Last night was a historic night for one basketball team from New Jersey. The New Jersey Institute of Technology or NJIT Highlanders had owned the nation’s longest NCAA losing streak at 51 games. But they put together a performance for the ages and beat the Bryant Bulldogs at home 61-51. Not since 2007 had they won a game.

I can’t imagine going into a game with 51 straight losses. The players at N.J.I.T. may be quite skilled, but to get that losing mentality out of their minds must have been incredibly hard. Especially since no player on their team has even so much as tasted A single victory with the school.

I think it’s equally hard for churches who have seen losses in numbers to rebound and move forward in growth. Not simply because it IS hard for churches to do so, but breaking the mentality of a learned helplessness can be even harder.

Yet by being faithful in reaching out, loving its neighbors well, praying regularly, caring for and discipling its own, churches can take responsibility in doing what God calls them to do, while at the same time relax in God’s providence. That’s practical Calvinism: being responsible and relaxing. This ought to eliminate the fear of losing and allow the church to simply enjoy “playing the game.”

In this Sunday’s sermon, Randy demonstrated a helpful hermeneutic (method of interpretation). He reminded us not only that Jesus called his disciples to be “fishers of men,” but what assumption his first century listeners would have had. If Jesus were to say “fishers of men” to me and my kayak buddies, I can tell you how I would interpret it. When I go fishing with someone else in the kayak, I can actually be a hundred yards away from that person, and still be “fishing with” that person. Not necessarily a team mentality.

But when Jesus told his disciples that he would make them “fishers of men,” they obviously would not have thought of fishing in my terms, but in their terms. And they would not have thought hook, line, and lures only, but with nets and a team of people handling those nets.

I had been reminded of this “fisher of men” verse my whole life for obvious reasons, but had always interpreted this metaphor from my present understanding of fishing: which is individualistic as opposed to a team mentality. Evangelism is definitely a communal effort and this metaphor in its original context only reaffirms that truth.

Here’s my biggest redfish (24”) from my kayak fishing tournament last Saturday. I think God was reinforcing a more relational style of fishing since all 5 (2 trout and 3 reds) of my fish were caught when fishing with, not “with,” my buddy.

I don’t know exactly what the purpose of church marquee signs are, so I don’t know how one would evaluate if they really do or don’t accomplish their purpose. If you think you know why churches put them up, I’m all ears (in an cyber-world type of way); feel free to post a comment.

This particular one had an impact on my life. So much so, that I parked, walked across the street and took a picture of it. Since you can’t run spell-check (and actually spell-check wouldn’t have caught this because no words are misspelled), it might be good to have a marquee editor come in behind the marquee “phraser.” That might reduce the risk of this happening again.

The funny thing is that the other side has “in shape,” while this side has “in sharp.” Maybe they just ran out of “e’s” and this was a creative way of just making do?

Well the “wicked witch” is dead. The Buccanneer ownership (The Glazers) fired yet another 9-7 coach. Perhaps it was because outside the Super Bowl year, the Bucs were an under 500 team. Perhaps it is because they didn’t win A play-off game outside that SuperBowl year. Perhaps it was because no team has ever gone 9-3 since reallignment and missed the play-offs with 4 straight losses (except the 08 Bucs). Perhaps it was because Jon Gruden treated people like garbage and was about as loyal to his quarterback and wide receivers as an elementary school boyfriend.

Jon, if you’re out there reading this blog, I would like to say, “Thanks for the Super Bowl in 02.” But being a jerk to everyone really only works if you’re winning the big one each and every year. Otherwise, niceness goes a long way.

In the end I would prefer another more proven coach, but to have a coach that the players actually like will be a nice change of place. And to have one the fans can respect is icing on the cake. Candles would be another Super Bowl.

Over the last several years, we have done an art exhibition at Hope. This past year we turned it into a coffeehouse with music AND art. One of our main goals was to bless artists and give the community a culturally enriching experience. Besides allowing the plethora of Home-owner’s Associations to meet in the church, we OUGHT to be doing things that would make the neighborhood sad if we ceased to exist.

A church up in St. Louis basically took that vision and ran with it. It’s kind of like our vision at Hope on steroids (of course the legal kind, with a prescription…).

Here’s what I’m talking about.

It’s Saturday night in St. Louis, Mo. A crowd gathers at a hot new venue for music, art and theater that’s unapologetically named The Chapel and sponsored by Memorial Presbyterian Church.

