Are You Growing?

In January, I read a book titled “Wooden on Leadership,” which is based on principles that Coach John Wooden implemented into his coaching style and life. Coach John Wooden is best known for leading UCLA to 10 NCAA College Basketball Championships in 12 years. Yet, I was most fascinated that in all of his years of coaching basketball, Coach Wooden never spoke about winning or losing. He realized that creating a successful program did not involve talking about winning all the time but instead revolved around teaching the fundamentals required in the lives of players in order to play as a team. He repeatedly taught the fundamental skills required to get the most out of the talent that was created inside of each person. His team was not asked to do things that were beyond their talents and abilities, but instead to keep honing the skills inside of them. And if every person on the team did this same thing, then the team would become its best. Coach Wooden was probably one of the most successful coaches ever, at any level, but it was because he knew how to get a group of young men to play together with one goal: be a team.

Often when we look inside the church we need to understand that it’s not about numbers and statistics. The church exists to win the lost and then to teach them how to play together as a team. It’s me discovering what I do best and allowing leadership to help me refine my gifts and abilities so that the church is making an impact. The problem is that many in the church want to pursue their own agenda and see their own goals accomplished, and when that begins to happen the church and the community lose out. I’m preaching the series “Walking in the Spirit” because when we as a church learn to walk in obedience to the Holy Spirit’s guidance on a daily basis, we will see the church functioning as a team. And when we are functioning as a team we will not be looking at numbers and statistics, but instead at lives changed by the power of Jesus Christ.