Game Day!

For all of you who have never played competitive sport let me help you discover what game day is like. It is the day upon which you mentally prepare for; all week. It is the day you focus your training and physical strength towards; all week. To put it simply; it’s the pinnacle of your week. When game day arrives you have to “get in the zone”. “The Zone” is the place from which you want to compete. It means you are well prepared in all areas, mentally, physically, and spiritually. You are ready to run onto that field, dive into the pool, launch from those running tracks with the three key areas of your life charging. However for most Christians, this day doesn’t often come around.

As you may have figured out, I like sport. Sport analogies work for me, however I wasn’t the only one to use sporting analogies, the apostle Paul utilised them throughout his letters to the Church and compared the Christian life to a race. So at least this is all biblical! The pinnacle of my sporting endeavours was playing water polo for Canterbury. I was 15 years old and I was in the zone. I’d been playing really well, and was just charging. I went to the trials and was named 1^st non-travelling reserve, and was a bit gutted but I knew that as the youngest guy there my chances were limited. However the 2^nd youngest player in the team had a chip on his shoulder, and didn’t turn up to the final trial session, and opted to go drinking instead. So, as a result he got cut, and I was elevated! WOOP WOOP! I don’t think you could wipe the grin off my face! The training was intense, 2 mornings a week on top of my school training, and the other commitments life brought. However it was all worth it. When we went to Australia we nailed it. Our team won all of our games bar 1, and the team we lost to was stacked with Australian representatives. I came back glowing, I felt like I’d achieved something significant, that I was a part of something, and that I’d do it all again and train twice as hard for the exact same results. However these feelings of elation, and excitement, and success are not only reserved for representative sports people, Christians can experience this too.

Now before all my non-believers out there switch off, can I ask you to hang in there? Because this is as much for you as it is for believers. To the non-believers I want to apologies on behalf of the church. Fairly audacious, and something that the Pope would have more of a “right” to do, but as a young and zealous Christian I want to apologise for the way in which we, as Christians and the church, have failed you.

James 1:27 (NLT) says

“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you”

This is where the Church and Christians have got it wrong. We have developed a culture that is all about training. On Sunday we train with our squad, we get together with the rest of the Church and we train. During the week we train at least once (sometimes more) with our specialist team (like a life group) and then a few times a week (hopefully more) we train on our own through our own devotions. However most people don’t put this training to use in the context of the aforementioned scripture.

As the Church we need to get back to game day. We need to start mentally, physically, and spiritually preparing for game day and findings ways in which we can care for orphans and widows. As it stands there are a lot of fantastic faith based organisations doing a lot in the world, which is awesome and power too them. But I believe that we have used this as an excuse to sit back and not have game day, we sit on the sidelines and support instead. However game day doesn’t have to mean you’re in full time ministry. It can be as simple as mowing the lawns for your next door neighbour, it can be as easy as adopting a single parent family and providing them with support, it can be as easy as coaching a bunch of kids sport.

The Rock’s vision of “Transforming Lives by Giving Ourselves Away” perfectly sums up the game day mentality that the Church and Christians need to adopt. This is the way it needs to be going forward, i’ve told you why, and i’ve told you how, so when’s game day for you?