I recently ran across this article. I would gladly give credit to the composer, however I cannot find his name to attach to it. Also, I have done a fact check on the content and found it in a number of places on the internet - so it is a true recollection of the author. I find it to be so descriptive of our current place in history. We have lost our way on so many fronts. Take time to read... Twenty years ago, in Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA's convention. While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — "John Scolinos is here? Oh, man, worth every penny of my airfare." Who is John Scolinos, I wondered No matter; I was just happy to be there. In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate. Seriously, I wondered, who is this guy? After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he'd gotten on stage. Then, finally ... "You're probably all wondering why I'm wearing home plate around my neck," he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. "I may be old, but I'm not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I've learned in my life, what I've learned about home plate in my 78 years." Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. "Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?" After a pause, someone offered, "Seventeen inches?", more of a question than answer. "That's right," he said. "How about in Babe Ruth's day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?" Another long pause. "Seventeen inches?" a guess from another reluctant coach. "That's right," said Scolinos. "Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?" Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. "How wide is home plate in high school baseball?" "Seventeen inches," they said, sounding more confident. "You're right!" Scolinos barked. "And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?" "Seventeen inches!" we said, in unison. "Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?"..........."Seventeen inches!" "RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues? "Seventeen inches!" "SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!" he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. "And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can't throw the ball over seventeen inches?" Pause "They send him to Pocatello!" he hollered, drawing raucous laughter. "What they don't do is this: they don't say, 'Ah, that's okay, Jimmy. If you can't hit a seventeen-inch target? We'll make it eighteen inches or nineteen inches. We'll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can't hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.'" Pause. "Coaches... what do we do when your best player shows up late to practice? or when our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him? Do we widen home plate? " The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach's message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. "This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids With our discipline. We don't teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We just widen the plate!" Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag. "This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?" Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross. "And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate for themselves! And we allow it." "And the same is true with our government. Our so called representatives make rules for us that don't apply to themselves. They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home plate! We see our country falling into a dark abyss while we just watch." I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curve balls and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path. "If I am lucky," Coach Scolinos concluded, "you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: "If we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools & churches & our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to ..." With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside, "..We have dark days ahead!." Note: Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach. His message was clear: "Coaches, keep your players—no matter how good they are—your own children, your churches, your government, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches." And this, my friends, is what our country has become and what is wrong with it today, and now go out there and fix it! "Don't widen the plate I can hardly say anything more. We run from the word "accountability" anymore as though it were some sort of poisonous serum that if found in our system we would have to take responsibility for our actions and words. In reality, it is just the opposite. Accountability is a truth serum that should run thru our veins making us willing to first, check our words and actions to assure they are in line with truth and honor. Second, accountability should cause us to re-check what we have done or said to assure it aligns with truth and justice. King David, in Psalm 51 was confronted with the truth of his sinful and horrendous actions with Bathsheba and attempting to cover his sin by having Uriah, her husband killed. In today's society, he might have denied, denied, denied and blamed everyone around him to save his position. However, King David did the right thing - he held himself accountable for his actions, confessed his sin and became a man after God's own heart. As a nation, we are lost. As a church we are floundering. As individuals we find ourselves daily confronted with blaming others or being accountable for who we are and what we have done or said. The question is will we allow ourselves the freedom found in taking responsibility or the bondage of living in denying accountability? Just some thoughts...

Thoughts on Prayer

I recently saw a post on FB - "Worry - temporary atheism". That got me to thinking about how many times I worry about things. Most of the time I worry about things over which I have no control whatsoever. In speaking to the issue I came up with this thought...Worry is something we do when we want to be in control, but we can't be and we end up trying to figure how we can be. We spend hours trying to figure out how we can control or manipulate a situation in such a way as to bring about a conclusion we think is best. Often, we attempt to control situations that have nothing to do with us, but everything to do with those around us and we have convinced ourselves need fixing. In all our worry to control and fix we only end up loosing sleep, over/under eating, and bringing disruption to our own lives while never really affecting anyone around us - except we make them miserable by our constant attempts to fix them. In the words of a friend of mine, Eddie Smith, "Prayer is the ability to listen to the music of the future. Faith is the courage to dance to it today." Perhaps we should spend more time praying to a God Who IS in control, believing He already knows about the problems, spend less time worrying about the problems, and dancing to the music of God's resolution to the problem -even though we may not yet set the results.

Eyesight

Thoughts from the One-Year Bible
January 25, 2011
Gen 50:20 - “Don't you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good,....”(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

I have worn glasses, it seems, all my life. The earliest school pictures show me wearing glasses when I was in the first grade. Now that is a long, long time. Several years ago I had a wonderful surgery that transformed my eyes forever. I no longer have my natural lenses, I have implants. My left eye has an implant for reading and my right eye has an implant for seeing things at a distance. It was amazing! The very first morning I got out of bed I could see the clock all the way across the room...with no glasses! Before that surgery my vision was so bad I could hardly see anything clearly within five feet. Once the implants were in place I could see well all the time. In order for me to see clearly my eyesight had to be changed.

