Taking One For the Team...

We are in the waning days of Little League Baseball for 2010 and my son and I are very excited to be part of this year’s post-season Honors team. Realizing that we are at the end of a six-year stretch with Gresham Little League has generated a strange feeling of melancholy. We can and will likely continue coaching/playing but it just isn’t the same in the upper leagues. The innocence and joy of the game can diminish because of the mounting competition and pressure to excel.

We had a pretty decent season this year and have high hopes for the post-season. I have a great group of dads helping out and each of them has strengths that really complement one another and the team as a whole. One is really good with teaching pitching technique; one is really good with teaching fielding technique, etc. Each of them is genuine in their passion and commitment to the team. They all contribute to the overall health and success of the team.

In baseball, the players that seem to get the most attention from the spectators are those who pitch and those who can make big hits. There are eight other players, though. Even though they might not stand out like the pitcher or the hitter, every baseball fan knows that if you were to remove them from the field you could never succeed at the game. Everybody contributes too much to ignore the team as a whole. The team functions as a unit. Yes, there are moments of individual success, but give me a team player over someone who is just interested in making themselves look good (what professional sport doesn’t have that going on?).

The passage in 1 Corinthians 3:8-11 reminds us of our one purpose in the Kingdom of God—to fit into the team God has assembled so that His ultimate goals may be accomplished. Each of us has a work and it isn’t the one who gets the most attention who gets the reward. The purpose of the Kingdom of God is a team purpose but the reward of the Kingdom of God is an individual reward…based upon our labors with the team in mind.