Our Perspective of a "Win"

Well coaches, it's the first week in March, the un-official kick-off for the 2011 season. I guess this is where “the rubber meets the road” in respect to all the work you put into your fall and winter workouts. So as we head into the season, I would like to share just a few things from my heart in effort to encourage you, to help keep you focused on the vision of using your influence to impact your teams for Jesus Christ, and to strengthen you as you seek to be a coach who looks to define your wins through a set of lenses that is counter cultural.

Our culture…the world we live in….tells us that our worth is determined by our accomplishments and encourages us to pursue significance and meaning through the things we do. The world of competitive sports (in our case baseball) magnifies this “performance based” system and drives home the lie that “acceptance” is conditional….that it’s based on performance. In turn, this thought process instills a false sense of self worth into young men and leads them into a belief system that tells them their self worth and their identity is based upon what they do and how they perform. As they begin to fail at things in life (and we all do), this false sense of self worth causes them to start making decisions which are rooted in an attempt to meet a desperate need for approval and appreciation. This is an EXHUASTING existence. I know, because I lived that lie for 47 years of my life.

Here’s the truth. Our worth is determined by what Christ was willing to do for us, and in Him, we have an unlimited and unchanging source of meaning and purpose. Who we are in Christ is not shaped by what we do, but by what He did for us on the cross and what He continues to do in us and through us each and every day of our life. As Christian coaches, we have been called to embrace that perspective and share that message with our players, their parents and “all whom you influence” by living it out in our words, our actions and our RE-actions. The reflection of Christ in us may be the first, the last or the ONLY image of Christ that will be seen by those who come across our paths. Romans 12:2 is a wonderful example of how we as followers of Christ are called to live and to coach. I love Eugene Peterson’s translation in The Message:

“Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you and develops well-formed maturity in you”.
In order to live that out, we must first be secure in our OWN identity and our OWN self worth. You’ve all heard of “identity theft”. There’s a thief who wants to steal our identity by trying to convince us that the worlds performance based system is what life is all about. I believe that as coaches, we are most vulnerable to the enemies attack while we are on the baseball field and in the midst of competition. It is during competition that we are tempted to play the “comparison game” as we look at our opposing coaches and their players. Comparison is the death of contentment. It causes us to take on attitudes of pride and it causes us to fall back into the worlds view of performance based self worth as we begin to feel threatened. Then, in the blink of an eye, our definition of a “win” is changed. It quickly becomes about the numbers on the score board, our character is compromised and the enemy has won.

Where am I going with this? I remember reading the book “Season of Life” about four years ago. In the book, the main character, Joe Ehrman, a High School football coach would ask his team before each practice “What’s my job?”, and the team would yell back at him “To love us”. Coach would then ask them “And what’s YOUR job?”, to which they would answer “To love each other”. Reading those words in that book was a defining point in my life. That was the “AH-HA” moment for me that not only caused me to realize the impact of a coach, but it also kicked off the spiritual journey that I have been on ever since. I have come to know now that the words of Joe Ehrman were in actuality the words of Jesus as He gave His disciples a new commandment. A commandment that was RADICALLY different than anything they had heard from any Rabbi or religious teacher before. He said:

“I give you a new commandment; love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also have love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:34
That’s how we determine our wins in this life….and that’s how we determine our wins on the baseball field. It begins by loving God and totally embracing His love for us as we recognize the true security and significance that we have in our relationship with Him. The only way to love those “hard to love” people that He brings into our path is through an overflow of the love that we have for the one who makes us who we are. And that comes by putting Him first….by spending time….quality time….with Him. By trusting in the fact that He will honor the time we take away from other areas of our busy days to spend with Him in prayer and thanksgiving.

The simple discipline of readjusting your daily priorities to spend more time getting to know God on a much deeper level through prayer will be the one thing that will radically change your life and the lives of all those He has entrusted you with. And it will cause you to NEVER sway from the foundation of how you define a “win”. Thank you so much for answering Gods call on your life to “Shepherd a flock” for Him. I hope to be able to share time with each of you on a baseball field soon.

God tells the Shaheen family "Follow Me"

Hey all! With all the "busy-ness" in life I have REALLY been a slacker in BLOG posts. Sorry about that. However, I know that you will be blessed as you read about how God continues to expand our baseball ministry by raising up obedient leaders who are committed to follow Christ WHEREVER HE LEADS THEM! Below is the story of the Shaheen family in the words of Mike Shaheen, the current head baseball coach at the Wesleyan School in Norcross, GA.

In 2004, I took my first short-term mission trip to the Dominican Republic. It was an incredible trip that strengthened my relationship with Christ. The people in the DR were extremely hospitable and of course showed me a love for baseball that I never had seen before. The students and teachers from The Wesleyan School and I worked really hard in construction and also loved on the children every moment we could. What I did not know at the time, but now realize, is that God was planting a seed in my heart for something really big in the Dominican Republic.

