John Wooden, more than just a Coaching Legend...

Written by a sportswriter.......

On the 21st of the month, the best man I know will do what he always does on the 21st of the month. He'll sit down and pen a love letter to his best girl. He'll say how much he misses her and loves her and can't wait to see her again.

Then he'll fold it once, slide it in a little envelope and walk into his bedroom. He'll go to the stack of love letters sitting there on her pillow, untie the yellow ribbon, place the new one on top and tie the ribbon again. The stack will be 180 letters high then, because the 21st will be 15 years to the day since Nellie, his beloved wife of 53 years, died.

In her memory, he sleeps only on his half of the bed, only on his pillow, only on top of the sheets, never between; with just the oldbedspread they shared to keep him warm.

There's never been a finer man in American sports than John Wooden, or a finer coach. He won 10 NCAA basketball championships at UCLA, thelast in 1975. Nobody has ever come within six of him.

He won 88 straight games between January 30, 1971, and January 17,1974. Nobody has come within 42 since.

So, sometimes, when the Basketball Madness gets to be too much -- too many players trying to make Sports Center, too few players trying to make assists, too few coaches willing to be mentors, too many freshmen with out-of-wedlock kids, too few freshmen who will stay in school long enough to become men -- I like to go see Coach Wooden.

I visit him in his little condo in Encino, 20 minutes northwest of Los Angeles, and hear him say things like "Gracious sakes alive!" and tell stories about teaching "Lewis" the hook shot. Lewis Alcindor, that is...who became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

There has never been another coach like Wooden, quiet as an April snow and square as a game of checkers; loyal to one woman, one school, one way; walking around campus in his sensible shoes and Jimmy Stewart morals.

He'd spend a half hour the first day of practice teaching his men how to put on a sock. "Wrinkles can lead to blisters," he'd warn. These huge players would sneak looks at one another and roll their eyes.

Eventually, they'd do it right. "Good," he'd say. "And now for the other foot."Of the 180 players who played for him, Wooden knows the whereabouts of172. Of course, it's not hard when most of them call, checking on his health, secretly hoping to hear some of his simple life lessons so that they can write them on the lunch bags of their kids, who will roll theireyes."

Discipline yourself, and others won't need to," Coach would say."Never lie, never cheat, never steal," and "Earn the right to be proud and confident."

If you played for him, you played by his rules: Never score without acknowledging a teammate. One word of profanity and you're done for the day. Treat your opponent with respect.

He believed in hopelessly out-of-date stuff that never did anything but win championships. No dribbling behind the back or through the legs."

There's no need," he'd say.

No UCLA basketball number was retired under his watch. "What about thefellows who wore that number before? Didn't they contribute to the team?" he'd say.

No long hair, no facial hair. "They take too long to dry, and you could catch cold leaving the gym," he'd say. That one drove his players bonkers.

One day, All-America center Bill Walton showed up with a full beard.

"It's my right," he insisted. Wooden asked if he believed that strongly.

Walton said he did. "That's good, Bill," Coach said. "I admire people who have strong beliefs and stick by them, I really do. We're going to miss you." Walton shaved it right then and there. Now Walton calls once a week to tell Coach he loves him.

It's always too soon when you have to leave the condo and go back out into the real world, where the rules are so much grayer and the teams so much worse.

As Wooden shows you to the door, you take one last look around. The framed report cards of his great-grandkids, the boxes of jellybeans peeking out from under the favorite wooden chair, the dozens of pictures of Nellie.

He's almost 90 now. You think a little more hunched over than last time. Steps a little smaller. You hope it's not the last time you see him. He smiles. "I'm not afraid to die," he says. "

Death is my only chance to be with her again."

Problem is * we still need him here."

There is only one kind of a life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere. Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters: John Wooden"

Food for Thought and Reflection...

Below is an article from Christianity Today that addresses those in our churches that appear to being living the Christian life the way God intended. This may include you. Take some time to reflect on whether or not you are in your Father's arms. Are you doing the life of a Christian or have you truly accepted the Grace that Christ has already given you?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/004/17.138.html

Helping the "Healthy"

How do we preach saving grace to those who just aren't "good" at sinning?
by Craig Barnes

I have about decided that the most dangerous thing people can do in the church is be healthy. The leadership will either overuse them on committees and ministry teams, until they're no longer healthy, or we will just ignore them. Clergy have a particularly hard time knowing how to care for those who do not appear to be in trouble.

It isn't really that difficult to preach to prodigals. Pastors are well trained for this task, believe it is core to the gospel, and love nothing more than proclaiming the forgiving grace of God to the sinner. But what does the pastor have to say to all of those elder brothers who have faithfully stayed in the pews of the church their whole lives?

Face it—caring for the elder brother is a drag. He doesn't want any of our sexy recovery programs because he isn't divorced, bereaved, or addicted to anything other than playing it safe. He doesn't have a dramatic story to share because he never got around to making a mess of life before returning to the outstretched arms of the rejoicing Father. So all we say is "Well, you have always been here and we're proud of you, too. Now, about the stewardship committee—"
I am not exactly sure that the elder brother is spiritually healthy. The point of the parable, it seems to me, is that the goal is to find yourself in the arms of the Father. It may be that the elder brother was in greater danger of never finding those arms than the prodigal who had to run away to return to them. But that is precisely my concern. How do we preach saving grace to those who just aren't good at sinning?

The preacher has to remember that not being a flagrant sinner is a particularly seductive means of rebellion. This was essentially Jesus' point to the Pharisees. Those who have not broken the rules may be farther from the Father's arms than those who've broken most all of them. Sin is anything that separates us from God, and nothing does that quite like not feeling the need for mercy. Again, the point isn't to be good. The point is to get into those arms, and grace is the only way there.

This means preachers are called to peel back the veneer of spiritual health in the elder brothers, and help them to see that beneath all of those years of careful living lies a soul that is as dangerously parched as that of the prodigals. Their right answers, dedicated volunteerism, beautiful families, and well-marked study Bibles can keep them away from the love of the Father just as much as the prodigals' wantonness.

Whether he realizes it or not, like everyone else, the elder brother yearns to be in the right relationship with God. But for him, that requires repenting of his years and years of living so carefully that he doesn't need grace. This is not an easy point to make as a preacher.

Over the years, I have learned to get at this hard truth by telling short, subtle anecdotes. For example: "A woman is vacuuming one day, praying that God will make her a better mother. As she looks out the living room window, she sees her five-year-old son in the backyard. He is throwing a ball up in the air and clumsily trying to catch it. She doesn't know why, but she can't stop crying."

It is not necessary to interpret the story by making the obvious point that the goal is not to be a better mother, but gratefully to enjoy the child God has given her. With prodigals you have to be obvious, but with their careful, hard-working elder siblings, only subtlety will pierce through the self-righteousness. This is why Jesus liked parables so much.

Other preachers may prefer different strategies for speaking to those who have lived too carefully. But clearly, the healthy members of the church are in just as big trouble as everyone else. If we pastors ever get confused about that, we have only to look just beneath the surface of our own spiritual veneer.

Editor at large Craig Barnes is pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church and professor of leadership and ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This article first appeared in the Fall of 2005 Leadership Journal.
Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188

Living Your Life for Christ - Even in Sports

Polamalu has emerged as one of NFL's top safeties

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/sports/steelerslive/s_295403.html

Excerpt:

Then, there is Polamalu's faith, which is the strongest guiding force in his life. "God calls upon Christian football players to play with passion, just like the life you live."

Polamalu doesn't watch games that don't involve him (other than USC's victory in the Orange Bowl this year), so he said he acquired his instincts for the game "just playing in the park."
He said his skills are "mostly God given."

"I'm not trying to toot my own horn here," he said, "but it is definitely a blessing from God that he has allowed me to be very instinctual and just go out and play football. My faith has got everything to do with my performance, whether it's good or bad."

Polamalu said his faith has been important to him since he was about in the third grade and his grandmother Ese Pola died.

"It was very hard on me," he said. "I went to church, maybe, four or five times a week before she died, but I didn't really find meaning in that. But from then on, was when I started praying every night and started reading the Bible."

Even today, Polamalu reads the Bible -- and his playbook -- every day.

Time Management 101

Something that I struggle with from time to time is fitting everything that needs to be done in the time I have allotted and still leave time for fun. The following article on Christianity Today gives us a glimpse into God's perspective on time management via the example of Jesus. Pray and ask God to reveal to you what "work" he has been interrupting your life with that you have been missing.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/002/29.43.html

Schedule, Interrupted
Discovering God's time-management.
by Mark Buchanan


"Teach us to number our days aright," Moses asked God, "that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Ps. 90:12).

There is a right way to tally up days. There's an arithmetic of timekeeping, and God must tutor us in it. Wisdom is not the condition for learning this arithmetic. It's the fruit of it. Wisdom comes from learning to number our days aright. You don't need to be wise to sign up for God's school. But if you're diligent, attentive, and inquisitive in his classes, you'll emerge that way.

It's easy to get this wrong. God's school is not like most. It's not regimented, age-adjusted, fixed in its curricula. The classroom is life itself; the curriculum, all of life's demands and interruptions and tedium, its surprises and disappointments. In the midst of this, through these things themselves, God hands us an abacus and tells us to tally it all up.

