How Does The Church ‘Win’? (Leighton Ford)

So, the first half ends. The team drags off to the locker room defeated, demoralized, beaten.

But when the second half begins, we see a different team. Suddenly they’re playing together with a new spirit. They huddle, slap each other on the back, and take the line. They’re off the ball with split second timing, there is no hesitation, they know where they’re going. Each player carries out his assignment and soon they score a touchdown, then another and another.

When the game ends, they’ve won!

After the game we ask the coach, “What happened at halftime to change the team?”

“We were sitting here beaten, he says, “and suddenly a kind of presence seemed to come over us. I started talking to the players, pointing out their mistakes and mine, being honest, everyone started talking. Nobody blamed the others. We took a good look at ourselves. Then someone recalled that the Great Coach, the one who invented the game, also wrote the Master Game Plan. Wouldn’t it make sense to see what he said?”

“We remembered how he literally gave himself to get the game started and to teach the first team everything he knew. So we got out the Game Plan and reviewed it and each player learned about himself and his place on the team, about pulling together and learning to sacrifice, knowing the aim of the game and using the proper equipment he designed”.

“Suddenly we were up! Motivated! Ready to go! It was if the Great Coach was with us, as if his Spirit somehow got inside us. We can’t take the credit. It goes to him!”

We figure the coach was right. We’d seen a beaten team become a great team. It had to be something beyond themselves.

The church of Jesus Christ triumphs not because it’s a super-church made up of super-people with a super-strategy but because it faithfully obeys the Savior, Jesus Christ, the head of the church.

Adapted from Good News is For Sharing by Leighton Ford (1977, David C. Cook)