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A Passion for Good Sportsmanship

February 14, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                        February 14, 2013

 

 

I was at the Air Force Academy basketball game last night where they hosted UNLV. This is my second year being a season ticket holder for Falcon home games, and I love it! Getting season tickets is a little easier here than it is for Duke, Kansas, Michigan State, or North Carolina. A year ago when I went to get them about two weeks before the season opener I was surprised to discover that our seats are in the fourth row in between the Air Force bench and the scorer’s table. Evidently there aren’t that many season ticket holders.

This year the Falcons are gathering more and more fans since they are doing well. Let me tell you, there were a lot of open seats around us for the Western State and Regis games back in November, than there are now.

Last night as Air Force pulled off a great win against the Runnin’ Rebels I was taken back by the obnoxious comments by some of the fans around me. Why do grown adults think that it’s okay to scream “You suck!” at players visiting from another university. When an official makes a call that goes against the home team, even if it is suspect, why should people express their rage with such hate and venom? It wasn’t cadets that were screaming obscenities, but it was fans of an institution that raises the call of integrity, honor, and service.

And the thing is it seems to be getting worse! At a recent high school game where the team I help coach was getting beat pretty bad, a couple of adults were screaming in the otherwise quiet gym as one of our players was shooting free throws. Not students, mind you! Adults! I’m even assuming they were parents, but can not confirm that. All I know for sure, is that it was two middle-aged women sitting in the top row cat-calling. Their team was up by 30! Our team was feeling deflated enough as it was, but to have two middle-aged women cat-calling…sad!

I don’t understand schools raising money to fight cancer by having students wear pink, or coaches wear tennis shoes, promote it with announcements…and then when the game starts hurl expletives at players and officials.

There seems to be a growing passion for obnoxiousness in sports. And it isn’t restricted to spectators by any means. Players and coaches have often signed on to act like jerks as well. The number of technical fouls for players taunting has risen substantially.

There needs to be a passion for good sportsmanship. It needs to grab hold of our athletic commitment and fuel the approach to the game.

The integrity of the game and the fun of simply playing the game must trump any desire to humiliate the opponent.

The passion for good sportsmanship must be one of the foundational principles for any competitive situation. It must be a non-negotiable!

Recently I had a situation where of my players had a momentary heated encounter with a player from the other team. I used it as a teachable moment to express my belief that our attitude and actions must not be compromised simply because of differing attitudes and actions of others.

Spiritually speaking, my commitment to Jesus does not get thrown into the backseat simply because I encounter a situation where our culture says it is appropriate to do what suits me. My commitment stays as the main thing.

As a Christian who coaches I understand that if I compromise my principles it communicates to my players that its okay for them to compromise theirs as well.

Bottom line, a passion for good sportsmanship must be rooted within us. Sadly, it is becoming so unusual these days that I think more and more people don’t know what it is or what it looks like.

Categories: children, Christianity, Freedom, Jesus, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Willie the Baptismal Whale (part 2)

December 27, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  December 26, 2012

 

The pastor had to do a little pushing and pulling to get the inflatable properly positioned. It was a snug fit. Inflatable whales are a little wider than Baptist church baptisteries. Finally it was in place with the tail out the backside of the one entrance tank. Perhaps it was built that way to eliminate escapees who began to doubt at the last moment…or if the water heater wasn’t working!

The pastor went home…hopeful that Sunday morning he would not be deflated by having dry baptisms.

He arrived early on Sunday to inspect, pray, and pour. It was a long walk from the kitchen to the baptistery, but that’s where he had to go to fill bucket after bucket with hot water. Willie’s “belly” slowly started to fill up. The tail flopped back and forth like a fin out of control.

It took twenty trips with the five gallon pail to get Willie to the brim. The pastor’s upper back and arms were aching and he secretly was longing to be a Methodist. Sprinkling is a lot easier than total immersion.

That was another fear that kept creeping into his mind. Would Zach fit? He had visions of “partial immersion.” What if Zach’s muscular body couldn’t go all the way under all at once? Was it okay to baptize his upper body and then his lower body immediately after? Did that qualify? He thought back to his adjunct preaching professor in seminary who was a Presbyterian pastor. Baptist seminary students usually want to know that they have all the right answers…and that others don’t. Discussion with their professor about the validity of any baptism that involved less than five hundred gallons was a point of debate.