Meaning?

Meaning, work out where time and eternity meet. Pay attention to how God is afoot in the mystery of each moment, in its mad rush or maddening plod. He is present in both. But too often, we are so time-obsessed that we take no time to really notice. I have a pastor friend in Toronto who one day after a Sunday service received a note: "Pastor Peter, I would appreciate it if you prayed shorter prayers. Your pastoral prayer this past Sunday was 12 minutes, 43 seconds in length. Please strive for greater brevity."

The note was unsigned. The only thing we know about this man, woman, or child is that the writer is so bound by time—counting the minutes—that he has never learned to number his days. This person can tell time, but not discern seasons.

Miss that, and you miss wisdom. For only those who number their days aright gain a wise heart. Only they become God's sages: those calm, unhurried people who live in each moment fully, savoring simple things, celebrating small epiphanies, unafraid of life's inevitable surprises and reverses, adaptive to change yet not chasing after it.

The Ironic Secret
I write this at a time when the church talks much about being purpose-driven. This is a good thing, but we ought to practice a bit of holy cynicism about it. We should be a little uneasy about the pairing of purposefulness and drivenness. Something's out of kilter there. Drivenness may awaken purpose or be a catalyst for purpose, but it rarely fulfills it: More often it jettisons it.

A common characteristic of driven people is that, at some point, they forget their purpose. They lose the point. The very reason they began something—embarked on a journey, undertook a project, waged a war, entered a profession, married a woman—erodes under the weight of their striving. Their original inspiration may have been noble. But driven too hard, it gets supplanted by greed for more, or dread of setback, or force of habit.

Drivenness erodes purposefulness.

The difference between living on purpose and being driven surfaces most clearly in what we do with time. The driven are fanatical time managers—time-mongers, time-herders, time-hoarders. Living on purpose requires skillful time management, true, but not the kind that turns brittle, that attempts to quarantine most of what makes life what it is: the mess, the surprises, the breakdowns, and the breakthroughs. Too much rigidity stifles purpose. I find that the more I try to manage time, the more anxious I get about it.

And the more prone I am to lose my purpose.

Truly purposeful people have an ironic secret: They manage time less and pay attention more. The most purposeful people I know rarely overmanage time, and when they do, it's usually because they're lapsing into drivenness, into a loss of purpose for which they overcompensate with mere busyness. No, the distinguishing mark of purposeful people is not time management.

It's that they notice. They're fully awake.

Zigzags and Detours
Jesus, for example. He lived life with the clearest and highest purpose. Yet he veered and strayed from one interruption to the next, with no apparent plan in hand other than his single, overarching one: Get to Jerusalem and die. Otherwise, his days, as far as we can figure, were a series of zigzags and detours, apparent whims and second thoughts, interruptions and delays, off-the-cuff plans, spur-of-the-moment decisions, leisurely meals, serendipitous rounds of storytelling.

Who touched me?You give them something to eat.Let's go to the other side.

Jesus was available—or not—according to some oblique logic all his own. He had an inner ear for the Father's whispers, a third eye for the Spirit's motions. One minute he's not going to the temple, the next he is. One minute he refuses to help a wedding host solve his wine drought, the next he's all over it. He's ready to drop everything and rush over to a complete stranger's house to heal his servant, but dawdles four days while Lazarus—"the one he loves"—writhes in his death throes (John 11:3), or fails to come at all when John the Baptist—"the greatest in the kingdom of heaven"—languishes on death row (Matt. 11:1-11). The closest we get to what dictated Jesus' schedule is his statement in John's Gospel: "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).

The apostle Peter, after declaring that Jesus is "Lord of all," describes the supreme Sovereign's modus operandi: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and … he went around doing good" (Acts 10:36, 38, emphasis mine). So that's it, the sum of Christ's earthly vocation: He wandered, and he blessed. He was a vagabond physician, the original doctor without borders. His purpose was crystallized, but his method almost scattershot. "My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted," Henri Nouwen said near the end of his life, "until I discovered the interruptions were my work."

Paying Attention
No, Jesus didn't seem to keep time. But he noticed. So many people along the way—blind men, lame men, wild men, fishermen, tax men, weeping whores, pleading fathers, grieving mothers, dying children, singing children, anyone—captured his attention. He stopped to tell a lot of stories, many of which arose out of interruptions: "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me" (Luke 12:13); "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25); "Son of David, have mercy on me!" (Matt. 15:22). What's more, he invited others to go and do likewise. Those driven to get and spend, to judge and exclude, he called to attention.

Look at the birds!
Look at those flowers!
Do you see this woman?
Where are the other nine?
Why do you call me good?
Who do you say I am?

Life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions, Jesus warned. And then he told a story about a rich fool who noticed all the trivial things but was oblivious to all the important ones. What matters, Jesus concluded, isn't being rich in stuff: It's being rich toward God. He explained the essence of such richness elsewhere: It's having eyes to see, ears to hear. It's to notice, to pay attention to the time of God's visitation. "The dream of my life," Mary Oliver writes,

Is to lie down by a slow riverAnd stare at the light in the trees—To learn something of being nothingA little while but the richLens of attention.

Jesus was that "rich lens of attention."

To live on purpose means to go and do likewise. Purposefulness requires that we pay attention, and paying attention means, almost by definition, that we make room for surprise. We become hospitable to interruption. To sustain it, we need theological touchstones for it—a conviction in our bones that God is Lord of our days and years, and that his purposes and his presence often come disguised as detours, messes, defeats.

I came to you naked, Jesus says. I came to you thirsty.

"When, Lord?" we ask, startled.

When he wore the disguise of an interruption.

Think a moment of all the events and encounters that have shaped you most deeply and lastingly. How many did you see coming? How many did you engineer, manufacture, chase down?

And how many were interruptions?

Children? You might have planned as meticulously as a NASA rocket launch, but did you have any idea, really, what it would be like, who this child in your arms really was, who you would become because of him or her? The span between life as we intend it and life as we receive it is vast. Our true purpose is worked out in that gap. It is fashioned in the crucible of interruptions.

The Crucible of Interruptions
The movie Mr. Holland's Opus tells the story of a man with a magnificent ambition. He wants to be a great composer. But he still has to pay the bills, so he and his young wife move to a small town where he teaches high school music, strictly for the money. All the while, he works on his masterpiece, his opus, laying the ground for his real calling. The plan is to teach for a few years, then step into his destiny.

But life keeps intruding. One year folds into two, into five, into fifteen. And then one day, Mr. Holland is old, and the school board shuffles him out for early retirement. He packs his desk. His wife and grown son come to fetch him. Walking down the school's wide, empty hallways, he hears a sound in the auditorium. He goes to see what it is.

It's a surprise.

Hundreds of his students from his years of teaching—many now old themselves—dozens of his colleagues, both current and former, hundreds of friends, fans, and well-wishers: The room is packed. All have gathered to say thank you. An orchestra is there, made up of Mr. Holland's students through the years. They've been preparing to perform Mr. Holland's Opus—the composition that, over four decades, he hammered out and tinkered with, polished, discarded, recovered, reworked, but never finished.

They play it now.

But of course he knows, everyone knows: His opus isn't the composition. His real opus, his true life's masterpiece, stands before him, here, now. It's not the music. It is all these people whom his passions and convictions have helped and shaped. It's all that was being formed in the crucible of interruptions. This is his work. This is his purpose.

Finally, after all these years, he's learned to number his days.

In 1973, the comedian Johnny Carson nearly caused a national crisis with a single wisecrack. That was the year North America's long flight of postwar prosperity fell to earth like a shot goose in one ungainly plummet. There was runaway inflation. There were oil and food shortages. All the abundance that Americans had come to see as their due, their birthright, suddenly seemed in jeopardy.

And so, on December 19, 1973, at 11:35 p.m., when Johnny Carson walked on the live studio set of The Tonight Show and quipped, "There's an acute shortage of toilet paper in the United States," it wasn't funny. The joke had a toehold in reality: Earlier in the day, Congressman Harold Froehlich from Wisconsin had warned that if the federal bureaucracy didn't catch up on its supply bids, government agencies would run out of toilet tissue within a month or two. Carson took this shard of trivia and played it for a laugh. Then, as was his trademark, he swung at an invisible golf ball, took a commercial break, and got on with the show.

Not so the nation. Twenty million viewers flew into panic. The next morning, hundreds of thousands of frantic shoppers lined up outside the supermarkets of America, poised to dash to the paper aisles and stockpile rolls, fighting over bundles of two-ply and four-ply. There were brawls in the aisles and scrums at the checkout. Some store managers tried to limit sales to four rolls per customer, but they had no way of monitoring how many times a customer came back, and most came back repeatedly. By noon on December 20—mere hours after Johnny's flippant remark—America was sold out.

Johnny Carson's offhand gag line had sparked a national run (no pun intended) on toilet tissue.

We're generally gullible about news of scarcity. We have, it seems, an inbuilt skittishness about shortfall. This has been with us a long while, since the garden, by my reckoning.

