Participation

Sometimes just taking part is what counts. Just ask Belgian shot-put thrower Jolien Boumkwo, who competed in the 100-meter hurdles at the European Athletics Team Championships after her teammates had to withdraw through injury.

After placing seventh in the shot put on Friday, Boumkwo turned her attention to the hurdles at the last minute and duly finished in a time of 32.81 seconds – 19 seconds behind the seventh-placed athlete.

Footage of Boumkwo carefully stepping over each hurdle while the other athletes race away ahead of her has since gone viral on social media. She smiled and laughed throughout before being congratulated by other competitors at the finish line.

Just having an athlete take part in the event earned Belgium two points and saved the team from disqualification. Boumkwo’s efforts weren’t enough to save her country from being relegated to the second division at the meet in Poland, finishing 14th out of 16 countries with 250 points.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes it is the taking part that really counts. In the church this might mean stepping up to help serve even though it is not our primary spiritual gift. We are part of a team and we all serve for the benefit of the body (1 Cor. 12:1-31) and we should do it with eagerness and joy.

Top athletes around the region convened in early February for the Cascade Classic, the Northwest Goalball Regional Tournament. If you’ve never seen the sport of goalball in action, you’re not alone. Most of its participants haven’t seen it, either. The Cascade Classic is held at the Washington State School for the Blind.

Eliana Mason, a two-time Paralympic goalball medalist said, “We always say goalball is the coolest sport you’ve never heard of. It’s for blind athletes, but you really have to see it for it to make sense.”

Goalball was invented by occupational therapists working with World War II vets who’d lost their sight in the war. It’s three-on-three, played on a volleyball-sized court, and the object is to roll a basketball-sized ball into an opponent’s goal. And everything about the experience is tailored to the needs of visually impaired people.

All participants wear black-out goggles, so everyone is equally sightless. The lines on the court are raised, making it possible for players to orient themselves. The ball itself has bells inside of it, so players can hear it as it moves around. And spectators are asked to maintain silence, to assist the players in their auditory navigation.

Tournament director Jen Armbruster said, “Instead of hand-eye coordination, it’s hand-ear coordination. Ambruster founded the tournament in 2010 at Portland State University. She said, “My big thing is just getting folks involved in physical activity, competitive or recreation. A lot of times, especially on the visually impaired and blind side, so many of them get pulled out of P.E. They don’t know the adaptations that are out there.”

Mason tried goalball and was never the same. “Jen took us to Florida for a youth tournament, and I fell in love with the sport after I got to compete and just be in the community. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I had to compensate or work through a barrier. I could just be me.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) God is pleased when we make accommodations to include all the body of Christ in our activities. “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. (Rom. 15:1); 2) We should all become experts at being silent and listening to hear God’s voice.

Pastor Eduardo Davila tells this story:

I have here an extremely important document. We all have important documents: a marriage certificate, the title to your car, your birth certificate. This one is my naturalization certificate.

My family and I came to the United States as political asylees, leaving the remnants of a country ravaged by war and destructive socialism that did not deliver on its promises. When we came, we had Nicaraguan passports. We were able to come to the US, but we were not given full citizenship. We were not protected by the US. We were not allowed to vote.

But all that changed in 2008, when we walked into an office in Miami, took a few tests, and swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. We were granted full permanent citizenship status. We were fully in.

During the whole process, one aspect that stuck with me was realizing the seriousness of a statement that then-President Bush wrote: “We are united not by race or culture but the ideals of democracy, justice, and liberty.” Beautiful.

Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:19 that "Now you are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family." Praise God! When you come to Christ, you are no longer a stranger or foreigner. You have the full blessing and protection of the kingdom of Christ. You are no longer undocumented. You no longer need to fret over where you belong or how to survive.

At baptism, you renounced your old citizenship and swore allegiance to Jesus, and you were given a naturalization certificate. You are now part of the new humanity: you are no longer strangers and foreigners. Once a citizen of a different kingdom, your ruler was your vices, addictions, and fears. Your ruler was the prince of this world. That is what you left behind when you were baptized and chose to submit yourself to Jesus as your new King.

Ethan Crispo hit a local Waffle House looking for a late-night snack. What he got instead, was so much more valuable. Crispo entered the Waffle House on his way home from a birthday party, and immediately noticed a problem. The store was full of “hungry, heavily imbibed customers,” and only one person working, a man named Ben.

Crispo said, “I’ve just sat down at my table and it’s becoming clear I’ll be going home with an empty stomach. From the blue, a man stands up. Asks Ben for an apron, and begins to work behind the counter. It was a transition so smooth I initially assumed it was a staff member returning to their shift. It wasn’t. It was a kind stranger. A man who answered the call. Bussed tables, did dishes, stacked plates.”

When Ben came over to take Ethan’s order, he gratefully confirmed the man’s mysterious heroism. “‘Who’s that guy? Does he work here?’ ‘No.’ ‘Does he work at any Waffle House?’ ‘Nope.’” Apparently, this man, identified only by a blue shirt he was wearing at the time, so inspired a spirit of cooperation that others joined in to help—including a lady in a dress and high heels.

Pat Warner, a PR director for Waffle House confirmed that there had been a scheduling miscue at this store. He said it wasn’t the first time customers had been seen helping out in adverse circumstances, citing a similar situation during an ice storm in Atlanta. Warner said, “That’s the great thing we have with our customers, the sense of community.” Crispo agreed, “It was just one of the most wild instances of really, really cool people just coming together… humanity isn’t just good, it’s great.”

Possible Preaching Angle: We live out the call of Christ when we sacrificially give expecting nothing in return.

When it comes to winning games, most pro sports teams go after talented players. Everyone wants a team of stars. But a new research study published in Psychological Science argues that too many talented players can actually hurt the team's overall performance. The research study is titled "The Too-Much Talent Effect."

