For The Love Of The Game

     I'm a big fan of baseball.  It truly is a great sport to watch, to play, and to be a part of.  Why you may ask?  For numerous reasons really, more than I have time to write about today but I think one of the big ones is the strategy it requires.  I'm not saying other sports don't require strategy, they do, but baseball requires managers to think ahead well into games and sometimes even series.  You can't always just put your best players in at the beginning of the game and expect the outcome to go your way.

     This is so true of leadership and discipleship as well.  Too often we want to "put our best players" out front to lead the way and for a time, that works out.  We see growth and depth and movement.  Things look good and there's some excitement.  But then things change.  A key leader moves on, life gets busy, or they don't "perform" the way they once were.  Now what?  In baseball you go to your bullpen.

     The bullpen is full of your relief pitchers and in most cases they are chomping at the bit to get in the game and show what they can do.  Ministries, churches, and organizations need more bullpens and fewer "starters."  Don't get me wrong, we need that consistent "ace" that can go out there and get the job done but that guy needs to be passing information along and training those younger players to be ready to go in and keep things moving.

     Too often I've seen churches, my own included, seek to fill a leadership void by handing someone some video driven curriculum and say,

     "here, you're in charge of this now."

     In my opinion, I'd call this damage control, not discipleship.  By all means, use curriculum and whatever resources you have and need but make sure that person has had someone pouring into them and preparing them to step into that role when the time comes.  As leaders, especially church leaders, we should be constantly looking to replace ourselves.  It's for the good of the team but more than that, it's for the good of the one(s) you're pouring into.

     What does your bullpen look like?  Who do you have that could step in and lead the way.  I hope that when the day comes and I step away from this ministry I'm a part of the manager just looks to the bullpen I've help develop and call up that next player who's ready to step into whatever role God is calling them to.

     Keep leading, keep developing, and keep building.  For the team, for His glory, and for those we lead!

Photo by Mike Bowman on Unsplash