Most of us live afraid that we're almost out of time. But you and I, we're heirs of eternity. We're not short of days.

We just need to number them aright.

Mark Buchanan's latest book, from which this article is excerpted, is The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring the Sabbath (Word, 2005).

This article first appeared in the February 2006 issue of Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188

"Living Stones" or "Concrete Stones"

In 1 Peter 2:5, Peter says: "...you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

This is the verse that Pastor Petersen referred to last night at our Annual Meeting in reference to the focus of our new construction at Central Baptist Church. From the very beginning of the project, the focus has continued to be on God, what He is doing in and through the people of Central and what direction He is leading us.

This verse seems to capture that focus and was a great reminder for me on a night when I would stand in awe of the size and magnitude of the structure being built. This is what gripped me last night (again, thanks to what God has been doing already and what I believe He will continue to do): all I could think about as I was walking through the huge hallway and gawking at all of the rooms and space and peering down into the gym was, "Think of the people that we can reach for Christ."

I found myself so excited about what God might do in this place. I found myself praising Him for providing for the expenses for the project so far. Then, it hit me. Are we ready? Are we ready for the opportunities that God has in store for us? How is He preparing us?

As Peter says, we are "living stones...being built into a spiritual house". The questions that come to me are, "How am I being built?" and "What am I being built for (what purpose)?" The time is now for God to prepare us for what we will do when the new sanctuary is open and the gym is ready to be used. There will be more opportunity for people to come for events, concerts, basketball leagues, youth events, and Sunday morning worship. The question for each of us is: "Where do I fit into the spiritual house? What is my role? What is my sacrifice?"

As Peter said, our purpose is to "be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." Over the next few months, I am challenging myself - and you - to seek God's direction for your involvement at Central. There is no doubt going to be a lot of adjustments for everyone. It will be different for everyone. The cool part about change is that there are new opportunities that open up. What is God stirring up in your heart? Pray about it. Talk about it with others. Watch what happens, because God will knock your socks off if you just ask Him - and there's nothing more fun to be a part of. Oh, did I mention to pray - there is nothing more important or significant we can do.

Are you plugged in - or unplugged?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/003/23.96.html

Continuous Voltage
Spiritual strength, as Billy Graham experienced it, means remaining connected to your power Source.
by Harold Myra and Marshall Shelley

Billy Graham's colleagues often speak of the constant pressure Billy has always felt. It's easy to see why. Imagine the pressure of conducting the funeral for the disgraced former President Richard Nixon while the nation skeptically watched and listened for every nuance. Imagine the emotional demands on him when he conducted the memorial service after the Oklahoma City bombing.

The service at the National Cathedral right after the September 11 attacks presented perhaps the greatest pressure of all. The nation was in deep shock; the entire world would be watching on television. Billy's words and tone, both for Americans and for people of all other nations, had to be just right.

That would be challenge enough for a person at the height of his strength. But it was a frail octogenarian with serious health problems who mounted the platform with steady purpose and told the nation, "God is our refuge and strength; an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way, and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea."
With inner strength, Billy declared, "You may be angry at God. I want to assure you that God understands these feelings you have. But God can be trusted, even when life seems at its darkest. From the cross, God declares, 'I love you. I know the heartaches and the sorrows and the pains you feel, but I love you.'

"This has been a terrible week with many tears. But also it's been a week of great faith. … And [remember] the words of that familiar hymn that Andrew Young quoted, 'Fear not, I am with thee. Oh, be not dismayed, for I am thy God and will still give thee aid.'"

Despite his frailty, Billy's presence, poise, and message touched the sorrows and fears and brought hope and a deeply Christian response to his nation and to the world. He found the inner resources to rise to that momentous occasion.

Even in the latter years of his eventful ministry, Billy continued in the nitty-gritty of leading his organization; continued to sweat over the funding of three events in Amsterdam that brought together 10,000 itinerant evangelists, 70 percent of them from poor, developing countries; continued to appear on news shows to represent the gospel; continued to minister to every U.S. president of his era. In the phrase voiced by President George W. Bush when Billy was hospitalized and unable to attend the funeral of Ronald Reagan, Billy was "the nation's pastor"—but he was also the leader of an organization and of a vast movement.

How could he maintain the strength and sense of commitment to do all that for more than sixty years?

Billy has not been impervious to the pressures; his body and psyche have paid a steep price. But he has taken his own advice, so often expressed in his newspaper columns, books, and articles. He has continually plugged himself into the spiritual and psychological voltage that has made this half-century saga possible.

From the beginning, his spiritual power has come from prayer and the Bible. His colleague, T. W. Wilson, called him "the most completely disciplined person I have ever known." The discipline started around 7:00 a.m. each day, when he would read five psalms and one chapter of Proverbs. He started there because, as he often said, the psalms showed him how to relate to God, while Proverbs taught him how to relate to people. After breakfast he would pray and study more Scripture. Even under the pressure of travel schedules moving him from city to city, often through many time zones, he strove to study and pray each morning.

Some close to Billy describe him as more adaptive to circumstances in fitting in study and prayer, but all emphasize his spending large amounts of time connecting with his source of wisdom, cleansing, and power.

As Billy said, "Unless the soul is fed and exercised daily, it becomes weak and shriveled. It remains discontented, confused, restless."

Even in his early days of youthful vigor, he was intensely aware of his need for that power.

We talked about that with Billy's younger brother, Melvin Graham, shortly before Melvin passed away.

When Billy left the family farm at age 20, Melvin had stayed on—back when plowing was done with mules. At nearly 80 years old, Melvin was still active in land development.

We asked, "Where do you think Billy's spiritual growth came from?"

"Billy Frank would interact with just about anybody," he said. "It didn't matter who they were, kings or paupers. He studied a lot. He prayed a lot. He'd get on his knees and flatten out on the ground and call on the Lord. I've seen him."

Melvin suddenly pulled up his chin and said, "Tell you what—there was a fella named Bill Henderson, had a little grocery store in the black section of Charlotte—just a run-down little dump of a place. He was a tiny guy. He had long sleeves that came way down, and he wore a tie that hung down below his waist. But I tell you, that little old man, he knew the Bible!

"This was probably the late forties," Melvin explained, "and Billy had been around a lot of places."

We nodded, remembering this was when Billy was United Airlines' top traveler and had preached in many European cities.

Melvin wagged his head in wonder. "Henderson barely made a living. It was a place people would come to get chewing tobacco and stuff like that. Most people loved him, but that little man got beat up many times, got his store robbed time and time again, but he just loved the Lord. Billy loved to hear Bill Henderson tell him about the Scriptures, because he lived them; it wasn't weekend Christianity. And Henderson could pray. He'd pray for Billy and his young ministry. And he witnessed all the time."

"Did this influence Billy's focus on evangelism?"

"Absolutely," replied Melvin. "In the afternoons Billy would go there and sit on an old crate—I don't think they had a chair in the place—and let Bill teach him."

Melvin's word picture is instructive: young Billy Graham, while traveling widely to address large audiences, taking time to sit on a crate to learn from Bill Henderson. This image was consistent as we interviewed those who knew Billy: he was constantly learning, from self-taught store owners to executives, professors, pastors, presidents—and his candid, well-read wife. We heard over and over again, "He was always learning, always teachable."

When strength fades

When Billy's 1957 New York campaign was so effective that the pastors asked him to stay for another month of meetings, he told his associate Grady Wilson he didn't think he could make it even one more day. "All of my strength has departed from me," he said. "I've preached all the material I can lay my hands on. Yet God wants me here."

In all, he wound up preaching virtually every night for over three months in Madison Square Garden and making additional public appearances and speaking other times during the day. Grady believed it was "the prayers of people all over the world" that gave Billy the needed stamina for the task. Yet he also believed that the grueling time in New York drew down his reserves. "Since that time, I don't believe he's ever regained all his strength."

Cliff Barrows agrees. "Bill was so weary in the latter few weeks, he felt he just couldn't go another day, but the Lord kept giving him strength. But at the end of the meetings, something left him, something came out of him physically that has never been replaced." Until then a highly energetic preacher, afterward the active and rapid-fire delivery began to be replaced by a quieter strength.

Graham cut back on the number of crusades he held. Billy's autobiography lists 19 crusades he held in 1961. For 1962, it lists six.

Significantly, in 1962, while Graham conducted a crusade in Chicago, his media adviser, Walter Bennett, offered advice to some senior aides of Martin Luther King Jr., whom Billy had met and invited to give a prayer at the watershed New York City meetings.

Bennett analyzed the King team's approach to event organization and media relations. He warned that King would burn out if the minister continued his break-neck pace of speaking at small churches before modest audiences. Bennett suggested that King should aim for fewer events but more large-scale.

Perhaps that advice influenced the King team. One year later, King exhibited exceptional media savvy and organizational acumen during his defining moment, the March on Washington, where he made his historic "I have a dream" speech.

Billy had learned that not only is it important to connect to continuous voltage, it's also vital to monitor the way the energy is expended.

Despite a recurring sense of being drained, Billy didn't quit. Pastor Warren Wiersbe said: "When Billy stood up to speak one night, I thought, This guy is not going to make it. You could tell he was not at his best physically; he just didn't look like he was up to it. And then something happened, like you plugged in a computer—that power was there. The minute he stepped into that pulpit and opened his Bible, something happened. I've heard him say that when he gets up to preach, he feels like electricity is going through him."