How well this little thought fits in with the scripture today. Joseph’s brothers thought they were going to be mistreated now that Father Jacob was dead. You know,... those brothers that sold him down the river and thought they would never see him again? But, Joseph was seeing things a little more clearly than his brothers. His eyesight had been changed. No longer did he view what his brothers did as evil. He saw through what his brothers had done it actually positioned him to be able to help his brothers and all fo their families. His brothers were looking at the situation without the use of God-eyesight. They were looking at the death of their father as floodgate through which all of Joseph’s vengeance would rain down upon them. Joseph was looking at his brothers as opportunities to bless them because of what they had done and how God had used their evil actions.

That is the problem so many times in our own lives - we have bad eyesight. And most of the time the eyesight is nearsightedness rather than farsightedness. To be nearsighted is to “myopic” - note the word “MY-opic”. When we are spiritually nearsighted we see things best at close up range - my range - me range. Things become about us and me and my - case in point...Joseph’s brothers. But Joseph was farsighted - or “hyperopic”. He could see things far away while losing sight of things up close and personal - the hurts and offenses. Too often we are “my - opic” and take everything personal. Our world is a huge failure and everyone is against us. We need to become farsighted, being able to see things at a distance. Everything is not about us and everyone is not against us. In fact, more often than not things that come into our lives are not necessarily for short range understanding, but rather long range transformation. God wants us to be like Him - Holy. The only way we get there from here is with eyesight that sees further down the road than the little things that crowd into “my” space right now. What you are going through right now is either because of less than wise decisions - OR - God is trying to change your eyesight - to see how He is working out everything for HIS purpose. After all isn’t that what life is really all about - transforming our lives and fitting us for eternity with Him?
You are loved,
Pastor Roger

Correction

Thursday, January 13, 2011 - Thoughts from the One Year Bible

Correction
Proverbs 3:11-12 - "My child, don't reject the Lord's discipline, and don't be upset when he corrects you. For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights." Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

How many times was I corrected as a young boy? Too many to count. What do I remember most of many of those corrections? My father saying to me, "This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you." Wanna bet? At least that is what I thought until one day I heard myself say to my own child, "This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you." I suddenly found myself laughing on the inside as I immediately went back in time and my father's words echoed through the chambers of my mind. Why in the world would he say such a thing? Why did I say it? Discovery - when we love someone deeply, we are grieved when we must bring discipline into their lives. We know it will hurt them in the short term. We risk the possibility of rejection. We risk misunderstanding. We risk a potential break in relationship. We risk creating anger in the one whom we discipline.

The writer of this Proverb came to understand the loving touch of God's discipline. "Don't reject the Lord's discipline...don't be upset when He corrects you...." So why is it we often respond so negatively when the hand of correction comes into our life? I believe it has to do with our heart condition. We tend to believe we are right...all the time. When we do the wrong thing we tend to believe it doesn't affect anyone else and if no one finds out what is the difference? I love my children and in those days of "growing up" it wasn't so much I wanted them to do things my way as it was I wanted them to do things "rightly" or righteously. I wanted them to do things right in the sight of God. I loved them enough to care they grew up knowing the right thing to do and doing the right thing.

So it is with God. He loves us so much He gave His only Son to die for our sins and it only makes sense He loves us enough to see to it we do the right things - not only because He is God and wants us to be righteous and holy, but because he knows what is best for us. He made us and understands us. When we find ourselves doing things that bring sin and harm into our lives, He cares and loves us enough to bring discipline into our lives. I love the analogy of a loving father and would recite the verse this way, "The Lord brings discipline into the lives of those in whom He delights!" God delights in His creation - YOU! Discipline calls us to attention. Discipline calls us to accountability. Discipline from God brings us into a place of character adjustment. God wants us to live life to the potential He created in us. But, for us to experience the God-potential within us we must experience the loving discipline of God.

It didn't happen overnight - it took a while. In fact, it took a few years into my adult life when I finally understood the discipline of my father was most often nothing more than a great big hug and an "I love you". At the time it was like hugging a cactus, but over time the sticker wounds healed and what remained was a better, wiser individual. Don't reject God's hugs - even if there are a few stickers at the time. In the long run you are better off.

You are loved, Pastor Roger

Swallow The Scroll

There is an interesting passage of Scripture in today’s One Year Bible reading. It is found in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 2:9-3:3, “Then I looked and saw a hand reaching out to me. It held a scroll, which He unrolled. And I saw that both sides were covered with funeral songs, words of sorrow, and pronouncements of doom. The voice said to me, "Son of man, eat what I am giving you—eat this scroll! Then go and give its message to the people of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He fed me the scroll. "Fill your stomach with this," He said. And when I ate it, it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.” Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.

