Support Team

The Bible teaches us that it is not good for us to be alone, we need others. Researchers now know that we are wired to be with and interact with others.

Our culture teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level we barely exist as individual organisms. Our brains are built to help us function as members of a tribe. We are part of that tribe even when we are by ourselves, whether listening to music (that other people created), watching a basketball game on television (our own muscles tensing as the players run and jump), or preparing a spreadsheet for a sales meeting (anticipating the boss’s reactions). Most of our energy is devoted to connecting with others.

Giant redwoods are the most massive individual trees on earth. The redwood can grow to 270 feet tall and 25 feet in diameter. You might think that something that huge must have an incredible root system that goes down deep in order to stand that tall. This is not the case at all. The redwood tree has no tap root and remarkably shallow roots—only five or ten feet deep.

It seems to violate the laws of physics that they can stay upright for hundreds – even thousand – of years. That is, until you know one more fact: the redwoods grow in thick groves because their shallow roots are intertwined, and over time, fused together. They start out as individuals and become one with others as they mature and grow.

So, beneath the surface of these incredible statuesque trees are roots like an army of men who have their arms interlocked and supporting each other. They are preventing the adversaries of life from knocking each other down.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Holy Spirit, indwelling; Paraclete - Individual believers are supported and strengthened by the indwelling Holy Spirit who stabilizes us against temptation and the trials of life; 2) Body of Christ; Community; Support - The mutual support of our brothers and sisters in Christ can keep us upright when we otherwise might fall.

Pro quarterback Patrick Mahomes had just limped his way through a last-minute, game-winning drive in the 2023 AFC Championship when he gave the credit for his performance to someone that even the biggest Kansas City Chiefs fans had never heard of. “Julie WAS the reason I was the guy I was on the field today!” Mahomes wrote to his millions of followers on Twitter that night. Her full name is Julie Frymer.

Who is she and why is she so important to the team? She’s the assistant athletic trainer. Frymyer had one of the NFL’s most important jobs in the 2022-2023 season: She was in charge of putting Mahomes through rehab for his injured ankle and getting the star quarterback ready to play for a spot in the Super Bowl.

Hobbling through a nasty sprain that often requires weeks of recovery, Mahomes wasn’t just able to play against the Cincinnati Bengals. He was fantastic. He was clearly gimpy, grimacing through several plays, but he was mobile enough to make several key plays, including a crucial run setting up the last-second field goal that sent the Chiefs to the Super Bowl to face the Philadelphia Eagles.

Mahomes going out of his way to praise her was the first time most people in Arrowhead Stadium had ever heard the name Julie Frymyer, but the Chiefs knew her value long before the guy with a contract worth nearly half a billion dollars, might as well have given her the game ball.

The final curtain fell on the longest-running show in Broadway history after 13,981 performances. Alan Lampel has been there for roughly 13,000 of them. Mr. Lampel has done the same job in the same place for the same production from the very beginning of its existence. He takes a seat in a rolling chair at his desk in the back of the orchestra section of the Majestic Theater and plays the most important role that nobody should notice: He is the head electrician for The Phantom of the Opera.

“I’ve seen the show more than anybody on earth,” Mr. Lampel says. In fact, nobody has seen any show as many times as he sat through Phantom, which has sold 20 million tickets and earned $1.3 billion during a run that made other Broadway productions look more like high-school musicals. There was one guy keeping the lights on the whole time. And the success of any business is every bit as much about the electrician operating behind the scenes as the people taking a bow on stage.

Mr. Lampel was there at the start on January 26, 1988, and he was there at the end on April 16, 2023. That kind of longevity on Broadway is not just unprecedented. It’s unimaginable. There were colleagues he loved and bosses he didn’t. His responsibilities evolved with technology.

Others in the theater have no reason to pay attention to Mr. Lampel. But it’s those who understand Phantom the best who appreciate his contributions the most. Andrew Lloyd Webber, the show’s composer said, “Phantom has shone brighter on Broadway for 35 years because of the work of Alan Lampel.’”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In life, usually the author, the speaker, and the star of the show gets the praise. But quite often, just as much praise, if not more, is due the person who quietly and faithfully works behind the scenes. This is especially true in the church, where a faithful group of people often work unnoticed to set up chairs, staff the nursery, work with the youth, using their less “spectacular” spiritual gifts who also do the work of God.

Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now speaks on the lessons learned from that experience.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. "You were shot down!" Plumb asked, "How in the world did you know that?" The man replied, “I packed your parachute.”

Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor."

Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute? Who has done something that has helped make your day safer – or easier or more pleasant – or who have you witnessed ‘packing’ for someone else? Recognize them right away.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Help; Support; Support Team – Each of us are touched by individuals who provide what we need to make it through the day. Praise that person. You are supporting the kind of behavior you respect – making it more likely to happen again. 2) Evangelism; Discipleship - Who told you about Christ? Who discipled you? We are all grateful to someone for introducing us to Jesus. Let’s give thanks for them “for packing our chute.”

The final straw in Pitt’s 11-year relationship with Angelina Jolie came in September 2016, when they fought about his drinking while aboard a private plane. Now, Pitt is committed to his sobriety. Pitt told a reporter, “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges.” After she filed for divorce, Pitt spent a year and a half in Alcoholics Anonymous.

His recovery group was composed entirely of men, and Pitt was moved by their vulnerability. Pitt said, “You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard. It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.”

Astonishingly, no one from the group sold Pitt’s stories to the tabloids. The men trusted one another, and in that trust, he found catharsis. “It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself,” he said. “There’s great value in that.”

In 2018 Rosalind Picard, an MIT professor and follower of Jesus, helped invent a simple life-saving device that can be used by persons with epilepsy. It looks like a smart watch, and it is sold under the name Embrace.

Epileptic seizures take 3,000 lives per year in the United States. Most epileptic seizures pose a risk of asphyxiation. This can be prevented if somebody nearby ensures that the person’s airway remain open and the person is resting safely. But some seizures are so deep that the person’s body can completely shut down for lack of signals from the brain.

There is one noninvasive intervention that works far better than any other. It can interrupt the misfiring neurons and establish normal brain function within a few minutes. Another person needs to speak to you and gently touch you, ideally calling you by name.

This intervention must happen within a matter of minutes for the person to survive such a seizure. This means that the only person who can come to the rescue is someone nearby. The Embrace device is designed to alert the nearest person on a list of people the user trusts, ideally including close neighbors. People often cling to their cell phones in case a loved one should call with an emergency, but for this kind of emergency, a cell phone is of no use. Only the nearest person can do anything about it.

Surviving this kind of episode is possible if you have a neighbor you trust to speak to you and touch you and call you by name. It is possible, that is, if you and your neighbor are living a fully personal life. If you’re willing to know and be known by your neighbors and depend on them at the moment of profound vulnerability.

The article "What Good Is a Tree?" in Reader's Digest explained that when the roots of trees touch, there is a substance present that reduces competition. In fact, this unknown fungus helps link roots of different trees--even of dissimilar species. A whole forest may be linked together. If one tree has access to water, another to nutrients, and a third to sunlight, the trees have the means to share with one another. Like trees in a forest, Christians in the church need and support one another.

When Justin Armour was a rookie wide receiver with the Buffalo Bills, some veteran teammates invited him to a preseason party. Justin went and couldn't believe what he saw: Gorgeous women everywhere, offering free sex to any of the guys who wanted it.

"It was the most eye-opening experience I've ever had," Justin says. "I had heard about things like this, but I was so naive. I got out of there as fast as I could!"

As a single Christian guy, Justin had committed to saving sex for marriage. To do so, he knows he's got to run from temptation.

"I'd rather not have my mind polluted by those things. Once you've been in a couple situations where's there's temptation, you learn how to avoid them and you don't go back."

Justin also calls his best friend and accountability partner, Steve Stenstrom.

"You need someone to hold you accountable for walking with Christ," says Justin. "Steve does that for me. He knows everything about my life, good and bad, and there's nothing he won't hold me accountable for."

1967. We were at war with Vietnam. And there I was, at the U.S. Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia. It was brutal.

I can still hear the raspy voice of the sergeant: "We are here to save your lives. We're going to see to it that you overcome all your natural fears. We're going to show you just how much incredible stress the human mind and body can endure. And when we're finished with you, you will be the U.S. Army's best!"

Then, before he dismissed the formation, he announced our first assignment. We'd steeled ourselves for something really tough--like running 10 miles in full battle gear or rappelling down a sheer cliff.

Instead, he told us to--find a buddy.

"Find yourself a Ranger buddy," he growled. "You will stick together. You will never leave each other. You will encourage each other, and, as necessary, you will carry each other." It was the army's way of saying, "Difficult assignments require a friend. Together is better."

Who's your "Ranger buddy"?