Reprise: Notes on Coaching Staff Transitions

This time of year always brings the resignations, firings, new hirings, and other coaching staff transitions. This is primarily true in college football, but also applies to the high school level, and other fall sports as well. Below is a post from late November, 2007 during the third transition I had experienced with our football staff. I hope its values and insights are of value to you as transitions come your way.

At this time of year in college football, there are dozens of changes among head coaching positions, multiplied by their staff’s transitions. This displaces hundreds of coaches and their families each year. We can serve them by understanding the situation and positioning ourselves for effective ministry.

Related to the outgoing staff: 

· If the staff was fired, understand that this feels like failure and a lot like death to them. 

· Help the coaches to see this situation within the sovereignty of God. The Lord is not surprised by this. 

· Understand that the transition is probably harder on the coach’s family than on the coach. 

· Be available to them. They may not want much company, but if they welcome your presence, be there. 

· Be prepared for the termination of some relationships. Some relationships will live beyond their tenure with your team, but others will cut off all ties to this place and you could be cut off as well. 

· Communicate respect and thankfulness for their time with your team as well as hope for their future. 

· Assure them of your prayers and availability to serve. 

· Written communication is very good and can be an enduring encouragement to them. Send a card, an email and/or periodic text messages to stay in touch with them. 

Related to the incoming staff: 

· Pray for favor with the athletic administration and the new head coach. 

· When a new head coach is announced, send a letter of congratulations immediately (keep it to one page). 

· When the coach is settled into the office, get an appointment to welcome him/her and to offer your assistance. 

· Bring a gift (a book) that is reflective of your desired relationship with the coaching staff and team. 

· A wise attitude is reflected in offering to do, “as much or as little as the head coach believes appropriate.” 

· When discussing a role with the team one can reference his/her role with past coaching staffs, but don’t lock into those methods or activities exclusively. 

· Let the coach paint the parameters for your role and work to build trust and credibility from there. 

· It is always wise to offer to serve with no strings attached. Guard your attitude from presumption. 

· Come prepared to discern the coach’s perception of his/her, the staff and the team’s needs.

PowerUp Sports Ministry Conferences

On Wednesday of this week, we participated in the PowerUp Sports Ministry Conference in the Indianapolis, Indiana area. Bill Houston and his team from Our Daily Bread Ministries (odb.org) hosted and organized this excellent event.

The program featured presentations by LaMorris Crawford, chaplain to the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL, Dorothy Caldwell, chaplain to the WNBA Chicago Sky, my son Jason Lipe and I, and a panel discussion facilitated by Tom Rust of Face-2-Face Radio, and populated by Derick Grant, formerly with the Harlem Globetrotters, David Wildman of Fully Packed Adventure Sports Ministries, David Storvick, chaplain to the Indy Racing League, Cameron Mills, former basketball player at Kentucky, and Tom Roy of Unlimited Potential, Inc.

LaMorris Crawford delivered two excellent and inspiring talks. Dorothy Caldwell did a very good job of sharing about her service with WNBA players. Jason and I talked about growing up in sports chaplaincy, how we have both learned as we served.

The panel did a tremendous job of sharing about their respective ministries, their challenges, and their successes.

Our Daily Bread provided each of the attendees a set of their resources, refreshments, and an excellent lunch. The presentations were each recorded on video and will soon be available on line at – ourdailybread.org/powerup.

Four PowerUp Sports Ministry Conferences are scheduled for 2016-2017:

November 29, 2016 in Lansing, Michigan at South Church

March 1, 2017 in Knoxville, TN at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church

April 26, 2017 in Houston, TX at Crosspoint Church

October 3, 2017 in Grand Rapids, Michigan at Our Daily Bread Ministries

For more information and to register, please visit: ourdailybread.org/powerup

As good as the presentations are, as inspiring as the speakers are, as delicious as the lunch is, I believe the greatest asset of these events is the gathering of like-minded, committed, but often isolated sports chaplains. The fellowship we enjoy, the networking in which we engage, the sharing of our lives together is of powerful effect, encouraging, and enlightening. Please join us and many of your colleagues at a PowerUp Sports Ministry Conference very soon.

Monthly Conference Calls for Sports Chaplains and Character Coaches

One of the more impactful, available, and practical ways we have used to serve the sports chaplaincy community in the United States is the conference call. Just over two years ago, I began an experiment in sport chaplaincy development by hosting a monthly conference call. From August through May we simply interviewed one of our sports chaplaincy colleagues from around the country for anywhere from 35 to 60 minutes. The calls never fail to inform, inspire, encourage, and challenge each one who calls in.

Those interviewed have included both men and women, people from collegiate, high school, and professional sports. Many of those interviewed have been volunteers, others have been sports ministry professionals working for FCA or other sports ministries. The conference calls have been promoted via email, via social media, and via text messages.

We would invite you to join us. We now have two times slots for these calls. One call is on the first Sunday evening each month at 8:00 pm Central time. That call is primarily aimed at volunteers whose work schedules will not allow them to be on the other call, which is usually on the first Tuesday of each month at 10:30 am Central time. This second call is aimed at ministry professionals like pastors, FCA or other sports ministry staff people.

These calls are connected via Freeconferencecall.com and that makes it really simple for anyone to join us from most anywhere. To stay updated on the day and time for upcoming calls, simply follow me on Twitter - @SalukiChaplain, friend me on Facebook, or send me a text message to be put on my text list for sports chaplains – 618.559.2735.

The next Sunday night call is coming up Sunday November 6.

