How the Bears Became Bad News and the Ducks Became Mighty.

Baseball may have taught me a lot, but nobody taught me a lot about baseball. I remember getting yelled at in Little League for messing up a play or batting poorly. Lots of people were willing to tell me what I did wrong, but very few people would show me how to do it right. There’s a reason I gave up playing the game for playing punk music. Mistakes were acceptable if not celebrated, and it was easy enough to teach myself anything I needed to know. Even so, I still wish I had that cinematic baseball team where a coach comes to turn a bunch of misfits into all-stars.

I’ve been in Michigan for the last three weeks and seen lots of old friends. Some of them have asked me how I like living in Nashville. Even though I lived in Michigan most of my life and moved only a year ago, I tell them that Nashville is my home. When they ask me why I like it so much, I used to tell them that I’m pleased to live where God wants me. While that’s true, I realize that I have another answer. I have people in Nashville who train me in discipleship. It’s like I found the Little League coach I always wanted. Until I moved to Nashville, I never understood the value of discipline and discipleship.

I used to identify the word “discipline” with punishment. Anything else was training. The Bible used the word discipline in terms of punishment sometimes and many a Baptist child heard these verses. Proverbs 22:15, for example, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of discipline will remove it far from him.” Or the famous Proverbs 13:24, “He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” Dang, right? Imagine how blessed you’d feel hearing someone quote those verses after hitting you with a belt.

But more often than not, scripture talks about discipline as if it’s the greatest thing in the whole world. Hebrews 12 talks of how God disciplines to train us in holiness. Verse 11 says, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” And in Revelation 3, in a letter to Sardis, God says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.” Paul rejoiced at the discipline of the church in Colossians 2:5.

We can easily get the wrong idea about discipline. It’s not punishment for its own sake. It’s not hateful correction. Like children, we think we know the best way to live, but we would mature poorly if we didn’t have people to train us. The disciples weren’t masochists, as far as I know. They wanted Jesus to show them how He lived His life. Instead of studying in the back of some synagogue for an allotted amount of time, they followed Him everywhere, listened to every word, asked Him all sorts of questions. “How should we pray?” “How many times should I forgive my brother?” “Should I pay my taxes?”

Alright, so discipline isn’t as bad as it sounds. It develops a mature way of life. But what does that have to do with living in Nashville? I have people in Nashville who meet with me regularly, whether intentionally or otherwise, to encourage me towards discipline. Then I turn it around and help other people with the same encouragement. It’s created a community of people seeking to develop a mature relationship with God, help each other reach those goals, stay accountable, and celebrate the growth. This gives me even more incentive to build and maintain an intimate relationship with God knowing that it helps my church. Paul mentions this kind of other-centered discipline in Romans 15:1-2. “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.”

I’m glad I grew up in Michigan. But taken away from the culture of discipline that I’ve found in Tennessee, I fall back into old patterns and live less than extraordinarily. How often does this happen to you? How easy is it? That’s a pretty good sign that I’m still learning. I’m not ready for the travel team yet. I found myself saying the very words a friend told me about his lack of discipline. The decline in discipline almost made me think that I had begun to desire God less. I’m a forgetful person who needs others to remind me of my hunger for God. If I could do it on my own, why would Paul spend all of 1 Corinthians 12 saying that members of the Church were given different gifts so they could work together as a body with different parts?

The different parts of the body depend on each other. They are responsible to each other. They train and build together. They become strong and focused. They are able to accomplish their goals with skill. If the body is supposed to be a picture of the church, how out of shape is yours? In 1 Timothy 4, Paul instructs Timothy how to deal with false teachings and says, “But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

I’ve said it before, but all I want from life is to glorify God and point others to Jesus. When I die, put it on the stone. I can’t accomplish these things effectively on my own. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. I burn out too quickly and lose heart. I need people to cheer me on, train me, keep me going towards that goal. How else am I going to make a big play in the championship game?

I once wrote about the church as a team. Here are some questions that might apply well to the analogy. How well do you know the people in your church? When you gather, do you encourage each other in righteousness? Are you willing to submit to spiritual authority? You don’t have to answer all of those questions right now. Let’s start with this one. When you think about discipline, do you think of it as a means to victory?

Our Team Will Change the World.

The cool kids at Hiawatha Elementary School each had a favorite basketball team. They’d show off their trading card collections and posters of gigantic men performing super-human feats on the court. Well, I didn’t have those trading cards or posters. I didn’t watch professional basketball. Ergo, I wasn’t one of the cool kids. But what I did have was an intense desperation to avoid their scorn. At some point in fourth grade, one of the coolest kids asked me, “Who do you think the best basketball team is?” Other kids were laughing, thinking that I wouldn’t have an answer. I said, “The Harlem Globetrotters”. They laughed so hard that one could have called it hollering.

Later that year, I met Curly Neal, arguably the most recognizable of the Globetrotters. He tried to spin a basketball on my hand, but I was so nervous that it kept falling off. I brought a photo of our meeting to show and tell, me with a stupid grin, him looking with polite dismay at the ball toppling off of my hand. I told the kids that Fred “Curly” Neal was involved in the Orlando Magic organization (which was true). The kids thought I was trying to tell them that I had met Shaquille O’Neal, who played for the Magic. Afterwards, I decided never to discuss basketball with any of those kids ever again.

I hadn’t thought about the Globetrotters for many years until last week. My friend Matt and I were praying for the people in our church and I began to thank God for allowing us to have fun while we did His work. I thanked God for the victory that Jesus assured us even though we find ourselves in the midst of a battle. “It’s like you made us the Harlem Globetrotters,” I laughed. It was just an offhand remark in prayer, but now I can’t shake this picture of God’s church.

The Globetrotters are a highly skilled team that exists outside of any recognized league. Even though they have the talent to compete with NBA teams, they serve a different purpose. The UN named them Goodwill Ambassadors. They have traveled to 119 countries to show the world just how fun and how excellent people can play the game of basketball.

Every analogy will break down if you look into it hard enough, but think about this for a moment. The world seems defined by competition. Who has the best job or car? Who’s got the blazing hot wife? Who’s famous, successful, beloved, cool, or revolutionary? The world chases after these things, but it ends in frustration apart from God. Sometimes, God’s the one who frustrates those plans. The people in Genesis 11 tried to come together in direct opposition to one of God’s commands. In Genesis 11:6-7, “The LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech.’”

Jesus trained His disciples for a new and different purpose. When He rose from the dead, He told them of this purpose in Acts 1:8. Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” This is typically referred to as The Great Commission. God Himself gave people purpose again, based and driven by the power of the Holy Spirit. The purpose of the Great Commission goes against the world’s attitude of competition. Instead of getting the biggest slice of pie, we’re meant to bring life and truth to the world.

Paul explained our new roles as Ambassadors for the Kingdom of God in 2 Corinthians 5:14-20. “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

I recently joined a church for the first time. When I joined, I put aside my old ambitions for fame and success with writing and music. In its place, I took on a new ambition to spread the Gospel with those talents. Many of my friends in this church have that same ambition. We hope to travel in at least 119 countries, should God call us there, in order to show people the good and excellence of life in Jesus. My punk rock heart loves the idea of existing outside of the recognized leagues of the world and speaking a message that runs contrary to its norms. But I know I’m not quite ready to go out there yet. During this period of my life, God is training me for that purpose and sharpening my skills.

Like all the kids who dreamed of one day becoming a Harlem Globetrotter, my friends and I look forward to the next step in advancing God’s Kingdom. And it’s going to be fun, because like the Globetrotters, you can count on seeing a victory.