This is the picture so often described by his colleagues: weakness drawing on the Spirit.

Prayer's quiet intensity

One of Billy's crusade organizers, Rick Marshall, in his first meeting with Billy, was amazed by his being so open about his weakness and by his humble prayers. "I remember thinking to myself, This is Billy Graham? It was such a contrast to the persona I had watched filling the stadium with his booming voice and authority. But when I was actually with the man, I was overwhelmed by the humility, the raw honesty before God about his own inability and physical limitations."

Rick quoted Paul's statement, "When I am weak, then I am strong," as the basis for this strange mixture of strength through weakness. Like Paul, Billy leaned into his weaknesses.

"Now think about it," Rick said. "If anyone could have been confident, it would have been Billy. But I never saw that. I saw only humility and a bowed head. In fact, I made a point for the last twenty campaigns to bring a team of pastors to pray with him every night before he went into the pulpit. That, I think, became for him one of the most important moments. It was his way, too, of saying, 'I don't do this in my own strength.'"

Billy described it this way: "When we come to the end of ourselves, we come to the beginning of God."

"Every time I give an invitation, I am in an attitude of prayer," he says. "I feel emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained. It becomes a spiritual battle of such proportions that sometimes I feel faint. There is an inward groaning and agonizing in prayer that I cannot possibly put into words."

This intensity in prayer was even at the humble beginnings of his ministry. Biographer William Martin recounts the story from Roy Gustafson, one of Billy's groomsmen and a close colleague. Roy, Billy, and two other men were walking out in the hills, talking about an important decision. They agreed to pray. Billy said, "Let's get down on our knees."

Roy was wearing his only good suit, so he got his handkerchief out, laid it down carefully, and knelt on it. As they prayed, Billy's voice sounded muffled to him. Roy opened his eyes and saw that while three of them were gingerly kneeling, Billy was flung out prostrate on the ground, praying fervently, oblivious to the dirt.

Billy's prayer connection was not only unusually fervent, it was also as natural to him as breathing. Perhaps most of the time his prayer life was not overt and conscious but more like a computer application that runs in the background—fully functioning but not seen on the screen.

A. Larry Ross, who served as Billy's director of media and public relations for more than 23 years, told us about his initial discovery of this side of Billy's prayer connection.

"The very first time I set up a network interview for Mr. Graham was with NBC's Today show in 1982. I went in the day before to meet with the producers and ensure everything was set. I assumed Mr. Graham would want to have a time of prayer before he went on national television, so I secured a private room. After we arrived at the studio the following morning, I pulled T. W. Wilson aside and said, 'Just so you know, I have a room down the hall where we can go to have a word of prayer before he goes on TV.'

"T.W. smiled at me and said, 'You know, Larry, Mr. Graham started praying when he got up this morning, he prayed while he was eating his breakfast, he prayed on the way over here in the car they sent for us, and he'll probably be praying all through the interview. Let's just say that Mr. Graham likes to stay "prayed up" all the time.'

"We didn't need to use that room," Ross added. "That was a great lesson for me to learn as a young man."

Trust the power given

Because Billy realized the power didn't come from him but came through him, he didn't feel obligated to overreach with his methods.

Jack Hayford, himself a powerful preacher, observed, "Billy Graham reveals a remarkable absence of the superficial, of hype, or of pandering to the crowd. His communication consistently avoids exaggeration or 'slick' remarks. There's never been anything cutesy or clever about his style. There are no grandiose claims or stunts employed to attract attention. Graham merely bows in prayer while seekers come forward—moved by God, not a manipulative appeal."

That confidence in the power of the message frees the leader from having to work over-hard on presentation techniques to convince the hearers. When a basketball player is not in a position to take a shot but puts it up anyway, coaches call it "forcing the shot."

Forced shots are usually ineffective. Coaches will tell players to wait until they're in a good position, then the shot has a better chance of success. Likewise, people can sense that efforts are forced when a leader isn't convinced his message has spiritual power.

Because Billy was well connected to his continuous voltage, he knew where the power came from. He simply made himself available to receive it.

Harold Myra is CEO of Christianity Today International.
Marshall Shelley is editor of Leadership and a vice president of Christianity Today International.

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Leadership's sister publication Christianity Today, which was envisioned and launched by Billy Graham. In preparing for that event, Christianity Today International CEO Harold Myra and Leadership editor Marshall Shelley felt the story of Billy's leadership had not adequately been told. Their book The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham (Zondervan, 2005) explores the public and the private sides of Billy's influence and identifies the transferable principles behind his leadership that can benefit church, business, and other kinds of leaders.

This article is adapted from the book.
Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.

Are you where He wants you?

(from the KLOVE devotional publication: "On the Right Note")

A Mist or an Outpouring?

"The Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground." - Genesis 2:5

At the beginning of creation God caused a mist to come up from the earth and water the ground. Up until that time there had been no downpour from the heavens. Why? Because "there was not a man to till the ground." There's a lesson here: there are some things God has planned to do, made provision for doing and desires to do - that He will not do until we get into the place where we can receive what He longs to give.

The blessing is there, safe in God's keeping. The need is there, persistent in its pain and suffering. But the blessing won't be applied until our hearts are in a position for God to act. Oh, you may be experiencing a "mist," in your spirit, but you konw God has something more for you! You have an uneasiness, a frustration that causes you to say, "Why am I no further along?" Rather than blaming the people in your life or the circumstances around you, you need to pause, look up and ask: "Lord, are You waiting for me to get into the right place?" When you ask that question be prepared to hear His answer and obey it, even if it means rearranging your priorities, leaving your comfort zone, breaking old habit patterns, and paying the price to have what God wants you to have. What does He want you to have? Not a mist, but an outpouring of His blessing!

Pleasing the Father

"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." - Matthew 3:17

When Jesus stepped into the River Jordan to be baptized byJohn, He was stepping into the fullness of God's purpose for His life. Ever stopped to think that when Jesus walked into those waters they were teeming with the sins of mankind? John had baptized multitudes there, their sins figuratively passing from them inot the sea of God's forgetfulness just as the waters of the Jordan end up in the Dead Sea.

Now you might think: "How awful! Jesus is wading into sin." But Jesus was doing so to fulfill the purpose of God - redemption for you and me. Jesus was exactly where God wanted Him to be, doing precisely what God wanted Him to do. That's why heaven announced, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."

Don't expect God to speak up for you or cause others to see you for who you really are, until you're willing to step into the place He's clled you to. And that may mean stepping into some muddy waters! But when you do you won't have to speak up for yourself, fight for yourself or demand anything of others. God will command whatever forces are involved to yield to you, give to you, honor you, listen to you and obey you. You won't have to grope for the right answer or wonder if something's right or wrong for you. God will giveyou the ability and resources you need. Why? Because you're where He wants you to be, doing what He wants you to do!

My own comments: Have you been getting a taste of what God might have in store for you? Has God been lighting a spark in your life that is just waiting to be a flame - waiting on you to be where God wants you? Is there something that you've been resisting in your life because of the fear of change, or of not wanting to be uncomforable?

Don't let that fear quench the fire. Where does God want you? Just ask Him, He will show you.

As a father, are you really there?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/001/26.48.html

The Power of a Father's Blessing
What former NFL pro Bill Glass has learned after 36 years of prison ministry.
Interview by Nancy Madsen posted 09/12/2006 09:00 a.m.

In his day, Bill Glass was one of the most outstanding football players in the National Football League, playing on the 1964 champion Cleveland Browns and making the NFL Pro Bowl four times. In 1969, long before prison ministry became popular among evangelicals, Glass founded what is now called Champions for Life. The ministry invites professional athletes to speak to prisoners, following up with trained volunteers who commit themselves to building lasting relationships with juvenile inmates. After three-and-a-half decades of ministry, Glass, with Terry Pluto, has written Champions for Life: The Healing Power of a Father's Blessing (Faith Communications, 2005) to address an issue that is sorely affecting the fabric of the nation.

What is our country's biggest problem?
A lack of the father's blessing. The FBI studied the 17 kids that have shot their classmates in little towns like Paducah, Kentucky; Pearl, Mississippi; and Littleton, Colorado. All 17 shooters had only one thing in common. They had a father problem. I see it so much; it's just unbelievable. There's something about it when a man doesn't get along with his father. It makes him mean; it makes him dangerous; it makes him angry.

On the day before Father's Day, I was in North Carolina in a juvenile prison. I ate lunch with three boys. I asked the first boy, "Is your dad coming to see you tomorrow on Father's Day?"

He said, "No, he's not coming."

"Why not?"

"He's in prison."

I asked the second boy the same question and got the same answer.

I asked the third one why his dad wasn't coming, and he said, "He got out of prison about nine months ago, and he's doing good, and I'm proud of my father. He's really going to be a good dad to me, and he's going to go straight."

I could tell he was protesting so strongly because something was still wrong. So I said, "How many times has he been here to see you since he got out nine months ago?"

He said, "He hasn't made it yet."