It is interesting the prophet has been called of God to deliver a hard message to a people who He(God) declares as rebellious. Yet, as Ezekiel eats the scroll, representing the Word of God full of pronouncements of doom because of their rebelliousness, he finds it is as sweet as honey in his mouth. You would normally think words of doom and sorrow would be bitter tasting words. I know from my own experiences that moments of sorrow and death, discipline and rebuke are not words sweet to the taste. They are words of bitterness and go down hard. Yet, Ezekiel found them sweet. I think I can understand this. The scroll was the Word of God! If we live to please our Heavenly Father, even when He speaks words of sorrow or rebuke, we find them to be sweet words because they represent His love for us. A loving father will take the time to speak not only the sweet words of love that go down easily leaving us wanting more, but he also speaks hard words to us when we have moments of rebellion and wanting to do things our way. Though these words are distasteful, when received with the right heart and attitude, they, too are words sweet and palatable. We recognize them for the words they really are - words meant to bring about change in our hearts and lives. Words meant to draw attention to our failure - not as though we are “failures”, but because we have failed to bring honor to the one who loves us enough to speak bitter words as well as sweet words.

The message of God through Ezekiel to His people was a message of rebuke and discipline. God was hoping these words would call them to attention and they would turn their lives around. While the message was sweet to the messenger it was bitter to the hearer because their heart was not tuned to the Heavenly Father Whose love was deep enough to say them. I must admit, there are times when the Words of the Father are bitter to me, but if I stay in tune with His heart even bitter words can be sweet. God goes on to say in Ex. 3:10 - “Then he added, "Son of man, let all My words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself.”Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.

Bitter or sweet I will swallow the scroll deep within my being so that I might become the person God wants me to be.

Pastor Roger

Keeping The Fire

I preached a message yesterday to emphasize the importance of keeping the fire of God in your heart and life. Last week I spent some time with Dan Bohi and he shared this five finger concept of keeping the fire of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Your little finger, which seems so unimportant at times, is the entry point into the Heavenly places where the fire of the Holy Spirit is burning at all times. Likewise, prayer is sometimes something we do out of habit, at a meal, or because we think we should - let's face it, prayer seems rather unimportant and mundane at times...just like our little finger. Yet, just try to live without the use of that little finger. Likewise, try to live without prayer. You can't - succesfully. Prayer must take on a significance in our lives. Just as you cannot ignore your little finger, you cannot ignore prayer. It is the language of the Heavenly Father - the conversation of Him to me and me to Him. Second, comes the ring finger - Obedience. I don't very often think of the ring finger being much of anything but a place to put a ring. Yet, as I gaze at my left ring finger I see a ring that represents a covenant of marriage with my wife, Kris. Within that covenant is a promise not only to Kris, but to God. I promised, long ago, to obey God's command to cherish and love my wife as Christ loves the church. I do everything possible to obey that command. As I look at that ring finger I am reminded of obedience and how important it is to obey the commands of my Heavenly Father in all things. Then comes the middle finger - Truth. It is longer than the rest and so quite recognizable. It has a longer reach than the other fingers. It reminds me how important it is to reach for truth. I must reach for and secure truth for it is what sets me free. Next comes the index finger - Faith. The index finger is probably the most powerful of all the fingers. Faith is the power base of our experience with God. It moves us to do what we do and live the way we do. Faith motivates us and keeps us. Faith gives us vision and hope - and without it we will not see God. Faith is powerful and is made complete as we pray, obey, and walk in the truth. Finally, the thumb - Anointing. The Word says we cannot please God without faith. Why? Because faith comes from hearing the Truth - the truth gives us a reason to obey - and obedience puts us on our knees in prayer. If we want the anointing we must pray, obey, walk in the truth, and excercise faith. When the anointing comes it enhances our desire to pray, obey, walk in the truth and have a faith great enough to say to the tree - "Be uprooted and thrown into the sea!"
Stretch out your hand - memorize these five truths - live in them - walk in the anointing - keep the fire of the Holy Spirit of God in your heart and life.

Afterglow

I have been basking in the Presence of God today recalling the wonderful things He has done in the last 72 hours of my life and the life of our church. People forgiven, people sanctified, hurts healed, offenses surrendered, the past placed in the past…the list goes on. This thought sums up the entire 72 hours – “People prayed, God spoke, people listened, God spoke, people responded, God sent forgiveness, freedom, His power, His Presence, people received. Waco Community Fellowship is forever changed. Changed into a reflection of who God desires us to be. Changed into a people without fear and bondage. Changed into a people with courage to tell our community about Jesus. Changed into a people who desire to praise God with their lives and lips.
Last night Dan spoke about the “Burnt Offering” and the significance of “taking out the ashes” so the fire can once again burn brightly and intensely, as fire is quenched when we keep ashes in the fire pit. Nearly 30 people came to the altar taking ashes to the ash heap – letting go of the past, letting go of offenses. A couple of folks went back more than once as it was obvious they were obeying the voice of God in their hearts Who told them there were more ashes to throw out.
I am listening intently to God to know just how to approach Sunday as our entire atmosphere has changed. A Sunday School teacher even asked what they should do on Sunday – as they, too are basking in this incredible new freedom. What a wonderful place to be – no preconceived ideas about what should be, only an absolute surrender to what will be as the Holy Spirit guides and directs. Advice? Stay in the Word and on your knees. What is supposed to sung, shared and preached will flow from the heart of God into the Sunday School teachers, the children’s workers, the youth pastor and the pastor – then we will have what we call church.
Thank God that He does not change. Thank God that He is faithful. Thank God that He still wants to inhabit the praises and the hearts of His people.
Pastor Roger