In the last weeks, two people (and in one case, husband and wife) have taken a risk and started a real conversation with me.  In both scenarios we were eating and chit chatting about life, sports, kids, and job stuff, when out of the blue, they both burst out with something that had clearly been on their minds and hearts.  What was inside of them was so important that they broke the old adage about the faux pas of conversation (never talk about politics or religion, and for what can be inferred, anything personal and real about your life) and brought it out to me.  The result was two conversations that I’ll never forget and will for a while at least, stamp what they’re going through on my mind so I can pray and continue the dialogue.

They could have kept it light.  They could have continued on how the Pats are playing or the weather or how the church is doing, but I think they took a risk, and shared with me something real going on in their lives.  I hope to learn a lesson from them.

But I still hate talking politics.

Today’s the first full day of my vacation.  Today my neck hurts.  I’ll start from the beginning.

Sometimes I get rolling in something with good fortune, like good health or good circumstances, and feel like I’m invincible, which of course I’m not, unless of course we’re talking about Super Mario Bros. on the original Nintendo Entertainment System.  But two days ago, I had just finished my weekday bout of basketball at the YMCA, and decided to walk around the track a few times.  As I walked, I said hello to a friend of mine we’ll call Kenny (actually, we’ll call Kenny Kenny because that’s his name).  Kenny and I chatted a bit, and I shared with him that I would be going on vacation.  In the course of this story I mentioned that I would be playing basketball the next morning (Thursday morning) before I left for vacation that evening.  Kenny then encouraged me to be careful as I played the next morning because the last time he had gone on vacation, he broke his ankle, and spent the better part of his vacation with his leg up reading archived issues of O magazine (his wife’s a fan, I guess).  After I encouraged him to sneak  a subscription of Sports Illustrated past his wife, I laughed off his warning with some sort of comment about having played basketball at least 4 days a week for the last year, and the odds were in my favor for not getting hurt on this one day before I leave for vaca.
Fast forward 22 hours as I played basketball at the YMCA.  I head down the lane to attempt a layup with two guys guarding me, collide legs with one of them, and fall, knees first into the hardwood gym floor.  “OUCH!”  I exclaimed as I was helped to my feet by one of the defenders.  “Ouch, Ouch, Ouch, Ouch, Ouch, Ouch!
But the real problem was to come, for as I eventually shook off the pain from my knee, I noticed my neck starting to get sore as time went on.  And I sit here tonight somewhere in Central Connecticut with a sore neck and a real desire to connect with a chiropractor for the first time since ‘Nam. Now I won’t be laid up for the entirety of my vacation or anything, but…

I probably will steer clear of Kenny for a long, long time.

At a high school basketball game concession stand at the age of 4

Growing up in the midwest wasn’t that bad.  I think we all look back and see the goods and bads of our childhood.  People who have a negative bent probably believe there childhood sucked and people with a more positive outlook on life probably believe theres was all good.  Of course it could and has been argued that people have a positive or negative bent because of there childhood, but I digress.

One of the more interesting things about growing up in the midwest was the conversation.  While in New England, politics tends to be the conversation of choice, in the midwest, that distinction belongs to sports.

“Hey, how are ya?”

“Good, how are you?”

“Good thanks.” (I’m pretty sure in the midwest it’s illegal to let someone know you’re having a bad day)  “see the game last night?”

And we’re off.  The person could have been talking about high school, college or pro sports, it doesn’t matter.  It’s the default conversation piece, and it’s much easier than talking about the fact that my marriage is falling apart, or I’m in debt over my head because of the large screen TV I just leased with astronomical interest or I lay in bed every night crying wondering if my life has any purpose.  Nope, just good clean sports, and it takes all chances of sharing our real problems away.  Why would someone want to hear about what I’m going through when we could talk about the freakin fastest 6’9″ guy on the planet – Lebron James.

So I learned a bad habit I’ve tried to break for the better part of my life.  Out of church, I talk about sports.  In church is where we talk about spiritual things.

Of course, we could talk about how stupid our pastor is, and all the mistakes he makes too.

Yeah, that could take some of the pain away!

