| 04-17-07 |
|
|
|
|
LESSONS FROM THE MASTERS Recently I had the privilege of attending what is arguably the greatest golf event of each year, The Masters in Augusta. It was an experience that I will never forget and hopefully not the last time that I will get to experience it. Though I’ve watched it for years, television doesn’t do it justice. While there, I couldn’t help but observe some things that I believe would be helpful lessons for churches, ministries and organizations. So for the next several blogs I’ll be sharing some of my observations and lessons that I took away from my trip. Lesson #1: Focus, It’s clear from the moment you step onto the course that everything is focused around making this annual event second to none. The club members are focused on protecting the integrity of the tournament by refusing to take any short cuts. The grounds keepers are focused on keeping the course in pristine shape (work goes on throughout the night in between rounds). The volunteers are focused on their specific responsibilities and even the players seem more focused than in the average PGA tournament.So, I couldn’t help but wonder, what would happen if we applied the same intense focus to what we do as a church for the Kingdom of God? What would happen if we were just as intensely focused on the details of God’s work? Isn’t it amazing how devoted and focused we will be to things that are temporary and yet give God and eternal things just as little of ourselves as we can get by with. For example, in the church we are always begging for volunteers to help us carry out the work of God, and we end up begging them to attend training events to help us improve the way we work. At the Masters they have to turn volunteers away each year, people clamor to serve, many give up a week of vacation just to put up numbers on a scoreboard or help park people in parking lots, and they commit to intense training in order to do so. I close with this thought… I wouldn’t take anything for my trip to the Masters (and I was offered $1,000 just for my Thursday ticket while there). It’s a golfer’s dream and I long to go again in the future. But the lesson of focus, should serve as a strong motivation to the church of God to be even more focused on what we are doing, given its eternal nature. Shouldn’t we be more intensely driven to do what we do so that people will be attracted to the Kingdom? Shouldn’t we be clamoring to serve instead of being begged, berated or guilted into doing what we are called, designed and expected to do? The Masters golf tournament is big business… but it is not as big as our Master’s eternal business, get it? Focus, Focus, Focus! |
