Paragon Church

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

TEAM not ME


Three days ago the Green Bay Packers became the Super Bowl Champions of the NFL for the fourth time (13th time as NFL title holders).  To say the least, I was excited (and still am).   It was a good game but was a lot closer than I wanted it to be.  After they won, I watched all of the post game celebrations, post game interviews, and even watched Aaron Rodgers on Late Night with David Letterman (cant even guess when the last time I watched a late night comedian was).  There is one thing that stood out to me though as I watched all of the players and coaches talk about the game… CLASS. 

Now you may not be a fan of the Packers, but I don’t think you need to be a fan of a team to realize what people make up that team.  For instance, I am not a Steelers fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I like the class that their coach, Mike Tomlin, showed both before and after the game.  He just oozed professionalism.  Looking at the Packers – so many players on that team are not EGO MANIACS.  I have never seen Rodgers bash Brett Favre (and reporters gave him ample opportunity).  During the game, I never saw Rodgers yell at his receivers that consistently dropped the ball (I was yelling at them from my comfy couch but that is an entirely different story).  I didn’t see a single player getting down on another or trying to hog the spotlight.  They were working together for one goal and it was fun to watch.  It brought a spotlight to what football should be about – “TEAM” not “ME."  That had to be a hard mentality to keep when you are surrounded by people telling you how amazing you are for making it to the Super Bowl.

With all the hype and craziness grew heading into the Super Bowl, one quote from Vince Lombardi stuck in my mind… “Football is blocking and tackling.  Everything else is mythology.”  How true that is… in everything we know and do.  Most things in life are pretty basic and we like to over complicate them with what we think or what someone else thinks.

Getting back to the basics.  What a novel idea.  Think about that with Christianity for just a second… what are the basics?  Do you know them?  Many people don’t because we have littered the basics with the junk of what we think or what someone else thinks.  These are the basics of Christianity… “Love God, Love others” or if you want to word it a little  bit different… “Know Him, make Him known”  or even more like our slogan “be changed (by God)… Go change the world”.  There are so many ways to word it but it boils down to being a disciple of Christ and making disciples of Christ.

It is that simple.   If we focus on the basics and get rid of the junk (or as the book of Hebrews says in chapter 12 vs 1 – the sin that so easily entangles), if we stop stabbing people in the back to make ourselves feel better or look better, if we stop crushing our brothers and sisters in Christ with our words (to them and about them) – if we truly stop worrying about the “ME” and focus on the “TEAM” we will see a victory that none of us could ever imagine.

This past Sunday we saw what happened when a team worked together for one goal… a championship.  We have a goal set in front of us (a 2020 goal) and we need to be working together to reach that goal.

We need your help, are you in?

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