Last night I played basketball after life group.  My team had a game, and so I decided I would play in it.  I have tons of thoughts going through my head right now about the value of teamwork that I’m learning from this team, my life group, and my church in general, but I’ll save that for a later date.

We were bringing the ball down for the last time, the game was locked up, and we had successfully beaten our rival team (the Green shirts).  The buzzer sounded, and just then I turned around to see our senior statesman on the team being thrown down for no apparent reason by a green shirt boy wonder 25 years his junior.  Senior statesman, a man I greatly respect, was pretty mad when he scraped himself off the ground.  I was mad too, actually, as Green shirt boy wonder stared Senior Statesman down and mouthed the words “What’s his problem?”

“Well,” I thought to myself with immediate disdain for Green shirt wonder boy, “for no apparent reason you have just thrown a man 25 years your senior about 5 feet and down to the ground (and continuing in my thoughts I added), stupid Green shirt wonder boy.”

It is in these moments I wonder what to do.  Because I want to get up in his face and ask him why he didn’t shove me that far, to which of course he would say,  “I will” and the fun would be had by all.  Or I could let it play out, and just sit by and rejoice that we won the game.  But I really want to help our Senior Statesman out, plus I know I also have the back of Policeman Hercules on our team.  Also I don’t want to be like Alpha males Marine or Car Salesman. Yet the headline, “Pastor in Holden goes to jail for a public fighting display,” doesn’t sound so appealing either.

So it played out how it played out and I’m sitting here at my computer sharing with you the story of my evening, and I wonder, with all the honesty you can muster…

Just exactly how you would have let it play out?

Billy, Al, and Steve hanging with a cow?

So I love sports, and I love competition.

As I grow older, one of the aspects of sports I’m coming to appreciate more and more is the teamwork that’s involved in team sports.  I’m also coming to appreciate the idea of team in every aspect of my life.  So for the next several afternoons I’ll be sharing some of the favorite “teams” in my own life.  Some of these are actual teams, and some of them are, shall we say, metaphysical teams (if there is such a thing) that exist to better an aspect of my life that is lacking.

Today’s favorite team is my fellow leaders at Fellowship Church.  They consistently impress with me with their desire to improve and to see people connecting and growing in a relationship with Jesus Christ.  They work together and we’ve seen great results here in central Massachusetts because of their hard work and innovative style.  I love the stuff God is accomplishing through this team, so please allow me to introduce them to you:

Steve Blumer:  The administrative genius on our team, and getting better every day.  This dude has his stuff together and you just know he loves the church and what we’re about.  He’s totally different from me and yet, somehow the same.  (hmmm, that was deep)  He’s done an amazing job at the role of Family Ministries director, and over the next 6 months will be transitioning into being the executive pastor of the FC.  I believe our church will be 100x’s better when that transition takes place.

Billy McGuiness:  Billy has just recently transitioned from our First Impressions director to the new Fellowship Web Campus director.  If you’ve checked out FC TV in the last 3 months, you’ve seen a lot of the amazing work he’s done to transition our church into the 21st century through the web.  I love what Billy brings to the table in sacrifice, excellence in web development, and just being a team player.

Al Dancy:  Al has been a close friend of mine for years now, and as soon as I took the lead pastor role at Fellowship, he came on board to revolutionize our Sunday morning programming.  He’s doing that now with his relevant style, his creative imagination, and his desire to see God move wherever he’s serving.  When Billy and Al get together though, watch out – there are going to be some laughs all around.

Jeff Campbell:  Jeff is our resident progressive thinker, or as he would put it “deep thinker”.  He has grown more in his faith than I have seen anyone ever grow in the time I’ve known him.  He’s the introvert of the bunch, but his leadership over our life group ministry speaks for itself.  This guy also communicates on Sunday mornings when I’m out and about, and sometimes when I’m still in the building.

Pam Watson:  She has no blog or web site, but in some ways, this newest member of our team is more experienced and prepared for her new role as the First Impressions director than anyone else I’ve mentioned, myself included.  She loves Fellowship Church, having been here since 1998 (about 7 months longer than me), and has a desire to see people feel like this place is their church home when they come in.  Her experience as a project coordinator of the UMass medical school Standardized patient program will help in her endeavor to unify her own guest services team to accomplish the mission God has given them, so that maybe one day they will be her favorite team!