The wise mentor from a different tradition looked at his inquiring students and asked them a question in response to their question: “Is it the amount of water that is important or the condition of the heart?”

Silence like Pharisees before Jesus.

Zach’s heart condition had been washed clean. A sense of peace fell upon the pastor’s spirit. Sometimes his faith got lost in the fret about the details.

Thirty minutes before the worship gathering was to begin the pastor checked the water level. Willie was holding. The water was still to the top of his sides. He hoped that the temperature would hold just as well. Toes turning blue were not on his bucket list!

The sanctuary began to fill with people, familiar faces and unfamiliar. Baptisms brought the body of believers, as well as others who perhaps wanted to see if it would happen. Zach’s guests included a former high school teacher who prayed for Zach frequently, worrying about his life’s direction and consequences. There was also his boss who had taken Zach under his wing, and treated him like a son. In fact, there were a number of people sitting in different pews throughout the sanctuary that has a hand in guiding him to this point.

Little Bethany also had her guests, aunts and uncles, neighbors and playmates. Her stomach was starting to turn flips in anticipation. Truth be known, she was anxious about the water temperature. She had been telling herself all night “Don’t squeal! Don’t squeal!”She didn’t want an ice-cold whale to cause her to scream.

When the pastor touched down into the pool, however, the temperature was just a little cooler than bath water. He gave the thumbs up to Bethany and her mom and dad who were standing behind her. She stepped down, and accepted the help from the pastor as her right foot stepped over Willie’s inflated head.

Her mom and dad joined her. The increase in weight on the bottom of the pool caused the air to shift to the tail end, and Willie’s back flipper came to attention. Her dad led Bethany through the affirming words of her faith. The pastor stepped to the side and Bethany’s dad, a hair over six foot three himself, dipped his daughter low. She submerged and emerged with not even a gasp, let alone a squeal. All that the congregation could see was a little girl with a big grin that circled around the gap created by her two missing front teeth.

The congregation applauded. Aunts cried. Mom embraced her daughter.

Parents and child stepped back out of Willie and carefully went back up the steps. Zach was next. He came down the steps looking bigger than he actually was. He smiled at the pastor, who moved towards Willie’s tail to give him a little more room. He wasn’t sure how this was going to work, but he was going to make it work…even if it meant to a snug fit in between Willie’s sides for Zach.

The pastor looked out and caught sight of some of Zach’s family. Several were already tearing up. They knew his journey. They knew that there had been more doubters in his life than believers. Some of the doubters, oddly enough, still hoped for failure. The need to be right was greater than the hope to see transformation.

The pastor stood on Zach’s right side.

“Zach, who would have thought that you would have a Jonah moment this morning?”

A chorus of “amens” sounded in different parts of the sanctuary. Zach’s facial expression widened with raised eyebrows and a smile that stretched his cheeks as wide as they could go. The pastor led the new believer in words of profession and identification with Jesus.

“Let’s see if we can all of you under!”

“I’m good with that!”

The words were said, and the young dad was dipped. The pastor swished him around a little bit in Willie’s belly just to make sure; and then he was up…drenched…chuckling…triumphant.

The pastor embraced him. The congregation applauded.

As if in approval, Willie’s tail waved for a moment.

 

 

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Willie the Baptismal Whale (part 1)

December 24, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                          December 23, 2012

The water dripped out of the bottom of the baptistery. It was not a good sign! The renovation of the pool had been completed, but a testing of it a few weeks earlier had shown that it was leaking. The experienced, but aging pool man had come and reworked it. He was sure it was as sound as a steel horse trough!

Little Bethany and solidly-built Zach were ready to be the first two tip-and-dipped below the water’s surface.

