What Matters Most to Our Church

Fleda and I recently watched the movie, Moneyball.  It is about Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s major league baseball team.  In 2002 the Oakland A's, at the end of the regular season, had won the same number of games as the New York Yankees, who spent $1.4 million per game won. Oakland spent $260,000 per game won – 5.3 times more efficient. During one stretch the A's won 20 games in a row, a streak that had not been accomplished in more than 120 years.

How did Beane do this? He took the revolutionary step of ignoring the usual characteristics of players that had always been valued highly by managers, coaches,   and front offices – running, throwing, hitting, fielding.  Instead he analyzed each player's ability to contribute to the factors that had statistically proven to matter most (to win games): the ability to get on base and to score runs.

As a result of using this entirely different approach, Beane got more wins per dollar than any other team. That is what every manager wants to do: get the most wins per dollar spent. With enough money, any manager can hire the best players at every position and get more wins.

Our church is a version of moneyball. If we work hard enough we can create apparent success in a lot of things: recognition, buildings, and more. But if we're not aware of what truly matters, we can accomplish all that and still miss the things that matter most: the fruit of the Spirit of Christ - love, joy, and peace. We can look like a successful church but lose the game.

We at New Hope are going to pursue what matters most.  Our goals come from the Bible, especially from Ephesians 3:16-19.  They are “strength of the Spirit in our inner beings, being rooted and established in love, and being filled with all the fullness of God.”  If we pursue the Spirit of Jesus, unconditional love, and the fullness of God we will have the most important things and be a truly successful church.

Peacemakers

As I watched the news on Thursday night, I saw children who have been traumatized in the fighting in Syria.  Many children have lost their parents and their homes in the continuing violence.  An American physician of Syrian descent was interviewed as he worked there to try to alleviate suffering and bring some healing to children.  He almost shed tears when the news reporter asked him what he thought about the future of the children of Syria.  He said, “It will be better, when they have their country back.”  It was obvious that he was looking forward to the day when the violence ends and children can do what they are created to do: learn and grow and play, as their parents love them.

Surely, God must weep as he looks on the ways we human beings hurt each other – even innocent, defenseless children.  The prophet Isaiah gave us a vision of peace: “The Lord will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths . . ..   He will judge . . . and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”  That is God’s will for our world: no more lives torn apart, no more killing.

How can God’s will ever be done on earth?  I confess I don’t know.  What I do know is that insofar as I can influence people, I want to work to bring people together.  I can’t do that right now in Syria, but our Bible text for today from Ephesians 1:10 says, “God set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.”  We members of God’s church are a part of His long-range plan to bring everything together in Christ.  We work to bring people together.  That means that the highest priority in New Hope Baptist Church is being loving.  We don’t have a more important job to do than to learn how to love as Christ has loved us.  For us, God’s vision of peace starts right here.  May we be peacemakers here in our church and in our community, and we pray to God, may peace come to that child in a hospital in Syria who is crying for his mother, who can’t come to him because she is also seriously injured

Family Time and American Freedom

Time away to be with family and to relax a bit is always good.  We enjoyed more than a week with our granddaughter, keeping her tradition of being with us for New Hope’s VBS. This was her sixth year.  Then we met her parents in Tampa, and together enjoyed the Rays baseball game on Saturday night.  Fleda and I also visited a cousin of mine in Wesley Chapel, and we all visited Madison’s great-grandmother, who is in a nursing center in St. Pete.

Fleda and I enjoyed our usual quiet Fourth of July at home.  We watched the Independence Day celebration in Washington on the steps of the Capitol and on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

As we listened to powerful patriotic music, I thought about how securing freedom cost the pilgrims and the colonial patriots more than we can fully imagine. Then I found this piece by Robert Franklin, the president of Morehouse College.
 
“Before the original celebration of independence came great suffering and self-denial.  One hundred and fifty years before the Revolutionary War, the pilgrims of Plymouth (1620) endured brutal winters.  In fact, the history books indicate that 46 of the original 102 colonists perished from the lack of fresh food to eat and the inability to treat resulting diseases . . . . Think about it.  In the 1600s, Americans fought the elements to survive.  During the 1700s, Americans fought the British for their independence.  In the 1800s, Americans fought each other over the moral issue of slavery.  And during the 1900s, Americans fought international powers to protect freedom in the world.  In the days of the early 21st century, a divided nation would begin to slow march toward healing and unity . . . .  Then on 9/11, we were shaken to our collective core when a fateful attack killed several thousand.  I am proud to say, however, that in the fashion of our forefathers and mothers – with God as a directing force – we rallied to make sense of and learn from that devastating day in world history.”

I believe Dr. Franklin is right, and I pray that Americans will learn even more about how to seek God as a directing force and come together to find strength “at the broken places.”