So that, my friends,  is one of my favorite teams!

Today is my day off.  I sit here on the corner of my couch for about 2 hours every Monday morning,  pondering the previous week’s events, and reading through Scripture and/or whatever book I might be reading this week, and/or watching sportscenter if there’s anything big going on in my sports world.
I clear my head of distractions and try to slow down, preparing for the onslaught that is this week.
And I think.

Where do you think best?

I thought of a lot of things.  I thought of the times my dad used to turn on the television on Sunday afternoons and we’d watch the Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish dominate everything that moved on the old parquet floor of the Boston Garden.  I thought of the times immediately after when I’d run outside, pretending I was their point guard Dennis Johnson (I was pretty short as a child) and dribbling through orange cones and chairs and anything else that could defend me.  I thought of the countless number of times that I would go out as a young teenager and practice my turn around jumper ala Larry Bird, or my baby hook ala Robert and Kevin (I had grown a bit at that point).  I thought of the Wheaties box I bought the first week I moved to Massachusetts – July 9, 1998 – with a commemorative picture of Bird on it.  I have yet to open it.

I also thought of the playoffs in 2002 when Pierce and Walker took the C’s to the semifinals, and I would sit in my pastor’s house and watch the games over chinese food and ice cream with Lonnie and Ruth Snell.  They almost did it then, but they definitely were not the best team, and typically in the NBA, the best team wins.  Ironically enough, that year Shaq and Koby were the leaders of the best team, the Lakers.
And then I thought about what Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers must have gone through last year.  The worst team in the league.  The joke – and they were a joke – of this great professional sports area.  To bring your team from that to win the world championship is a feat that not many people’s psyche would have allowed.  But quitting, losing, and ultimate defeat were words that were not even in the dictionary when Ainge pulled off the trades that would ultimately bring them to win it all.  Not just bringing in Allen and Garnett, but also Posey, House, and Brown, and still made them a team, something even this Celtics fan denied could happen in a year.
“Two years, maybe, but I’d give it three, and even then, the new “big three” will probably be showing their age too much to win a championship.”
And then last night happened, as the Celtics destroyed the Lakers in a fitting end to their dominant year, and as I sat with my friends, some old friends, some new, (A shout out to Jay, Al, Steve bramlett, Jon, and Ben inserted here) I thought about this moment,and I thought about what it takes to be a champion.
It takes a team, committed to something more than personal glory, committed to something more than a “me first” mentality, to show up on a regular basis, and admit in their action, I will do what it takes to accomplish the task at hand.
That’s what I want to be a part of, and the vision may be different for me (no trophies for this one), but the end result wil be so much more satisfying.  To see people connect into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.  And I love the team I get to accomplish this goal with.

What’s your Championship?

This post was written with Randy Elrod’s Watercooler Wednesday in mind.

I’m not feeling very well so now I sit uncomfortably on my bed confined to my room while my life group gets to hang out without me. Oh well, I hope they’re having a good time down there.  Sounds like there’s a boatload of them tonight.  So while I’m up here, I’ll share a few random thoughts:

*I changed my software version of WordPress to 2.5 recently, and my stats plugin stopped working.  This has gone on for about 3 weeks, and then yesterday, randomly, it starts working.

*Mariah Carey – Doing good again,huh?

*Today, I told the guy that influenced me to be a Pittsburgh fan (Steelers, Pirates, Panthers) that I would be switching baseball loyalties to the Red Sox Nation.  He took it surprisingly well.

*I found this guys blog today because of this guys blog.  I think I’ll be a fan.

*Tonight Carie and I celebrate a new episode of “Lost“.  It would not be an exaggeration to say that I haven’t been this excited for a TV show in a while.

*I can’t wait until I started feeling better.   I look like a wreck.

Your thoughts please?

This was the first time I watched “One shining moment” as a young basketball fan.  You have to check out this video!  Amazing!  I remember watching Keith Smart hit this shot, and being so excited for Indiana!!!

Congrats to the Kansas Jayhawks, the 2008 NCAA Men’s basketball national champions!