Bethany, just a bit under reaching her tenth year of life and missing her front two teeth, was excited to proclaim that she knew Jesus. Her older brother, Josh, had been baptized in the frigid waters of the leaking baptistery, even though the depth was kept at just under a foot. Cold is cold, however, and when Josh’s father dipped him under all the congregation heard was a chilled whimper rising up from the walls above the water. Bethany was sure that her experience would be… warmer! Her shyness showed as she would lean against her mom as the pastor talked to her about what baptism meant; but, inwardly, her excitement could have enabled her to jump across a flowing river.

Zach was a football player turned husband and dad. He had gone through some dessert experiences, but had come to know Jesus in a personal way. It’s not that he understood everything, but he knew a few months ago that his life had come to a “fork in the road”. It was a decision point, and he chose to be a follower of the way of Jesus. His wife and kids were excited to see his life slowly but gradually change.

But on Saturday night the water was continuing to drip out of the tank. It seemed like God was giving this Baptist church an object lesson of some kind. Was there some unresolved sin that was keeping this Baptist church from performing baptisms? Or was it simply the error of a pool guy who hadn’t had much experience doing baptisteries? There was Ezekiel’s dry bones, the ram caught in the thicket for Abraham, Jeremiah buying a field as a sign. Could the dry baptistery be a sign of the absence of the Lord’s blessing on this church? People didn’t want to think about it in that way, but the thought tumbled around in many people’s minds.

The pastor sent out a plea on Saturday night to see if anyone had an inflatable pool that might be used.

When the conventional doesn’t work go with the unconventional. Just get it done! Don’t be deterred!

Within a few minutes of his email plea he had a call from one of attenders about a wading pool he had at his house. He would load it in the back of his truck and be right over. The pastor breathed a sign of relief. A short time later, however, his relieved spirit was trumped again as he discovered that his friend’s wading pool was made of sturdy, inflexible plastic and it was too wide for the baptistery.

“Lord, why?”

Being December inflatable wading pools were not an item that stores stocked. The pastor had already thought of that route, and had received a few strange looks from hurried store employees trying to find Tonka Trucks and Barbie Doll accessories. One store employee when asked about wading pools looked around trying to find out where the hidden camera was filming the conversation.

The pastor’s email clicked with another message. Another family from the congregation had an inflatable pool that could be used. Baptism was going to happen!

An hour later Keith carried it into the sanctuary in a Sears shopping bag, not because it was brand new and recently purchased, but rather to keep it bundled together so it didn’t sprout into eighty different directions.

“It should fit fine!” Keith said. “The only thing is this…it’s Willie the Whale!”

“Willie the Whale?”

“Yes, when it’s inflated it becomes Willie the Whale…complete with tail…or fin…of whatever a whale has at his back end!”

“Baptism in a whale?”

“Actually, it is almost like the belly of a whale since the pool part is the inside of Willie.”

A few minutes later after his cheeks had grown weary from blowing into the inflatable, the pastor gazed upon Willie the Baptismal Whale…complete with tail. He carried it to the baptistery and dropped it in.

Perfect! Thank you, Jesus! A modern version of the story of Jonah would happen Sunday morning!

 

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Christmas Silence

December 19, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                December 19, 2012

My guess is that the most popular Christmas carol is “Silent Night”. Traditionally, it is the song that we end our Christmas Eve Candlelight with. The congregation is standing, each person with their candle glowing. A stillness settles over the congregation as the music begins:

“Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright!”

Perhaps it is the offer at a change of pace that makes the carol so appealing. Christmas is amplified with noise it seems. I was in Walmart the other day and had several toys talking to me as I passed them in the aisles. Seriously! The sound of a monster truck accelerating made me exit a toy truck and cars aisle quickly. In the next aisle a stuffed puppy started panting at me.

Christmas noise. Christmas echoes echoing echoes. Christmas jazz rock.

And so “Silent Night” seems so soothing and comforting. I don’t want to dramatize it too much, but it seems that the birthplace of Jesus…off to the side…out of the banter and bustling…was more about the lack of noise. Perhaps there was some livestock standing around, but what I mean is that no one thought it important enough to make noise over.

In fact, most of the Christmas story characters had journeys that included silence. For shepherds it  was important to have quiet so their hearing could be attuned to any predators lurking close to their herd of sheep. The silence helped them hear any uneasiness in their flock.

