I received this e-mail from a staff person on Monday. I decided to post it because I know the context, the passion and the meaning of his words. Hopefully those things will come across. If they don’t and this is confusing or offends… trust me, if you knew the context it wouldn’t.
And thanks for today. I thought the meeting was great. Especially when you answered the questions regarding truth/beauty/meaning/adventure. We are living out truth/beauty/meaning/adventure, we don’t just talk about it in hopes of getting others to talk about it. It seems to fit with what Tamara was saying about playing offense. Defense is turning our backs to each other so we can fight off attacks, it is a shrinking circle. Offense is turning our faces towards each other for encouragement and clarity, it is progressive. When is the last time you saw a huddle meet back to back? When is the last time prevent defense won a football game? It’s too conservative, too scared, too protective of the lead and so it is weak. Weak in that it is on it’s heels, afraid in the very moment it should be aggressive. And what exactly are we afraid of? Fuddy duddies? Empty seats? That we don’t make the budget? None of those things have a game plan. They aren’t sitting around white boards trying to find the holes in our secondary. They just are. Fuddy duddies aren’t even playing, they are the arm-chair quarterback, the washed up third string punter holding the clipboard on the sideline, the critic who never ran farther than from the t.v. to the fridge. President Roosevelt said it’s not the critic who counts. Or the man who points out where the strong man stumbled. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who’s face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. Fuddy duddies have a seat waiting for them at the team table if they want to sit at the team table, but I’m pretty sure all the cancerous third stringers who hate the coach and bad mouth the organization get cut the first day of training camp. Their seat is better left empty and waiting for the right person. But what about the giving? Can you cut the Brett Farve even if he is old and washed up and killing team moral? Who cuts Brett Farve?! He is a big deal! Well, I hope we would. I hope we would have the wisdom and the courage to know what matters most. Its like saying if cancer somehow made our hair rich and shiny and full bodied it would make it okay. No. Cancer kills from the inside out, even if it were to make us look good on the outside in the process. So offense it is. Good bye to all the fuddy duddies and all the fears. Good bye Brett Farve, farewell to you and your reputation and your money and your power. Jesus came and joined the worst team in the league. His team captains didn’t even show on game day. But he made a team out of them after all. He gave everything to do it and he said it will take our everything to do it. So the question is are we giving everything? Or are we afraid that we’ll be remembered as the team that cut Brett Farve? Are we giving just enough to make the fans like us? Are we commodifying our talent and passion and putting it up for sale on Sunday? Are we commodifying the cross? Are we commodifying Christ?
No. And we won’t. If we do I quit. But I’m 100% confident it will never happen. Not here.
Thank God and may He protect us and teach us and guide us and use us even as we ramble on and on with football and cancer analogies.
God works in such interesting ways. Just two days ago I shared the Teddy Roosevelt quote in response to my brother-in-law’s blog question about the idea of the church being feminized and what is it men in particular are seeking in church. Indeed men (and women) should seek as Roosevelt ended his little speech, “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory or defeat.”
Thank you for putting into words what is in my heart for this church….it reflects the whole reason why I am here….Go Team!!
The authenticity that is living out truth, loving and caring about the beauty in things, only doing things that have eternal value and not getting mired by the meaningless things that tradition can at times expect, and loving the adventure of it all is what God has used to absolutely transform my relationship with God since sitting under your leadership. It was experiencing fragmented ‘religion’, robust in a certain kind of one-dimensional truth, but completely devoid of beauty, meaning and adventure that trained me up to be a joyless, critical and loveless christian. Experiencing community that values truth, beauty, meaning and adventure was like going from single-dimension to 3D, like going from black and white to high def. color. My growing faith has brought so much joy to my life and has given me so much to give in turn to others.
I am so excited to be a part of a community that is “in the game” and has encouraged me to join in the fun of following after Christ without getting mired in cultural expectations.