When the researchers analyzed professional sports, especially basketball and soccer, they discovered that talented players helped teams win—but only up to a point. Teams loaded with star players found that the too-much talent effect actually hurt the team's chances of winning. Teams with the greatest proportion of elite athletes performed worse than those with more moderate proportions of top level players. Star-studded basketball teams had less assists and rebounds than teams with more average players. The researchers concluded, "When teams need to come together, more talent can tear them apart."

An article summarizing the study observed:

Why is too much talent a bad thing? Think teamwork. In many endeavors, success requires [team effort] towards a goal that is beyond the capability of any one individual … When a team roster is flooded with individual talent, pursuit of personal star-status may prevent the attainment of team goals. The basketball player chasing a point record, for example, may cost the team by taking risky shots instead of passing to a teammate.

Pastor Ray Ortlund writes, "The kind of God we really believe in is revealed in how we treat one another. The lovely gospel of Jesus positions us to treat one another like royalty, and every non-gospel positions us to treat one another like dirt. But we will follow through horizontally on whatever we believe vertically."

Ray then goes on to identify the "One Another's" he could not find in the N.T.:

Sanctify one another, humble one another, scrutinize one another, pressure one another, embarrass one another, corner one another, interrupt one another, defeat one another, sacrifice one another, shame one another, judge one another, run one another's lives, confess one another's sins, intensify one another's sufferings, point out one another's failings …

In 1950, Indy car pit crews consisted of four men—including the driver! No one was allowed to get near the car except this small crew of specialists. A routine pit stop to replace two tires and fill the tank back then took more than 60 seconds. Today, a crew consists of 11 members—excluding the driver. Six are permitted direct contact with the car. Five serve as behind-the-wall assistants. A full service pit stop that replaces all four tires, adjusts the wings, and tops off the tank now takes less than eight seconds! Formula 1 pit crews are even bigger—sometimes involving over 20 people who all have their role to play. When everyone understands his role, and when everyone on the pit crew does his job with purpose and passion, the team can complete the same job in under three seconds.

When the work of the church is carried out by a small handful of people, including the pastor, progress is slow and sometimes awkward. But when every member knows and fills his or her role, the difference can be amazing to behold.

Boys in the Boat is the thrilling true story of the 1936 University of Washington crew team, which went from backwater obscurity to a gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Few sports carry the aristocratic pedigree of crews from Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. But no one imagined that a crew from Washington, of all places, could be competitive. And yet the University of Washington built a team from kids raised on farms, in logging towns, and near shipyards. They blew away their Californian rivals and bested the cream of New England to become the American Olympic Team and won the gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

How did they manage to win the Gold Medal? Author Daniel James Brown explains it one word—teamwork. Brown explains how a crew team works best:

The greatest paradox of the sport has to do with the psychological makeup of the people who pull the oars. Great oarsmen and oarswomen are necessarily made of conflicting stuff—of oil and water, fire and earth. On the one hand, they must possess enormous self-confidence, strong egos, and titanic willpower … Nobody who does not believe deeply in himself or herself—in his or her ability to endure hardship and to prevail over adversity—is likely even to attempt something as audacious as competitive rowing at the highest levels. The sport offers so many opportunities for suffering and so few opportunities for glory that only the most tenaciously self-reliant and self-motivated are likely to succeed at it. And yet, at the same time—and this is key—no other sport demands and rewards the complete abandonment of the self the way that rowing does. Great crews may have men or women of exceptional talent or strength; they may have outstanding coxswains or stroke oars or bowmen; but they have no stars. The team effort—the perfectly synchronized flow of muscle, oars, boat, and water; the single, whole, unified, and beautiful symphony that a crew in motion becomes—is all that matters. Not the individual, not the self.

In his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller describes a New Year's Day parade held in San Diego. But this was no ordinary parade. This was a very special parade organized by Bob Goff and his family—a parade where nobody was allowed to watch, because everybody was a part of it. Miller tells the story:

Bob and the kids were sitting around on New Year's Day when one of the kids mentioned she was bored. Bob agreed and said he thought New Year's Day was probably one of the more boring days of the year. He asked the kids what they could do to make New Year's Day less boring.

The kids started tossing out ideas, things like buying a pony or building a rocket ship, and then one of the children mentioned they could have a parade. Getting himself out of buying a pony, perhaps, Bob lit up and said a parade sounded great.

So Bob, [his wife], Maria, and the kids sat around the dining room table and dreamed up what their parade might look like. They could wear costumes and hold balloons, and maybe they could invite their friends to watch. The kids started talking about what kind of costumes they could make—the more elaborate, the better. And Maria began planning a cookout at the end of the parade, in their backyard, and wondered how many people she should prepare for. And the kids started running through the friends and neighbors they could call to invite and watch the parade.

Bob thought about it, though, and realized it's more fun to be in a parade than to watch one. So he made a rule: nobody would be allowed to watch the parade, but anybody could participate. So he and the kids walked down their small street and knocked on doors, explaining to neighbors that they were having a parade, and anybody who wanted could be in the parade, but nobody would be allowed to watch. [When Bob shared this story with me,] I laughed as I imagined [him] standing on their neighbor's porch, explaining that if a parade marched by, please look away. Or join. And surprisingly, plenty of his neighbors agreed to take part. [They would] march down the street with Bob's kids and join the cookout in the Goffs' backyard ….

Bob and the family dressed up in their handmade costumes and walked to the end of the street, where they were joined by a few neighbors, and began marching down the street, converting all parade watchers into parade participants. And by the time they got to their backyard, they had a dozen or more people sitting around, enjoying each other's company and eating hamburgers.