As Noah spoke, all the times this morning I had been hard on him to swing level, watch the ball, hustle and run came crashing down in a moment when my heart just sank. What in the world am I thinking? One year ago, I asked God a simple prayer that needed a big miracle. I asked God to help my son to play baseball. When I told Noah about this prayer, my son said "daddy, if God heals my leg and I can play will you coach my team?"
At the time, I was serving as an assistant coach voluntarily for White House High School. And I walked away from something I love because I was pushing my son onto a practice field every day in a wheelchair. To this day it is so hard to see those young men in the community and feel like I let them down. But with my wife working in another state, my son wearing casts on both legs, and my church growing rapidly, I made the decision to walk away and focus on the right things first.
If you are a White House High School baseball player and reading this - please remember that I never wanted to abandon my responsibility. But this year, I kept my promise.
Noah has Perthes disease. A degenerative bone disease in his pelvic area, leaving his hip joint on one side with just 30 percent of the ball socket completely formed. On February 4th last year, he had hip surgery and was confined to a specialized wheelchair while wearing double casts on his legs with a long bar attached in the middle.
The high school baseball players and coaches were his heroes and they were so awesome to him. They would play catch with him in the wheelchair, and Zac Hasty, another left-hander, let him use his glove. Noah used to tell me that he wanted to be like Zac when he grew up and then I would watch him cry in the truck seat when he said, "Daddy, will I ever be able to play ball like Zac?"
After surgery, Noah's leg improved. The bone started to grow back and his limp reduced and by the end of May last year, he was running. He continued to improve and I agreed to keep my promise. I battled some health issues early this year, and after doing morning workouts in January and February with the high school team, I again placed my focus on my family and agreed to coach Noah's team. I also go to all my daughter's games.
There's a spiritual principle here I want to emphasize. My competition is driving me as a coach to push my son and discipline him (positively) when he does not succeed, so that he learns and develops as a baseball player. The problem is, you could make an argument that all God did was answer exactly what I asked.
Three years ago, I also asked God to give me the blessing of pastoring a church that would reach broken people in our community. The onset of church planting in the modern church world has both advanced the Gospel in ways like never before, and ultimately - and unfortunately - created a competitive mindset among mega churches and their numbers for reaching the lost.
Social networking feeds this monster. Some pastors are humble; they reach people in droves with the Good News of Christ and you will likely never hear a peep out of their numbers. They emphasize life change as a rule, not as a digit. Instead of "five more added to the kingdom today!" we see individual stories of life change promoted and humility and serving in leadership.
Jesus said in scripture that if we want to lead, we must first serve. Competition has driven us to measure churches by the size of the congregation, the numbers of hands raised during a response time, or the offering placed in the baskets. We had 10,000 eggs at Easter, yet I looked around and noticed that Easter egg hunts have suddenly become the measuring stick for community outreach. We have helicopters, massive numbers of eggs and big-time events to draw thousands of people. So to keep up, next year I plan to shoot Easter eggs out of an M1A1 battle tank. See? I'm winning.
And I'm kidding.
But the point is valid. God is doing amazing things in His kingdom through new churches, old churches, established churches and organic churches. He's exploding the Gospel in ways we could never imagine. But be quick to remind each other what the focus really is about!
God did not call us to increase our averages and score runs. He called us to play ball. He answered our prayers to be placed on the team. And YES! We want to win! But in the pursuit of winning, let us not ever forget the true pulse of what we do, and that is celebrate every life change story and every answered prayer, and champion those who are still waiting for their blessing to come.
We have a great church; I have a great son. God answered my prayers and I am challenging God for even bigger things.
Pastors, some of you may have needed to read that you are not inadequate if your church is not reaching the numbers dished out by great men like Perry Noble, Rick Warren and Steven Furtick. Rapidly growing churches and pastors, perhaps you need a reminder that God did not call you to be a competitor with the other people at work in the same mission you are undertaking.
If you pay attention to the latest Twitter brag of mega-church pastors (who are doing awesome things, by the way), you'll miss what God is doing through YOU and HIS CHURCH in you. Just because Joel Osteen has 30,000 in worship Sunday morning doesn't mean that the young man who walked the aisle in your service isn't moving Heaven. In fact, the Bible says angels are throwing a party when that happens in your church.
And for goodness sakes - in Jesus name - STOP criticizing HOW people share the Gospel and calling it preaching. No one called you, or anyone else for that matter, to make fun of the style of others, whether contemporary, traditional, liturgical, ceremonial or grass-roots organic. Do what you do - and do it well - and realize you are called to bloom where you are planted, not be uprooting someone else's tree.
I preach tomorrow. My son plays ball again at 1:30. Amazing things are going to happen both places.
I'm just not sure we need to focus on the score as much as we focus on the story.
I love you, and these are my thoughts.
Pastor K
