I would love to blog about a FSU victory over Miami today, but poor time management and a last second drop precludes me from doing so. Nothing redeeming to speak of about that game, nor the Rays who have dropped 6 straight games.
But I did hear a redeeming interview from the Rays Triple A Durham Bulls (minor league) manager Charlie Montoyo on Saturday. Managing a Triple A franchise involves a special kind of touch, since everyone who is playing for you, doesn't really want to be there. Their goal is to play in the big leagues, not one step below it.
Yet you could tell that the manager really wanted these guys to succeed. Success means advancement for one party, and loss for the other. What I mean is that to success means they no longer play for him and help his team go the Triple A play-offs 3 years in a row. Success means his players getting called up to a more glorious situation than being stuck in Durham.
Still, he found joy in their successes, even though their successes would cost him. That's love. He would be losing not only their relationships, but their skills, and they would receive joy and all of the benefits of playing in the big leagues.
That's the kind of love the gospel can produce in us: instead of jealousy, we begin to rejoice with others in their successes, even when it means loss to us. If ultimately one has already showed us love by taking on great cost in order to see our paramount "success/promotion," we can rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15).
This minor league manager can teach us a lot about love.
Recently Barna did a study on small churches vs big churches in regards to how orthodox each side really is. His results revealed mega-church members had more orthodox professions of the faith. However, here's an interesting blog post responding to the Barna study (from the pastor of a healthy small town church which has had huge affects on its community). In my opinion, Barna clearly has biases (house church), and I've heard him say he's really not a huge fan of the church in general. I think they really come out to play here, and this small town Baptist church pastor Chuck Warnock definitely agrees. Of course he posted first about this study, so I guess I'm the one agreeing with him.
We just finished up a video debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox in our community group. I asked everyone to think of at least one positive thing about both the atheist and the Christian. Fortunately we were able to generate a lot of positive things about Dawkins instead of just blowing him off because ultimately we weren't "pulling" for him (though he did have better arguments). It was a helpful exercise for our group to affirm what we could, before critiquing what we couldn't. We all concluded that Lennox probably would have been more affective if he adopted this approach.
Last week Amy and Connar spent a week in Virginia with her family. Here's a little snippet of what I missed while staying in Bradenton. Watching this makes me feel, just a little bit, like I was there. Connar dares to take on his cousin Ryan in an age appropriate U.F.C., 2 minute match for the ages. Check it out.
I would love to blog about a FSU victory over Miami today, but poor time management and a last second drop precludes me from doing so. Nothing redeeming to speak of about that game, nor the Rays who have dropped 6 straight games.
