”… I don’t like backing off on defense because we are behind, and the game is out of hand. I think it is important to play every minute… every second… we committed to play games, not just win games… BUT admittedly I don’t know that I have always played/coached with urgency. (Although one of my favorite years coaching was a group of 5^th/6^th grade girls that we nicknamed the “Greedy Girls”, because we trained them to WANT THE BASKETBALL! They were so much fun to coach/watch…)

So now I am going to try to fit in all the stuff I mentioned in the opening, without turning this devo into a rambling sermon… This topic came to mind as I was evaluating some things for our ministry to make a presentation to our board. Coming out of the pandemic waters, we have found ourselves in a hole financially, “behind on the scoreboard.” As I looked at options of what to do, one thing would be to simply “back off and let the clock run out”; or we can “press” and try to make some things happen. (Told you there would be some concern and desperation.) This all hit right as we entered the month of July, which is insanely busy (and typically is each year) with ministry opportunities. (i.e., Just today I was able to share the message of The Substitute with around 40 kids!)

Again, the month of July is typically very busy for us, but this year I had made a decision to dig in and go hard for the month, and my confession… that I was probably motivated more by needing to raise revenue than opportunity to minister; which is a bit of a catch-22 since we need to raise revenue in order to minister… so it is a matter not of what we are doing but why…

Then as I have been studying, I was brought back to a very familiar passage… John 4:35B… “Behold, I say to you (Jesus speaking), lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”

So, what was Jesus saying there to the disciples? When a field is “white for harvest,” it is already ripe… needing to be harvested NOW or else it will go to ruin. In fact, one article I read said it this way: “It’s best to go ahead and harvest on the early side since if you wait too long, the heads (of the wheat) will ‘shatter’, meaning that the grains will fall onto the ground.”

Jesus was stating that we need to “put on the full-court press” and realize time is running out for some.

I challenge you to “play” with a sense of urgency!

I challenge you to not determine the urgency based upon being in the black or red (financial motivation), but being in the white (spiritual motivation.)

Sure I am hoping that this busy month helps our organization regain some traction financially, BUT even if our “doors had to close” I will stay motivated to share the harvesting-truth of the Gospel! Will you join me?