Four years later in 2008, I felt led to serve again in the DR. This time around God planned something really special for me. During this trip, I befriended a man in a village that happened to be a coach of a high school aged Dominican baseball team. He allowed me and a few other missionaries to participate with his team and give our testimonies. We ended up spending a lot of time with the team and by the end of the week had grown close to the coach. Before we left, the coach, Cesar, told us that he had stopped developing his relationship with Jesus, but now, because of our stories and our intentional love for the Lord, he recommitted his life to Christ. He also decided that he would train his players not only in baseball, but in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was in awe of God’s goodness and was just starting to realize what we can do as believers if we allow God to guide our actions.

Now, flash forward to the summer of 2010. God had been working on my heart for about a year. I felt the tug of the Holy Spirit towards something different than what I was currently doing. I was definitely a little scared. I was currently a teacher and a baseball coach at The Wesleyan School in Norcross, GA. We had just won our third baseball state championship in a row and life was pretty good. My wife Jodi and I had just adopted our two children two years earlier and that capped off our dreams of a house, two kids, dog, two cats and a picket fence (not white). We had planned to spend 10 days in July in the Dominican with FCA Baseball who was leading 100 other short-term missionaries on this trip. I knew deep down that the trip was going to be bigger than the other trips I had taken. My family’s presence with me marked a great opportunity for me to ask God questions each day on the trip. While reading His word and praying with other brothers in Christ, I became really open to the idea of spending my future in the Dominican Republic. It was amazing to see my wife also feel a strong pull to the DR. We were falling more and more in love with Christ and with His plan for us.

Although radical, it was very clear by the time we came back to Georgia, that God wanted our presence in the Dominican Republic. After much prayer and conversations, the Shaheen's made the decision to become missionaries in the Dominican Republic. On October 15th of 2010, I announced my decision to to the Wesleyan baseball community that I will be leaving Wesleyan to lead the FCA Baseball ministry in the DR in June of 2011. My friends and mentors at Wesleyan have been major influences in my faith journey and I am forever indebted to them. I am very excited about what God has in store for us this spring at Wesleyan and the next few years in the DR.

To see the Shaheen family's BLOG, click on http://dominicanfcabaseballministry.com/

On the way back to to U.S.

On the way back home. Our first group left here very early this morning (4:15am) and is more than likely already back on the ground in Atlanta by now. The remainder of our group has just finished packing and will head to the airport in an hour or so.

Was this mission succesful? Absolutely! We were led here to serve both the physical and spiritual needs of the Dominican people. However, this trip was SO much about the work that God wanted to do in the hearts of all those who have been obedient to come. The game of baseball was the "hook" that God used to get all of us together over here for His true purpose. Change of pace + change of place = change of perspective. Over the course of these past ten days, we have had 15 members of our group accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord & Savior. Five other people have publically professed their commitment to be fully devoted followers of Christ. Through out our travels as we shared the gospel on baseball fields, softball fields, sugarcane villages and orphanages, we have witnessed well over 200 people receive Christ as their Lord & Savior and given away close to 700 Spanish version Bibles.

On a personal note, God has impressed upon my heart the great need for Christian male leadership here on the island. In my opinion, drastic change here will only come through consistant evangelism and dicipleship of young males. As FCA Baseball & Softball continues to go forward with the mission here in the Dominican republic, this will be the area where we will focus the attention of our resources.

In regard to the "fire" and the perspective change that God has given all of us while we were here, I pray that each of us will be very intentional in keeping the fire stoked as we return to the lives that we have been away from for the past week-ten days. We must all remain intentional in anchoring ourselves in our identity...who we are "in Christ". We must walk in confidence, knowing that our time here on earth is temporary and fleeting. We must remain intentional and consistent in our prayer life, with our time in Gods word and recognize that the people we surround ourselves with will determine the direction and quality of our lives. We must realize that it is not us who is in control of our lives, but God and that He has an incredible plan for us. Remaining "in Him" and walking with Him daily...in all areas of our lives... will enable us to recognize His leading and direction for us and He will be glorified as we "bear fruit" for Him. Again, it's not what we do for God, but what He has already done FOR us that we need to anchor in. God will show us the activity that He wants for us.

To all of you who have followed this blog or have heard about our mission here over the past couple of years and may be thinking "wow..I would love to be a part of that mission", I encourage you to reach out to me. It just may be that God wants you to be a part of His work here. God Bless you!

Internet in the Dominican Republic is FINALLY back up!

Hey everyone…sorry for the delay in updates. Because of the weather, our internet connection has been down since Tuesday afternoon. Although the weather has really changed our plans and has caused us to cancel most of our baseball games, we have all continued to be blessed as we see God move in our hearts.

Our past few days have been amazing as we continue to see God work in and through the lives of our group and the Dominican people. When we ARE able to play ball, in different villages, our coaches and athletes share the gospel after each game as well as visit villages and orphanages. Many within the villages have come to know Jesus over the past few days. Along with the salvations in the village, we have had over 15 of our own coaches and athletes come to know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord & Savior as they have heard the gospel presented.

Yes…faith comes through hearing the message, and the message comes through preaching Jesus Christ (Romans 10:17).

The pictures above speak loudly.