Tonight a punk band is playing. It could just as easily be an indie, acoustic, rock, folk or experimental group. The Chapel has featured all of these plus artists and theater groups.

The people arriving are the young and hip. Urban dwellers. Students at Washington University. Internationals. Gays. In short, people in the creative classes, the unreached populations near the church—those who Memorial set out to influence in the city by serving it. And serve it they do.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

The NFL saw a wonderful coach and even better man retire this week. Tony Dungy, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, retired in hopes of pursuing other ministry and philanthropic opportunities. The good thing is that he will be back in Tampa.

His influence on other coaches and players has been profound, and even Warrick Dunn who started Homes for the Holidays credits Dungy with challenging him to give back to the community.

One of the things I noticed at his departing press conference was his class and grace. He proclaimed that he had a ton of people to thank, and one of the parties was the Glazer family. They are the family who owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the ones who gave him his first NFL coaching job.

True, they did take a risk in giving an unproven defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings the opportunity of a lifetime. Not to mention they were somewhat pioneering, giving the job to an African-American coach (I don’t remember how few there were back in 1996-but I know there weren’t many.)

So they were among those many whom Dungy thanked. But one could have easily ignored them. I mean, they did fire Dungy even though he took the Bucs to the play-offs 4 out of 6 years he coached and only had one losing season (they had 14 in a row prior to his arrival). And they did deceptively assure him his job was safe, when in fact it wasn’t. And they did not fire his successor despite 3 losing seasons and no play-off victories since the Super Bowl in 2002.

If I were Dungy, I could see myself omitting the Glazers on my people-to-thank list. But he didn’t. He instead affirmed what he could affirm about others. What a lesson we could all learn, especially in dealing with people whom we have “history” or disagreement.

While at Books-A-Million a few days ago, Amy overheard a conversation among an employee and customer that reinforced to me just how much power Oprah has. Check this out.

Customer: “I’m looking for the book Oprah mentioned yesterday on her show. Do you have it?”

Employee: “Well, if she mentioned it on her show, then we sell out such books within the first hour. So I’m sure we don’t have it in stock.”

How crazy is that! Oprah has got to be the most influential person in America. Now if “we” could get her to recommend The Reason for God…

A little while ago I included a post about a young athlete and Rhodes scholar from FSU named Mryon Rolle, who was undecided on which way to go: either the NFL or Oxford. He chose the latter. For all of those who look down upon athletes in a Hobbesian sort of way “nasty, brutish, and short” (well maybe not short, but the other two aren’t out of the question), check out Mryon Rolle’s decision to skip the immediate money and have two years of free schooling. At Oxford.

When a punter in football kicks the ball so far and so quickly up the field, he often puts the rest of his teammates at a disadvantage. The opposing return team is then able to set up quicker and the punt returner has a better chance of getting a good return. It is called “out-punting” your coverage. The goal is to kick the ball far, but also high, and keep it in the air as long as possible. Just kicking it far can present a problem.

Well it looks like Hugh Heffner and Playboy have “outpunted” their coverage by mainstreaming sexuality and pornography so much so that it may have hurt their market. Here is an excerpt of a thoughtful reflection on the issue, the cause, and why we don’t really have great cause for rejoicing.

The economy is apparently hitting the Playboy pornographic empire, at least according to an article in December in Business Week. The magazine which was famously described as being good for women, providing that women knew what they were good for, is struggling, but before you crack open the champagne, it is no cause for rejoicing those who deplore what it represent: the problem Playboy faces is twofold — the `softcore’ content on which it made its reputation is now so mainstream that equivalent material can be found in many magazines that would never be considered pornographic; and it cannot compete with the harder, more explicit stuff that is now easily available to any ten year old child with a computer and a modem. As one pundit on Tina Brown’s politics and culture webpage, The Daily Beast, asked, `Who buys a skin mag these days?’

You can read the rest of the article here. I highly recommend it.

I’ve been enjoying the NFL play-off games lately. When the Bucs don’t play, which is usually, since Gruden took over, I simply pull against teams I dislike the most.

Yesterday, both Carolina and Tennessee played. They both performed very well throughout the season and earned first round bye’s and a home game. Both lost. So all that winning simply to lose their first game. Was it that important to win? I mean from a fan’s perspective.

Was it worth it to get worked up about all of the close games? Was it worth putting all that stock in a game that I have absolutely no control over? After all, I may only get to see ONE extra game. Doesn’t make a ton of sense. But then again, “fan” is short for “fanatic.” I mean one who follows a sports team isn’t called a “log,” short for “logical.”