On Making It to the Hall of Fame

For sports enthusiasts: New York Giants assistant coach Mike Pope (age 60) takes young Jeremy Shockey (age 21) to the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. They walk through the corridors, “men of different generations, nearly opposite temperaments, locked together by the whims of their sport.”

“We took a look at all the busts and all the pictures,” Pope recalled, “and I said to him, ‘I’m going to do with you or to you or for you whatever I have to and hopefully get you in this line of statues, because you have the talent to be here. You can get mad at me; I don’t care. I’m going to make you the type of player who gets in here.'”

I hear Paul talking to Timothy in this way. This is the mindset of the writer of Hebrews 11–12. It’s the language of the discipler, the leader-builder, of the first century and the twenty-first.

And this one about Brett Favre’s amazing Monday night game just after he learned that his father died: On Monday night, Favre’s effort kept a lot of people awake, including Dr. Stephen Taylor, a clinical psychologist who works with athletes in Merrick, N.Y.

Taylor, in a telephone interview, said Favre’s performance should be studied as an example of an elite athlete’s focus and an ability to raise the level of play of those around him.

“Besides the human-interest story of Favre is the understanding of the skill sets of an elite athlete,” Taylor said. “One skill set we know he has is the ability to focus and play through pain; an ability to block all things out and have the focus of a laser beam.

“That level of focus is contagious,” Taylor said of the rousing play of Favre’s teammates. “It’s a Michael Jordan effect. One thing he used to do was make others around him better. Brett Favre did that, too.”

Hmmm. The “Michael Jordan effect.” In another setting—a non-sports setting—where life and eternity are at stake, I’d call it the Jesus effect.

From my journal: Being a frequent flyer makes it possible for me to get a seat in the exit row on most airline flights. Great leg room. But with privilege comes responsibility.

The flight attendant comes up, kneels by my aisle seat and says, “Have you read the instruction card that tells you how to open the door in the case of emergency? I need a verbal answer.”

I fudge the truth a bit and say yes when the truthful answer is no. I mean, does it take a rocket scientist to know that you simply swivel the handle and push the door out and to the side? So I tell her yes, I’ve read the card.

But she’s smart. She says, “If an emergency happens, I’ll be depending on you to open that door. Dozens of other people will also be relying on you, too. So are you sure you know what’s on that card?”

Suddenly, she has my attention.

It occurs to me in that insightful moment that this is not unlike the way some people respond to sermons (mine anyway). You build a talk with the notion that people really need a particular idea. But are they listening (have they read the card)? Will they know how to “open the door” if something in life goes wrong? Too often it seems as if the church crowd nods their heads—”I’ve read the card”—but blow the test when crunch time comes. A relationship turns sour; health breaks; a job is lost; an ugly thing happens, and they panic, blame God, get mad, leave. And in the middle of the chaos, with people lined up behind them, they cry out, “How do you get this door open?”

In my reverie, I hear the flight attendant calling out, “Read the card, stupid!”

I really do read those cards now.

My friends, Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson have written a fine little book, Walking the Small Group Tightrope (Zondervan), and in the preface they include this Jean Vanier quote: “We must never forget that Satan is the adversary of love and community. He hates communities where people are growing in love and in the knowledge of Jesus. He does everything he can to sow discord, to create divisions, and finally to destroy community.” Wisdom there!

Gordon MacDonald chairs World Relief and is editor at large of Leadership.

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