A Thought on Stanford-USC: Who’s in Your Corner?

Last Saturday, my family and I rode our beach cruisers over to Stanford Stadium to see the Cardinal take on USC. I had a BIG dilemma: we lived for many years in the town affectionately known as South Troy but recently moved to Stanford country. The Barkley’s are old family friends. We’ve had Stanford players as high school Small Group leaders here. Needless to say, “Who are you pulling for” by friends on both sides was a loaded question in the weeks leading up to the game.

As with every passionately contested sporting event, apathy is the one thing that doesn’t exist in a stadium but it’s always amazing to see that many people going crazy for one thing. It was an absolute madhouse for 4 hours.  I happened to shoot this quick video during a key moment of the game, with the SC side pulling for a big stop from their defense. I love the momentary hush right before the explosion of cheers at the end of the play…

The final outcome of the game aside, I was reminded how important it is for all of us to have fans in our corners. Granted, you don’t have a killer marching band following you around the office playing the Star Wars Imperial march or 50,000 people hanging on your every step. But you do have fans in your corner that are just as unyielding in their support of you.Ministry is full of difficult leadership decisions and often we’re called upon to make a gut decision based on too limited information in too short a time window.  If you’re like me, the creep of self-doubt can erode confidence. Fear of mistakes or failure can keep me from moving forward. I forget that making mistakes and learning from those mistakes is actually part of growth and progress. When I remember that I have fans in my corner, I’m encouraged and move forward with more confidence even when the ball doesn’t bounce my way.

What could you do this week if you pictured your fans in your corner waving their hands and yelling at the tops of their lungs in support of you?

Who are your fans that you can rely on for words of encouragement, that believe in you, during these times? You know who they are – go ahead and shoot ’em an email or FB message today to say “hi” or “thanks.”

Finally, if it’s worth asking who’s in your corner then it’s also worth asking who’s corner are you in? What can you do today to encourage and support someone who’s corner you’re in?

Dallas Willard & John Ortberg @ Menlo Park Pres., Dec. 13th

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I’ll tag this one under “Ridiculously Smart Dudes Discuss Life, Faith, & God.”

Earlier this month, JO taught through a 3 week mini-series entitled “Can Smart People Believe in God?” It’s a good question worthy of approach even without a significant reason but in this case there happened to be a pretty remarkable reason. On the weekend falling in the middle of the series, Dallas Willard came to town and shared at each of MPPC’s Menlo Park campus worship services over Saturday and Sunday.  Dr. Willard has been a Professor of Philosophy at USC since the ’60’s.  That’s not only B.P.C (Before Pete Carroll) but pre-Marcus Allen and O.J. He’s written so many incredible books on faith, Christ-following, philosophy, and spirituality that it’s difficult to recommend only one…alright, just go get The Divine Conspiracy…today.

In the High School Ministry, we’re always on the look-out for opportunities to integrate students with our larger church body.  In this case, it was really a no-brainer.  Our main service coordinators partitioned off a chunk of seats and we brought our entire High School worship service into the main service to hear 2 ridiculously smart guys.

A clip from the 11am service on Dec. 13th is below.  If you’d like to hear the full message or any of the other messages (every worship service was different), then you can go to www.mppc.org/toughquestions – or MPPC Vimeo – or search MPPC Sermoncast on iTunes.

http://vimeo.com/8180749

You can catch Dallas Willard at Catalyst West Coast at Mariners Church on April 21-23, 2010.