| Church DevelopmentSoccer,
Anyone?
By Dr. Roger K.
Swanson
Director of Operation Evangelization
 I
have a grandson who plays both soccer and baseball. He loves both
games and plays them quite well for an 8-year-old. As a spectator he
is an avid baseball fan, attending both minor and major league games
with his parents. As a player, however, he tells me he prefers soccer.
When I asked him why, he answered, “In soccer, Grampy, everyone gets
to touch the ball.”
He’s right. Most baseball players spend a
large portion of the game sitting on the bench or standing on the
sidelines or in the field watching the pitcher and catcher throw the
ball back and forth. Three or four fielders may go through an entire
inning without touching the ball. For most of the players, baseball is
a relatively passive, slow and low-energy sport.
Soccer, on the other hand, is high energy and
fast-paced in which most of the players, male and female, frequently
touch the ball.
What has this got to do with making disciples?
Churches that make disciples will resemble soccer more than baseball.
A lot of churches, however, resemble baseball, with the preacher and
one or two lay persons tossing the ball back and forth, whether in
worship or in congregational gatherings of various kinds. As far as
direct ministry is concerned, in such churches, only the clergy can
play.
Churches that make disciples will be
characterized by motion and emotion and by everybody getting into the
work of ministry. Soccer-like churches will help people discover their
gifts for ministry and put them to work, not in committee meetings,
but in direct one-on-one ministry. Worship will be a team effort with
several people sharing in the liturgy. The role of the pastor will
mostly be that of coach, teaching players the game of personal witness
and ministry and then cheering from the sidelines.
Getting back to my grandson, I had the high
honor of officiating at his baptism, but whether he lives out his
baptism in coming years is going to depend, I think, on the churches
that reach out to him and whether they let him play the game.
|