"Why not?"

"Well, he lives way, way away."

"Where does he live?"

"He lives in Durham."

Durham was only two hours away. I had come 1,500 miles to visit the boy. His dad couldn't come two hours? There are a lot of fathers who are really deserters. When I'm in prison, I always challenge the inmates to bless their kids. If you want to keep your kids out of prison, bless them.

What was your relationship with your father like?
My earliest recollections are that my father would sit on my bedside and rub my back and tell me what a fine boy I was, and almost every night, he would kiss me on the mouth. He was a pro baseball player, a very manly man. But he had no problem expressing his love and blessing to me and to my brother and sister.

My dad died when I was only 14 years old, and he had been sick for about two years before he died. I had a huge hole in my heart. I felt despairing. My mother was very loving and warm, but it just wasn't the same as when my dad was there.

My coach was told that I had lost my father and that it really hit me hard. So every day after workout, he'd stay out with me, and he'd teach me how to play football. He would walk with me after workout to the dressing room with his arm around me. He'd ask me to sit beside him on the bus going out to the game, and he'd just talk to me. Then at noon he'd meet with me, and we'd lift weights for about an hour. I moved from being the slowest, smallest player on the team to, within a year, being unblockable, because I learned good fundamentals. And I didn't even like football then. The only reason I played was because I wanted my father's blessing.

A kid who is searching desperately for a blessing will put himself in all sorts of contortions in order to get it. You see this in gangs. Kids get into gangs because they want to be accepted by a family. Most kids that get into gangs have no father relationship. So, as a result, they go into the gang, because the gang promises them that they're going to be part of a family. "I've got your back, and I'm going to watch you all the way, and I'm with you no matter what." They have these little teardrop tattoos. Have you seen them on a kid's face? Those little tattooed teardrops stand for some heinous crime they committed in order to get into the gang—the initiation fee. If I have to kill someone to get into the gang, I'll do it, because I need to feel that I'm part of a family. And only a father can make a child feel that way. A mother, by herself, has a hard time ever doing that. All those guys on death row love their mothers. It's their fathers they've got the problem with.

Describe this concept of the father's blessing.
You see it in Genesis 27:30–38, where Isaac is blessing his son, and Jacob steals Esau's blessing and his birthright. Four times in those eight verses, Esau begs for his father's blessing, but it's never forthcoming. The Scripture says Esau always hated Jacob for that. The emphasis is more on the blessing than it is on the birthright.

The blessing always involves a hug and a kiss. Not the kiss of abuse, but the kiss of blessing—there's a vast difference. You can't force yourself on your child, but you can hug them and get close to them physically to a certain degree without embarrassing them or turning them off.

I found my kids love to be hugged and kissed. I grab my little girl by her ears and look into her eyes and say, "I love you, I bless you, I think you're absolutely terrific." That's easy with her because she's little and dainty. But I've got two boys, 280 and 290 pounds. One played pro ball, and both played college ball. They're 6'6", bench press 500 pounds, and are bigger than I am, but I grabbed that eldest son of mine recently and said, "I love, I bless you, I think you're terrific, and I'm so glad you're mine." His shoulders began to shake and his eyes filled with tears and he said, "Dad, I really needed that."

It's got to be said out loud. It's got to be stated. It's not like the lawyer that's getting a divorce and the judge says, "How often did you tell your wife you loved her?" and he replies, "I told her the day I married her and then never told her differently."

The blessing is also unconditional and continuous. If it's conditional, it's not love; it's a negotiation. I was in a prison in Texas recently where they've got 300 boys ages 10 to 15. These boys have committed every crime you can imagine. I asked the warden, "How many of these boys got a visit from their father in the past year?"

He said, "One, and he only stayed 15 minutes, got into a fight with his son, and stomped out mad." They're not fathers, because fathers hang with their kids no matter what. I know a lot of fathers that disown their kids because they go to prison. But it's got to be something that is continuous and unconditional in order to be a real blessing, in order to be real love.

What do you tell people who have had bad relationships with their fathers?
I think that the dangerous thing about this whole concept [of a father's blessing] is that I could imply to some poor kid that he's a criminal because he didn't get his dad's blessing. But the answer is to say to him that he needs to find a substitute father.

Fred Smith is now my substitute father. He's 90 years old and a man of great wisdom, a man of deep spiritual beliefs. I don't make any major decisions until I check with him. In fact, I've been taking him to Dallas every other day for the last two years—picking him up out of his wheelchair and putting him into a dialysis chair. He's just amazing. He can hardly walk, but you'd better be on your toes if you're talking to him. He's as sharp as a tack.

One reason I think our prison ministry is so effective is that our counselors are like substitute fathers for the kids. They have to meet once a week for 2 hours for 12 weeks. We've had unusual success with that. We only have about 10 percent who get back into trouble, instead of the normal 80 percent. It incorporates everything I'm talking about—the blessing, conversion, mentoring, father/mother substituting, and, to me, it is really the answer for the kid in prison.

Nancy Madsen is a senior at Wheaton College, Illinois.
Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.January 2006, Vol. 50, No. 1, Page 48

Do you Abide or Abound?

After you read the following article, ask yourself where you are at in the continuum of abiding and abounding.

http://ctlibrary.com/le/2000/spring/2.28.html
To Abide Or To Abound?
April 1, 2000

My daughter Mallory loves Greek mythology. I once bet her that she did not know the twelve tasks of Hercules off the top of her head. I lost.

One of her favorite parts of The Iliad is when Odysseus navigates a narrow passage with a lethal rock on one side and a fatal whirlpool on the other. Steering between Scylla and Charybdis has been part of our vocabulary ever since.

In pastoral ministry I have my own Scylla and Charybdis to navigate, but their names are "Abound" and "Abide." Neither appears lethal. In fact, both are life-giving parts of my calling. But trying to experience both feels like a Homeric task.

Seize the day, and cease your workI want to abound, to devote myself to God's work: "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast and immovable; always abounding fully in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain" (1 Cor. 15:58).

I want to discover the deepest passions that God hard-wired into me. I want to develop whatever gifts I have to their fullest.

I want some fire in my belly. I want to experience such a level of motivation that sometimes when I think about the work of the Lord it keeps me awake at night.

I want to abound.

When Paul said: "I am being poured out like a drink offering," That's not a picture of casual, comfortable labor offered when my personal world makes it easy. Abounding is what Jesus asked us to do. Taking up a cross is not an easy thing. He is Lord of the cross.

But on the other side of my life is Jesus' statement in John 15:4: "Abide in me, and I will abide in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must abide. Neither can you bear fruit by yourself. You must abide."

Abide, Jesus says. This, too, is an important New Testament word: to remain, to dwell. In our day we would talk about this as having deep roots, or being centered.

I feel the power of this call as well, the call to be a man of deep prayer, to refuse to hydroplane over my emotional life but rather to experience joy and sorrow deeply. To live the way Jesus would live if he were in my place.

"Come to me, all you who labor, and are heavy laden," he says, "And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:28-30).

Gentle. That's how Jesus describes himself. The Lord of the cross is also the Lord of the easy yoke, the light burden.A holy tension

Do you feel the tension between abounding and abiding? I live with it every day. It's unending. Will it ever go away?

Jesus lived with it throughout his ministry. In Mark 1 Jesus withdrew into the desert to abide with his Father, then plunged into the city to abound in his work, then withdrew while it was still dark to abide, only to be accosted by Peter who's upset that Jesus didn't leave a pager number ("everyone is searching for you"). Jesus doesn't say: "Don't bother me—I'm abiding." He goes off to abound some more.

Some people resolve this tension by just abiding, not seriously troubled by a lack of effectiveness. Garrison Keillor wrote about a patronizing do-gooder who lived by the "If I can just help one fainting soul for a moment my work was not in vain" philosophy—a strategy, he noted, that makes it rather difficult to fail.

It is possible for a church to go 20, 30 years or more without producing fruit. People are not challenged, volunteers not trained, resources not well-stewarded—and no one complains. People just get used to not abounding.

I don't want to live like that.

On the other hand, some people run around in frenzied activity. They live in a chronic state of exhaustion and burnout. They may pile up impressive accomplishments, but their spiritual life is dry. They use people; they live with preoccupied souls. There is no depth, no mystery.

I don't want to live like that, either. I expect to wrestle with this tension till I die.

God didn't get his work done all at once. Why not?
It wouldn't have been hard for him.

What will make this work?

If I'm going to both abide and abound, I need to practice certain principles.

1. Focus on what matters most. Each morning I make a W.A.M.M. (What Activities Matter Most?) list. I need crystal clarity on what's important and what's peripheral.

Peter Drucker writes that recognizing what counts as a true contribution is the great challenge for people in work like ours. If I don't do this, it's embarrassing to me how much time I can waste.

Sloth, Frederich Buechner said, isn't necessarily incompatible with heavy activity. It's failing to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Like the kamikaze pilot who flew 17 missions.

2. I need to be fully present. Jean Pierre de Caussade described the "Sacrament of the Present Moment." It means being fully present to God's call right now.

It means devoting myself fully to the task—writing or counseling or leading or speaking—with my whole being. It means when I come home I must learn the difficult art of leaving work behind, being fully present with my family.

