A few days ago Alice and I returned from a wonderful vacation . . . we kayaked, fished, read books, played golf, enjoyed kids and completed a few cabin projects as well. It was a great couple of weeks of August weather and fun in Washington State.
And the old football coach noticed something . . . high school football practice was under way. And of course, I stopped and watched for a while! What surprised me was that practices today look a lot like they did when I was still coaching . . . over 30 years ago. Yikes!
In the couple of practices I watched, the coaching theme was clear. It’s all about fundamentals. You want to win . . . then you have to be fundamentally sound.
Interestingly, in football and in church there is no escaping the need to be good at the fundamentals. Which brings me back to vulnerable churches – like struggling athletic programs, when churches begin to struggle they often look for a “silver bullet” . . . one trick play, if you will, that will turn everything around. Unfortunately, there are no silver bullets – at least any that have long term value.
A few days ago I spoke with a colleague in another state – a master at taking churches that are stuck at a particular growth level or declining, and restoring effective missional momentum. He said, “I receive calls regularly from some church’s leadership wanting help, but I end up helping very few.” Okay, I had to ask the question: why don’t you end up helping more of them?
His answer? “Mostly they are looking for a quick fix. What I do, and what works, takes work . . . real hard work for the long haul. They don’t want to do that.” In my coaching terms, his answer is to win you’ve got to learn how to execute the fundamentals excellently and you’ve got practice those fundamentals over and over and over again. In reality, you never get beyond the fundamentals: biblical integrity, obedience, evangelism, spiritual growth, prayer, Christ-like love, generosity, authenticity, worship . . . you get the idea.
It’s one of the messages to the seven churches in Revelation 2 – 3; they each strayed away from a fundamental or two, and they were each called back to them. In fact, their ongoing lives as churches depended on it. So do ours. |
