Coach’s Corner

What a fun day we had today. We decided to get outside this morning and we set up right in front of the church. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning and gave us a really fun way to wrap up our series on spiritual gifts.

Since we’ve covered the “playing” gifts for the team, we wrapped up with the “coaching” roles for the team today. Jesus said that the our opponent “the gates of hell” would not beat his team “the church”. But as you survey the landscape, the numbers don’t look good for the team of Jesus Christ. Nearly 3500 churches close for good each year. Many others probably should because they have zero expectation that God will show up and no hope of winning at all. So either Jesus got this one wrong or something else is going on.

Well… we know it’s not Jesus that missed it here, so there must be a problem either at the team level, the coaching level, or both. There are many things that can go wrong with the team. Paul addressed many in 1 Corinthians (a team with great talent, but that was highly dysfunctional). Here are some probs at the team level

1. Picking sides, Chapter 3 -  We’re all playing for the same owner. We can’t start picking sides on the team.
2. Infighting, Chapter 6 - These guys were dragging each other into Judge Wopner’s People’s Court….. suing fellow Christians to protect their rights. When we care more about our rights than the cause of Christ, we’re rolling off track.
3. Selfish Preferences, Chapter 9 - Paul said he would do anything short of compromising the gospel or God’s principles to win people to the team of Jesus. When the players on Jesus’ team, the church, start demanding their preferences over a willingness to adapt to reach others, they have missed the heart of God.

PROBLEMS AT THE COACHING LEVEL

In Ephesians 4, we see the job description for the coaches on Jesus’ team. Good coaches are critical to the success of any team. The team of Jesus is no exception. In fact, there is no higher or more important position in coaching than coaching one of Jesus’ teams. But these coaches are subject to some of the same shortcomings we often see in the sports world.

1. Total lack of understanding of the game - You’ll often see this in little league sports. Coaches who mean well, but truly do not understand the game. It’s frustrating for everybody involved in one of these situations. Occasionally, there will be a rookie coach that finds his way into the coaching ranks of Jesus team and is totally overmatched against the needs of the job. Grace and a lot of OJT are required here.
2. Player turned coach - This is a frequent challenge for coaches who have played the game. It is really difficult to quit thinking like a player and start thinking like a coach. But if a coach is going to be successful, he must make that transition. This has been one of my personal challenges. I was a team player for 20+ years before moving into the coaching ranks. I’m just now beginning to understand the real difference in the mindset that a coach must embrace versus being a player.

When these challenges exist, the team of Jesus Christ will be less than all it could be. But when a team embraces it’s gifts, and a coaching staff operates by the design of Ephesians 4 — to train and to unify the team —- amazing things happen for the good of the kingdom. That’s the kind of church we desire to be. It’s the kind of church we are praying to be.

We gave a final visual illustration that I think is both a fun and a cool way to demonstrate what happens when a church operates this way… Check out this video

I thought I’d throw in one more pic to show you the good height our guys got on the mento geysers…