Our family is in the stage where Nancy and I spend a fair amount of time as chauffeurs (roughly 100 hours a week). I used to complain about this. Then a friend told me how this could be great family time—the kids can't get away! If I'm fully present, these are wonderful opportunities for conversation.

I have learned that certain forces keep me from experiencing "the sacrament": ingratitude, irritability, tension, a chronic sense that there's never enough time.

It's not just that we wrestle with these forces; it's that we glorify them. Busyness, fatigue, over-scheduling become signs of being important. Dorothy Bass noted that the fourth commandment is the only one that people, even people in ministry, commonly boast about breaking.

3. I need rhythm. One striking aspect of the Creation narrative is that God didn't get all his work done at once. Why not? It wouldn't have been hard for him.

God was establishing a pattern, a rhythm, for people made in his image.

God worked. And when he was done, God rested. He called it a day. He celebrated what he had done. He never burned out. He never said, "Thank me it's Friday."

I need to make sure I have a rhythm that includes solitude. I remember when I first decided to try it. I waited for a free day to come along. Guess how long I waited? You have to schedule solitude, write it in the calendar, and protect it fiercely. Sometimes mine are brief periods of solitude: an hour at a nearby forest preserve. Sometimes they're longer—a half-day or a day. But my days for solitude never volunteer. They have to be drafted.

4. I need a plan for my leisure. Some time ago I noticed a pattern: my days off would come up, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with them. I have friends who sometimes have whole vacations available but don't give any thought to what will be life-giving and joy-producing. No wonder we wrestle with fatigue!

So I ask myself these days, "What activities will I both genuinely enjoy and will also give me a chance to be with my family?" Recently my 11-year-old son and I took up snowboarding. One of us is much better at it than the other (the other one is bruised enough from it that he is writing this article standing up), but it's been great to find an activity that allows us to bond over something we both enjoy.

5. I need to focus on abounding where God has gifted and placed me. Parker Palmer writes about being offered the presidency of a large educational institution. Because it was a step up the ladder for a teacher and writer, he was ready to say yes. As a Quaker he first called some friends for a "clearness committee" to help him discern if it was God's call.

Their first questions were easy to answer. Then someone asked: "What would you enjoy most about being president?"

"Well, I wouldn't like to quit teaching,'' Palmer said. "I wouldn't like the politics involved … I wouldn't like fund-raising."

"But what would you like?"

After a long pause, he said quietly, "I would like to have my picture in the paper with the word 'president' under it."

Parker, couldn't you find an easier way to get your picture in the paper?

To abide and abound I have to be very clear about the gifts and passions God has given me. And so often ego gets in the way.

It's one thing to embrace my gifts. It's another to embrace my limitations. But to take an unblinking look at my limitations is one of the greatest tests of character I know.

My guess is that all of us have at least one limitation that is especially painful to acknowledge. I know I do.

And every time I try to pursue a task as if I didn't have this limitation, I cease to abide and abound. Palmer notes that burnout isn't usually the result of trying to give too much. It's the result of trying to give what isn't really in me.

Performance review by God

At our church we've recently instituted a performance review process to help each other be as effective as possible. It can be a pretty sobering. But I remember that a performance review is coming one day that will make all my reviews on this side of life look pretty casual.

Here's what I'd love to hear God say when that day comes: "You abounded in my work. You took real risks, you dreamed honorable dreams, you rolled up your sleeves and sacrificed comfort and poured yourself out like a drink offering.

"And … you abided in my love. You sought to be transformed by my Spirit, to live in intimacy with me and authentic community with the people I love.

"You abounded and you abided."

Who doesn't want that?

John Ortberg is a senior pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California, and previously served as teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church

Copyright © 2000 by John Ortberg or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.

The Storage Room Meltdown

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/004/2.122.html

It was time to preach, but I had nothing to say.
by Rob Bell

I could feel my car keys in my pocket, and all I could think about was how far away I could be by 11 a.m. How much gas was in the tank? How fast could I drive?

Sitting on a chair in a storage room, I could hear the worship space filling up with people, and all I wanted to do was leave. What do you do when you're pastor of a church, it's Sunday morning, people are finding their seats, you're scheduled to preach, and you realize you have nothing to say?

How did it come to this? It started out so great …

One minute you have these ideas about how it could be, and the next minute you're leading this exploding church/event/monster.

My wife and I and several others started this church called Mars Hill in February 1999 with dreams of a revolutionary new kind of community. I was 28.

People who are starting churches, or want to someday, often ask me when I knew it was time to do it. And I actually have a coherent answer: I knew it was time when I no longer cared if it was "successful." I'm serious. I had this moment in October 1998 when I realized that if 13 people joined us, and that's all it ever was, that would be okay. This thing inside of me was so strong that I had to act on it. I felt if I didn't, I would be violating something … or somebody.

Better to try and fail … the worst thing would be to live wondering, What if?

The dream actually began years before when Kristen and I were living in Los Angeles. We visited a church called Christian Assembly, and what I saw changed everything for me. This community was exploding with creativity and life—it was like people woke up on Sunday morning and asked themselves, "What would I like to do today more than anything else? How about going to a church service?"

No amount of success can heal a person's soul. In fact, success makes it worse, because "Wherever you, there you are."

This concept was so fresh—people who gathered because they wanted to. There wasn't a trace of empty ritual or obligation anywhere in the place. It didn't matter how far away I had to park. The bond I had with the other people in the room. Not "I have to" but "I get to." Not obligation but celebration. Not duty but desire.

Kristen and I starting attending these services regularly, and then we'd go to Taco Bell and talk about what a church could be.

Desire.

Longing.

Come as you are.

Connection.

A group of people who can imagine nothing better than this.
And so several years, two internships, and a cross-country move later, we did it. We started a church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Now you have to understand that I started out playing in bands, back when alternative music was … alternative. I understood music to be this raw art form that comes from your guts. Do it yourself. Strip it down. Take away all the fluff and the hype.

This ethos heavily shaped my understanding of what a church should be like: strip everything away and get down to the most basic elements. A group of people desperate to experience God.
Please realize that to this day I have never read a book on church planting or church growth. I remember being told that a sign had been rented with the church name on it to go in front of the building where we were meeting. I was mortified and had them get rid of it. You can't put a sign out front, I argued; people have to want to find us. And so there were no advertisements, no promotions, and no signs.

The thought of the word church and the word marketing in the same sentence makes me sick.
We had these ideas and these dreams, and we went with them.

People would come in, there would be some singing, I would talk about God and Jesus and the Bible and life for about an hour, and then it would be over.

And the strangest thing happened: people came.

I remember that first Sunday like it was yesterday. Someone told me five minutes before the first service to look out the front windows. I was not prepared for what I saw. Cars everywhere. People were giving up trying to get through the traffic and just pulling over on the side of the road, parking, and walking the rest of the way. We ran out of chairs.

Chaos.

I loved it.

Unleashing a monster Now I am going to give you some numbers. I hesitate to do this because few things are more difficult to take than spiritual leaders who are always talking about how big their thing is. But it happened and it's true and it's part of my story.

There were over 1,000 people there the first Sunday. People in the aisles. People on the floor. I ended the message by inviting people to join us on this journey. I talked about the need to explore what a new kind of Christian faith looks like for the new world we find ourselves in. Whatever it was and wherever it led, we were going. "Join us."

The energy in the place was unreal.

The next morning I held a staff meeting. Which means I sat in my office and thought to myself, What have I gotten myself into? Followed closely by, Sunday's coming again.

More people came the next week.

Even more the following week.

I remember telling people we had no more chairs and if they wanted to bring their friends, they would need to buy chairs for them.

By September of that first year, we had to hold three services, pushing things to over 4,000 people.

A problem developed in the parking lot because people were losing their tempers when they had to wait so long to exit. I heard stories of harsh words being exchanged and people giving each other the finger.

So I stood up on Sunday and said, "If you are here and you aren't a Christian, we are thrilled to have you in our midst. We want you to feel right at home. But if you are here and you're a Christian and you can't even be a Christian in the parking lot, please don't go out into the world and tell people you're a Christian. You'll screw it up for the rest of us. And by the way, we could use your seat."

People cheered. The more honest, the more raw, the more people loved it.

We had no five-year plan. No vision statement. No "demographic."

All we cared about was trying to teach and live the way of Jesus. It's still all we care about it.

Around this time we were having problems with too many kids in the classrooms—there wasn't enough oxygen. And then the fire marshal showed up. Not good. Legal, but not good. He said we were over code, and we would have to start turning people away. We literally had to post people at the doors, and when the room was full, they had to tell people they weren't legally allowed into the service.

So we bought a mall. Actually, somebody gave us a mall, and we bought the parking lots surrounding it. We blew out the walls of the anchor store to make a room big enough to meet in and then turned the other stores into classrooms for kids. A guy came to one of the first services in the mall-turned-church, and said, "Hey, I used to shoplift in this exact spot."

We were growing. House churches were springing up, partnerships were beginning with other churches around the world, and people who had never been a part of a church were finding a home. Two years into it, around 10,000 people were coming to the three gatherings on Sundays.