The wise men from the East had spent a long period of time traveling in the quiet of wilderness and through valleys. In the Luke account it mentions that after Elizabeth found out she was pregnant she went into seclusion for five months (Luke 1:24). Obviously her husband, Zechariah, wasn’t making any noise!

Silence in the incarnational event punctuated the point that God was doing something incredible.

I’ll be visiting my parents back in Ohio the week after Christmas. My mom is at that point in her life where silence is the norm. She has trouble verbalizing what she is thinking and so there are long periods of uncomfortable quiet, because I’m expecting that the next words are going to come. It’s a hard adjustment seeing your mom, who always talked to you…and even more than you got to say…suddenly be silent. I, however, will always opt for a silent mom over a noisy supermarket, a quite moment sitting by her bed over screaming consumers at the mall.

They say that silence is golden. If that’s true why don’t more people just keep quiet?

“Silent night, holy night!”

Categories: children, Christianity, Christmas, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Prayer, Story, Uncategorized
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The Loss of Tradition…Cat, That Is!

November 28, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                 November 28, 2012

 

We lost our cat on Sunday night, but lest you think this is going to be one of those articles that get all weepy, it’s not! Perhaps it is a bit therapeutic for me to write it, but it is also about some things I’ve been pondering.

Permit me a moment to recap. Carol and I came home Sunday afternoon only to be greeted by a cat in obvious pain. A trip to the emergency veterinarian clinic revealed it wasn’t a good situation, and the vet advised us to put Princess Malibu- Boo for short- to sleep.

Don’t be too amused by her name. She follows in a long line of head-shaking names that our daughters have christened our cats with, including “Tickles”, “Prince Charming Kisses”, “Duke”, and “Katie Katie Cocoa Puffs.” Some of our cats have had more names than I have.

On Monday I found myself looking for Boo around the house. Passing by the front door my habit returned of looking out the window of the door to see if she was waiting on the front step to get back in the house. Opening the door into the garage later that day I instinctively looked at the hood of my car to see if she was laying on it. (I seldom get bird droppings, but paw prints are like a hood design for me.) As I sat in my home study I looked at the ledge by the window where she quite often laid when the sun was shining through.

I realized that I had not only lost a cat, but also some of my daily traditions. I no longer have my hide-and-seek playmate for the evening. I can’t convince Carol to fill that role. If I went out to out hot tub for an evening soak the tradition has been that Boo would sit on top of the tub cover and peer into the night.

A part of my life was lost on Sunday, because things I’ve always done for the past eight years suddenly were finished.

I thought about that in regards to the church. Not cats dying, mind you, but rather traditions being lost.

There are many traditions that should never be lost, but there are a lot of traditions that just become lost. It is neither a good thing nor a bad, it just is. Like a cat that is not destined to live forever, but rather one day to just no longer be.

That is a hard thing for people of the church to hear. We make sacred cows out of a lot of baloney. We look for a world that is filled with things that suit us, while prickly points are vacuumed away.

I remember the first time Carol and I put up a Christmas tree, and she decorated it all wrong, because I was raised to think that there was only one way to decorate a Christmas tree…and she was brought up in a family that had found a different way. My tradition died, but in its place was born a new tradition that has suited our family of five well. Letting go of my understanding, however, was hard!

All of us have our areas of inflexibility. All congregations battle a desire for attracting new people with an addiction to keeping things the way we like it.

Will we ever get another cat? I don’t know. I’m still looking for the one we just lost.

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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Kids and Jesus

October 17, 2012

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                    October 17, 2012

 

Most Sundays I have a children’s story as a part of our morning worship service. We try to find a nice balance between children being a part of the worship service and having time together as a “children’s church.” It might be my imagination, but it seems that the kid’s story has more attentive adults than the main message does.

I’ve tried not to analyze it too much. Perhaps it goes back to the days of Art Linkletter and “Kids Say the Darnedest Things.” You were never quite sure what was going to pop out of someone’s mouth. It’s the same with the Sunday children’s story. You never quite know! The congregation has been flashed a few times. I’ve had one cute little girl climb up in my lap as I’m trying to make a serious point about Jesus. I’ve had one preschooler steer my story about prayer in the direction of color of paint in her bedroom. I’ve learned the hard way that any questions have to be carefully worded, and if a hand goes up with an answer it might have something to do with the question, or about what Santa is bringing the kids for Christmas.

