Fouls We Commit

February 27, 2008

Last time I shared a bit with you about the analogy of a basketball game and the work of the referees in calling fouls. We agree if their call is to our advantage and disagree if their call is not. Even when they do not make a call, we see them! That is, we see the ones the other team commits but never do we see our teams’ fouls.

I think that can be true in the church. We can miss our fouls if we are not careful. In fact, I think sometimes we are committing fouls that we are unaware of.

Let me mention a couple:

- Holding Fouls... We can be guilty of holding on to cherished traditions that are keeping non-believers off our court. Reflect on these words from George Barna. “…unchurched people embracing church life is "both counter-cultural and counter-intuitive." Reaching out to unchurched people is difficult for born again Christians because the two groups have such different viewpoints and lifestyles. "Born again adults are more excited about a church’s strengths and more forgiving of its weaknesses, more disposed to spiritual growth, and less skeptical of theological and biblical claims. They neither see nor understand the obstacles that impede the unchurched. Addressing the reticence of the unchurched takes more than prayer and hard work: it requires a lot of deep reflection to see the world and the local church from a completely different angle.”

-Player Control Foul- In the basketball game this is usually called “charging.” It is an offensive foul indicated by the referee’s fist in the air, then the hand behind the head and point in the opposite direction. In the church, we can be guilty of running over people with our programs and wondering why they are not interested. In most cases, I think it’s not that the program is wrong it’s just that we charge forward so hard with them without first meeting the needs of people. The unchurched are not looking for polished programs they are looking for relationships.

Next time, I will share what I think are the two worst fouls we can commit.