In the middle of all this chaos was me, superpastor, doing weddings and funerals and giving spiritual direction and going to meetings and teaching and dealing with crises and visiting people in prison and at the hospital.

It was happening so fast. One minute you have these ideas about how it could be, and the next minute you are leading this exploding church/event/monster.

I tell you all this because there's a dark side. It's one thing to be an intern with dreams about how church should be. It's another thing to be the 30-year-old pastor of a massive church. And that is why I was sitting there thinking about how far I could be by 11 a.m. I escaped to the storage closet to be alone. I was moments away from leaving the whole thing. I just couldn't do it anymore.

People were asking me to write books on how to grow a progressive young church, and I wasn't even sure I was a Christian anymore. I didn't know if I wanted to be a Christian anymore.
I was exhausted. Full of doubt. I had nothing more to say.

And so I sat there with my keys in my hand, turning them over and over, hearing the room getting louder and louder and more and more full. At that moment I made some decisions.
Because without pain, we don't change, do we?

I could talk about the dangers of megachurches and what is wrong with Church Incorporated, but I realized that day that things were wrong with the whole way I was living my life. If I didn't change, I was not going to make it. In that abyss I broke and got help … because it's only when you hit bottom and are desperate enough that things start to get better.

This breakdown, of course, left me with difficult decisions to make. Mars Hill was alive and people were being transformed. Who would leave all that? I decided to be honest about my journey, and if people wanted to come along, great. But I was still going to have to take a new path. And a new journey began, one that has been very, very painful. And very, very freeing.

It was during this period that I learned that I have a soul.

Shalom The tzitzit (seet-see) first appear in Numbers 15 when God says to Moses, "Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by chasing after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all my commands."

God tells his people to attach tassels to the corners of their garments so they will be constantly visually reminded to live as he created them to live.

The word in Hebrew here for "corners" is kanaf. The word for "tassel" (or "fringe") is tzitzit.To this day, many Jews wear a prayer shawl to obey this text. The prayer shawl is also in a lot of interesting places throughout the Bible. One of the most significant is in the prophet Malachi's prediction about the coming Messiah: "The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings." The word Malachi uses for wings is kanaf—the same word in Numbers that refers to the edge of a garment, to which the tassels were attached.

So a legend grew that when the Messiah came, there would be special healing powers in his kanaf, in the tassels of his prayer shawl.

Fast-forward to the time of Jesus: A woman has had an illness for twelve years and no one can cure her. She pushes her way through a crowd to get to Jesus, and when she gets close to him, she grabs the edge of his cloak. Jesus, a Torah—observant Jewish rabbi who keeps the Scripture commandments word for word, including passages like Numbers 15, would have been wearing a prayer shawl.

So when the woman grabs the edge of his cloak, she is demonstrating that she believes Jesus' tassels have healing powers. She believes that Jesus is who Malachi was talking about.

She touches his tassels and is healed, just like Malachi said.

But I don't think the physical healing is Jesus' point here. I think it is what Jesus says to her as they part ways. He says to her, "Go in peace." Shalom.

Shalom is an important word in the Bible, and it is not completely accurate to translate it simply as "peace." For many of us, we understand peace to be the absence of conflict. But the Hebraic understanding of shalom is far more. Shalom is the presence of the goodness of God. It's the presence of wholeness, completeness.

So when Jesus tells the woman to go in peace, he is placing the blessing of God on all of her. Not just her physical body. He is blessing her with God's presence on her entire being. For Jesus, being saved or reconciled to God involves far more than just the saving of your physical body or your soul—it involves all of you, living in harmony with him—body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions—every inch of our being.

Restoration There are many dimensions to living in harmony with God. In one sense, salvation is a legal transaction.

Humans are guilty because of our sin, and God is the judge who has to deal with our sin because he is holy and any act of sin goes against his core nature. He has to deal with it. Enter Jesus, who dies on the cross in our place. Jesus gets what we deserve; we get what Jesus deserved.

For Jesus, however, salvation is far more. It includes this understanding, but it is far more comprehensive—it is a way of life. To be saved or redeemed is to enter into a totally new way of living in harmony with God. The rabbis called harmony with God olam haba, which translates "life in the world to come." Salvation is living more and more in harmony with God, a process that will go on forever.

When we understand salvation from a legal-transaction perspective, then the point of the cross becomes what it has done for us. There is the once-and-for-all work of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and saying, "It is finished."

Nothing more to be offered and nothing more to be sacrificed. We claim this truth as Christians. All has been forgiven. But let's also use a slightly different phrase: the work of the cross in us. The ongoing work of the cross in our hearts and minds and souls and lives. The ongoing need to return to the cross to be reminded of our brokenness and dependence on God. There is the healing we need from the cross every single day.

The point of the cross isn't just forgiveness. Forgiveness leads to something much bigger: restoration. It is not just the removal of what's being held against us; God wants to make us into the people we were originally created to be.

This restoration is why Jesus always orients his message around becoming the kind of people who are generous and loving and compassionate. The goal here isn't simply to not sin. Our purpose is to increase the shalom in this world. It is one thing to be forgiven; it is another thing to become more and more and more and more the person God made you to be. Not just for the life to come. But for now.

For Jesus, salvation is now.

I need a God for now.

I need healing now.

Yes, even greater things will happen someday.

But salvation is now.

This now leads to another danger of embracing only one dimension of salvation.

When faith is defined solely in legal terms, the dominant idea often becomes "inviting Jesus into my heart," a phrase that is not found in the Bible. That doesn't mean it is not legitimate; the problems come when salvation becomes all about me. Me being saved. Me being reconciled to God. The Bible paints a much larger picture of salvation. It describes all of creation being restored. The author of Ephesians writes that all things will be brought together under Jesus. Salvation is the entire universe being brought back into harmony with its maker.

This has huge implications for how people present the message of Jesus. Yes, Jesus can come into our hearts. But we join a movement that is as wide and deep and big as the universe itself. Rocks and trees and birds and swamps and ecosystems. God's desire is to restore all of it.

The point is not me; it's God.

It is possible to be "saved" and not be a healthy, whole, life-giving person. It is possible for the cross to have done something for a person but not in them.

My soul That's what happened to me. I realized I believed in Jesus and thought of myself as "saved" and "reborn," yet massive areas of my life were unaffected. I learned that salvation is for all of me. And for Jesus to heal my soul, I had to stare my junk right in the face.

It has only just begun for me, but a few things have become quite clear.

First, no amount of success can heal a person's soul. In fact, success makes it worse. I started a church and lots of people were coming to hear me speak, but I had things I had never dealt with and they were still there. There is a great saying in the recovery movement: "Wherever you go, there you are." Success doesn't fix our problems and compulsions and addictions.

I started going to counseling to discover and address them. Part of my crash came from my failure to identify these forces until recently. I had been pushing myself and going and going and achieving and not even really knowing why. It is easier to keep going than to stop, face the pain, and begin diving into the root causes.

It is scary to hit the wall because you don't know what's going to happen. And you might get hurt.

But that's what happened to me in that storage room between the 9 and 11 a.m. services, and it was the best thing that could have happened. I couldn't go on. Usually, we can go on. And that's the problem.

We put on the mask, suck it up, and keep going, like it's no big deal.

But it is a big deal.

It's a sign that we are barely hanging on. And it is only when something deep within us snaps that we are ready to start over and get help. We have to let the game stop.

I realize this is not groundbreaking news, but when we get desperate and realize we cannot keep living this way, then we have to change. As I let all this come spewing forth the first time in my therapist's office, he interrupted me. I was making lists of all the people I was working to keep happy. He said it was clear that there were significant numbers of people I was working to please and that my issue was a simple one.

I was anticipating something quite profound as I got out my pen.

He said this: "Sin."

And then he said, in what has become a pivotal moment in my journey, "Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it."

The relentless pursuit of who God made me to be.

I started identifying how much of my life was about making sure the right people were pleased with me. And as this became more and more clear, I realized how less and less pleased I was with myself. I'd become so heavily oriented around the expectations of others that I was becoming more and more like them and less and less the person God made me to be.

I was split.

As the lights were turned on, I saw much of my pain was because I wasn't measuring up to the images in my head.

I am not superpastor. I don't do well in an office nine to five. I am institutionally challenged. But I am not defined by what I am not. And understanding this truth is a huge part of becoming whole. I had to stop living in reaction and start letting a vision for what lies ahead pull me forward.

I began to sort out with those around me what God did make me to do. What kept coming up was that my life work is fundamentally creative in nature. And creating has its own rhythms, its own pace. Inspiration comes because of discipline. And discipline comes when you organize your life in specific, intentional ways. And then sticking to it.

I had this false guilt and subsequent shame because I believed that I just wasn't working hard enough. I wasn't superpastor.

I went to the leaders of our church and shared with them my journey as it was unfolding. I told them that if they needed to release me and find superpastor, I understood. If we don't know who we are or where we're trying to go, we put the people around us in an uncomfortable position.

Healing I can't begin to tell you how much better my life is today than it was several years ago. I continue to dig things up and process new insights and learn about my insides. The journey continues.