In other words, kids are unpredictable.,,which makes them “dialogue dangerous”, but delightful to the core.

I wonder when Jesus’ disciples tried to keep the children from coming to Jesus if they were concerned about the detours that children can take you on. Instead of Son of God rhetoric they like to talk about fruit roll-ups and the sick little boy in their class at school. Instead of repentance and confession they like to giggle and pick their noses.

In fact, the disciples were a little uptight about anyone under five feet tall. Luke 18:15 says “People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them.”

Are you serious? Not exactly a “User-Friendly Church! More like “Seeker-Over-Sensitive.”

I guess you could say that the disciples may have over-reacted. Although it doesn’t say it, I can envision Peter being Jesus “muscle” here, guarding the Savior from those dangerous parents of newborns.

Church today still runs the danger of being “a place for grown-ups.” Kids are sometimes seen as a distraction, to be tolerated as long as they are cute.

Jesus rained on the disciples’ power parade by saying that “…anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:17)

Perhaps some grown-ups need to commence sucking thumbs. Less scowls and more smiles; smaller words, and bigger dreams.

The kingdom of God more resembles a playground than an office building, a super twisty slide more than rushing through traffic.

Have you ever noticed how caring and giving kids are? Oh, there are the selfish moments, but there are other times where they model mercy and compassion. Have a baby bird fall out of it’s nest, and just see who takes the role of caregiver and savior. Adults are sometimes too tall to see the basic misery around them.

Ask a child to help someone who has suffered through an earthquake in a distant country and watch the lemonade stands pop up.

I don’t think Scripture says a bad thing about kids, except maybe in Proverbs, and there it is not explained what age the verse is referring to. (“A fool spurns his father’s discipline…” Proverbs 15:5a)

Maybe that’s why Jesus liked to hang out with youngsters. He knew he would not have to get into a battle about righteousness, fasting, or spiritual authority.

One last thought! Maybe the reason that the grown-ups are so attentive to the kid’s story is that there is a longing within them to be kids again!

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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No Shoes In the Mall

December 24, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. December 24, 2011

It was a strange scene, hundreds of people standing outside the mall at a quarter to twelve midnight. Perhaps a celebrity was showing up, or the line to see Santa was so long that people were still waiting hours after the mall had closed.
But a closer look indicated that it was neither of those. The new retro Air Jordan athletic shoes were going on sale. I don’t remember there being lines back in the early seventies for “Chuck Taylor’s” when they went on sale, although I do remember wearing them until they were literally in shreds. No wonder we couldn’t jump in those days! We didn’t have any rubber left on the bottom of our shoes!
The scene was chaos as doors opened, got busted off their hinges and crowds of people ran frantically into the shoe store, only to have most of them be disappointed with the news “No shoes in the Mall!”

Even the fortunate ones who did get the precious pairs included very few people who actually needed a pair of shoes. Comments could be heard:

“I’m putting my pair on eBay for double the price!”

“I’m going to hold on to my pair for a couple of years and then make a mint off of them!”

“I’m just going to keep mine in the box, wrap it up in protective plastic wrap, and watch the value go up. Believe me! No one is going to take down the value of these shoes by actually wearing them!”
What to do? A crisis had emerged. Johnny Junior’s quest for a college scholarship and a lucrative professional contract someday was in jeopardy because there were no AJ’s to be had. Parents explained the repercussions of this shortage to store innkeepers, but to no avail. The only advice they received was “You might try the clearance rack over there. I think we have some old black high-top Converses. They aren’t as flashy, but they still fit feet.”
Some parents became adamant about the store producing more shoes, while others just walked away with downcast expressions. But one young boy found the clearance rack, noticed a brand spanking new pair of old Chuck Taylor’s and shouted out “I found my shoes!”
While others trampled on one another, pushed, punched, and pepper-sprayed, he walked out of the mall with his mom and dad, content, excited, and ready to lace them up!

Categories: children, Christianity, Christmas, Faith, love, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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