I'm learning that very few people actually live from their heart. Very few live connected with their soul. And those few who do the difficult work, who stare their junk in the face, who get counsel, who let Jesus into all of the rooms in their soul that no one ever goes in, they make a difference. They are so different; they're coming from such a different place that their voices inevitably get heard above the others. They are pursuing wholeness and shalom, and it's contagious. They inspire me to keep going.

I was sitting in the storage room last week at Mars Hill. The room was filling up for the service at 11 a.m. And I couldn't wait for it to start.

Because Jesus is healing my soul.

Copyright 2005 by Rob Bell. Used by permission of The Zondervan Corporation.

Salt and Light in the Arena

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/107/53.0.html

It's going to take more than a few good Christians to clean up sports.
by Mark Galli posted 02/18/2005 09:30 a.m.

In 1940 undefeated Cornell visited Dartmouth on a late-autumn afternoon with the hopes of securing the national championship of college football. Cornell hadn't lost in three years, and the Associated Press had ranked them No. 1 in the nation all year, and for good reason: they had pummeled all comers by an average score of 30-2.

Dartmouth was not about to roll over, though, and gave Cornell the fight of the season. The teams slogged it out in an exhausting defensive battle—until the fourth quarter when Dartmouth kicked a field goal to take a 3–0 lead.

By the time Cornell was able to drive to the Dartmouth 6-yard line, there were only 45 seconds left to play. Three running plays brought Cornell to within inches of the goal line. With nine second remaining and staring at a fourth down, Cornell called a timeout. But before they could get off the next play, they were flagged for delay of game and penalized five yards. For its final play, Cornell attempted a pass, which Dartmouth broke up—after which the refs huddled immediately. Because of the penalty, the refs were confused—did the previous play occur on third or fourth down? The hurried officials decided to give Cornell one more down. Now with three seconds left, Cornell threw a pass over the middle for a touchdown and the win.

Though there was no instant replay at the time, there was replay—but it took 24 hours to develop the film. The evidence was unmistakable: the refs had given Cornell an extra down. Given the rules, however, the refs were powerless to reverse the score.

But before the day was out, Cornell's coach and university president telegrammed Dartmouth: "We congratulate you on the victory of your fine team. The Cornell touchdown was scored on a fifth down, and we relinquish claim to the victory and extend congratulations to Dartmouth." The gesture of sportsmanship cost Cornell both the game and a national championship.

We were reminded of this noble story last week at a conference on sports law and ethics entitled "Winning at All Cost, Today's Addiction," sponsored by the Valparaiso University School of Law. There were talks and panels that included the likes of Bob Costas and Dick Patrick (USA Today), as well as dozens of lawyers whom I had never heard of (but whose infamous athlete clients I had). There was much talk about steroids and recruiting violations and fights both on the courts and in the stands, as well as talk about legal and medical issues. But I was most interested in what participants thought about the causes of the ethics crisis in sports.

A serious problem, of course, has complex causes. Take just one crisis: baseball's steroid scandal. Bob Costas said, "The media should have started talking about this in the mid-nineties." One lawyer pointed the finger at colleagues who overzealously defend clients they know have taken steroids. Baseball owners, player union representatives, and even clean players came under indictment—why start trouble when fans were once again finally streaming to the parks in record numbers to watch Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds hit home run after home run after home run. Steroids were "good" for baseball, no?

Bill Curry, former NFL lineman (with two Super Bowl rings), college coach, and now ESPN analyst, argued that the larger problem is cultural. He said that professional athletes are driven by fear of losing one's position and pride in competing with the best. When he was a pro, playing in the NFL was more important to him than "God, family, money, parties—anything." And he would do anything to stay competitive, to be one of the best in the world. That included using steroids, which he did for a short time (thanks to the intervention of his father, he stopped immediately).

That was when I began thinking that this is where the Christian can, uh, step up to the plate. After all, the Christian athlete knows that winning isn't everything. The Christian coach knows not to try to gain an unfair advantage in competition. What we need, I thought, is just more Christians in sports to bring salt and light to the arena.

And then I was reminded that the big, bright modern sports machine is bigger and darker than we sometimes imagine.

In the fall of 1990, fifty years after the Cornell-Dartmouth game, the now legendary Promise Keeper Bill McCartney coached the Colorado Buffaloes in a dramatic victory over Missouri 33-31 on the game's last play. Replays shown immediately after the game demonstrated clearly that Colorado had accidentally been given a fifth down, and it was on that fifth down that they had scored the winning touchdown.

McCartney had already established himself nationally as a dedicated Christian who tried to follow Jesus Christ in all righteousness. But when shown the irrefutable evidence of the refs' mistake, he defiantly refused to concede the game to Missouri. What made the incident more bitter for Missouri and much of the nation is that Colorado went on to become the national champion that year, an honor they would not have won had they lost that game.

Let's be fair. McCartney coached in the modern era, with that big, bright sports machine incessantly droning 24/7/365, "Winning is everything, winning is everything, winning is everything." In addition, many sports pundits across the land defended his decision. And last but not least, Colorado alumni, boosters, and administrators would have crucified McCartney had he handed the game to Missouri. (Then again, didn't Jesus say that following him entailed taking up one's cross?)

The point is not to single out or excuse McCartney. Instead, I suggest that righteous individuals, no matter how committed, are no match for the principalities and powers of American sports. Are sports corrupt through and through? Of course not. But where they are corrupt, they'll need more than a few heroic religious individuals to make a difference. Probably something on the order of a company of people, a people called out, set apart--a fellowship grounded in such a way that not even the gates of Hades will overcome it.

This article first appeared in the November 28 issue of Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188.

Transformed by a Left Hook

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/148/53.0.html

For one Anglican priest, boxing is a means of grace.
by Mark Galli posted 12/02/2005 10:00 a.m.

"There are few things more deeply satisfying than a good fight. A hard night in the ring is an enormous catharsis for a man who is struggling with life, but it's more than that too."

These are the words of Anglican priest David B. Smith, Sydney, Australia's "Fighting Father." When he writes about "struggling with life" and the need for catharsis, he knows whereof he speaks. Father Dave tells his story in Sex, the Ring, & the Eucharist: Reflections on Life, Ministry, & Fighting in the Inner City.

A number of years ago, he found himself separated from his wife, struggling for the right to see his daughter, drinking way too much, and increasingly obsessed with thoughts of self-destruction. He seemed to be losing his family, his vocation, and most of his friends. He even made what he calls "a half-hearted attempt" at suicide. At some point, he decided "not to go under, but to fight back." Literally.

So he made his way to Mundine's gym, located on "the roughest street in one of the roughest neighborhoods" just outside of Sydney. "They play hard at Mundine's," he writes. "No pretty boys. No glamour workouts. No white-collar boxercise sessions for indulgent professionals. Just bodies, sweat, testosterone, and blood." The ring stands at the center of the gym, a small ring, "made for brawlers." It was here that he began to transform his life.

"When you step into a ring," he writes, "you're making a decision to take control of your own destiny. The forces that oppose you are no longer vague powers that threaten to overwhelm you from a distance—the law, the courts, the system. No. Your opposition takes clear material form in the shape of the other man advancing on you from the other corner. To get into that ring and to stay in that ring is a decision to give it a go—to put your body on the line and to stand up to the punishment like a man."

Such talk makes some theologians nervous, as if he's advocating a rough-and-tumble, self-help gospel. But he's not so naïve. He's a priest. He knows where salvation comes from. And he knows that faith is not a passive thing.

Biblical faith is Jacob wrestling with an angel of the Lord until the breaking of the day, refusing to quit until he received the blessing (Gen. 32:24-28). It involves beating one's body into submission (1 Cor. 9:26). It is to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work." (Phil. 2:12-13).
Father Dave recognizes that boxing is like many human activities: It can become a sacramental act, the means by which one's prayers for recovery are answered. "Prayer and fighting," he says, "are a powerful combination."

It certainly was for Father Dave. "Fighting is more than a sport. It's a way of life. It is the defiant decision to confront your pain directly and not to be overcome by it. Mundine's gym taught me that, or at least it played a significant role."

He's taken that lesson and now tries to teach it to young men fighting inner demons of rage and despair, as well as demons that attack from without—drinking, drugs, gang warfare. His boxing club meets in an old church building and is a cross between Mundine's gym and Sunday worship. He includes prayer and stresses "the biblical values of courage, integrity, self-discipline, and teamwork." But it's mostly about fighting, and in the center of the room, "where the Holy Table" once stood, now "fight-club members come and lay their bodies on that altar."

"There has been many a holy war that has taken place within those walls over the last ten years or so," he writes wryly. "Many a haughty and arrogant young man has been brought to his knees in that place, with my own left hook often being the tool of transformation."
In my last column, I suggested that the controlled violence of sports can be redemptive and ennobling in many ways. I said I would elaborate how that looks, even in an activity as seemingly non-redemptive as boxing. As Father Dave puts it, "I've seen many a young man here lifted out of a drug-dependent and self-destructive lifestyle through application to the rigors of ring—fighting in this spiritual environment." Including himself.

Mark Galli is managing editor of Christianity Today. Play Ball appears every other week.

This article first appeared in the November 28 issue of Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188."