The next Tuesday morning call is set for December 13.

The calls are very beneficial as they accomplish much of FCA’s approach to developing sports chaplains – 1) Training 2) Networking and 3) Mentoring. We all learn best when we hear ideas and best practices from our colleagues.

Please join us and encourage those whom you lead to join us if they are engaged in or even interested in service as a sports chaplain or character coach. 

The process is very simple. Call 712.432.1500, then enter code 991788#, and then enter 1 when prompted. That’s it. It’s perfect for busy people calling in from a mobile phone. Thanks.

How "Spiritual" or "Religious" should my service be?

It is amazing to observe the wide variety of styles that we employ in our service of the people of sport. Some of us approach our service like a member of the coaching staff. Others seem more like a pastor who roams the dugouts, sidelines, and locker rooms. Still others are evangelists, without apology, seeking opportunities to share Jesus in any moment. There is certainly room for one to develop his or her personal style of service, but just how “spiritual” or “religious” should our service be?

While speaking with our university’s play by play radio announcer earlier this year, he remarked, “I have never heard your work described as religious.” I replied that I was glad, rather than being religious I would prefer to be faithful to my calling from God. I think what he meant was that I don’t communicate in religious clichés, nor do I imply that going to church services with me is the height of Christian devotion. My way of serving people in sport is to speak in the language of their cultures, rather than importing church culture into their worlds. It is not heard as religious, but it communicates clearly and respectfully.

Some of our colleagues employ the super-spiritual language that fits their church environment as they are on the practice field. While that makes the chaplain stand out as distinctively different, it also creates some distance that many will not even try to cross to connect with him or her.

We may do better to think about our service of sportspeople by focusing on the core of our message, rather than the language in which it is wrapped. Rather than simply spouting the clichés, buzzwords, and illustrations we hear on the latest preacher’s podcast, let’s find ways to communicate that truly transform the hearts of those we serve. More than religious, such communication is truly spiritual and speaks life into the lives of sportspeople.

How “spiritual” should our service be? Very. How “religious” should it be? That’s up to you.

Wise, Thoughtful, and Biblical Devotional Reflection

Our friend and colleague, Stuart Weir of Verité Sport, shared this devotional thought earlier today. It is emblematic of what I believe to be a wise, thoughtful, and Biblical view of sport and faith. Please take a moment to read Stuart’s thoughtful reflection from I Timothy 4:8.

Important but not All-Important

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 1 Timothy 4:8.

Sport is legitimate. It is part of God’s creation and it brings pleasure to many. It is as worthwhile a part of human activity as any other. Through sport people can glorify God and it can provide opportunities to talk about Jesus. However, at the end of the day, sport is transient. It, like all other human activity, is going to pass away. In the light of eternity it is of limited value.

While there is a danger of sport becoming an idol if it is put ahead of Christ, sport is important because it is the arena in which we serve Christ.

Helmfried Riecker expresses it thus in his book Warm Up: “The New Testament writers are unanimous, not only about the hope of eternal life after death, but also that the goal of that eternal life is to be with Christ in the presence of God the Father… It is great to set sports goals and to gain a real part of your meaning in life through the fulfilment of these goals. However, the short-term goals will appear in a different perspective when you see again the real goal of your life. If winning a final is an exciting thing, how much greater will be the celebration of the ultimate goal of your life?”

South African, cricketer, Peter Pollock would agree with that: ‘As Christian sportsmen our task is to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into applying the gifts God has given us in the arena he has prepared for us, realizing always that the final victory isn’t the World Cup’ (‘The myth of success’).

Wanting to compete at the Olympics and wanting to win a gold medal are totally appropriate aspirations for an athlete. At the same time we need to remember God’s big picture. 

Loving Unlovely Sportspeople

In our service of the men and women in sport, not everyone will be lovely and kind. Not everyone will be amiable and honorable. Not everyone will be wise and reasonable. We will certainly be surrounded by some unlovely, crude, mean, selfish, and nasty people. Our sphere of service and influence extends to the nasty as well as the nice. We must care for the obnoxious unlovely as well as the absolutely lovable. How shall we accomplish this? I have some simple thoughts listed below.

1.   Purpose to appropriate Christ’s love you have received toward others. When dealing with difficult people or with those with whom I cannot connect well, I will pray for the person and set my will to transfer the love I have received from the Lord Jesus to this person. This may seem overly simple, but it is very effective in shaping one’s attitude toward the less than lovable in our lives.

2.   Make a list of the person’s admirable traits and affirm them when you interact with him or her. This may certainly be difficult, but it is worth it. To find a characteristic of the person, to name it in conversation with him, to write a complimentary text message or card, to speak well of that person’s character in public, can turn an annoyance into an alliance.

3.   Seek an opportunity to serve or to give the person a gift. It’s really hard to maintain a grudge or to keep a conflict alive when we are serving or giving gifts to them. The Proverbs are full of wisdom for how one’s gift can pacify contentions and Jesus’ way is to love even our enemies.

4.   Remind yourself that this person is one whom the Lord Jesus loves. Through decades of leading in summer sports camps, I would challenge our staff about half way through the camp to love the campers (and other staff members), who had grown into annoyances. I would challenge them with this thought. “When you see that terribly annoying person, the one who gets on your last nerve, say to yourself, ‘Here comes the one whom the Lord loves.’ That may be enough to help you control your attitude, to reshape your tone of voice, and to find a way to communicate the same love the Lord has for him or her.”

5.   Give the person some space. Sadly, not everyone wants to hang out with us. You may be gracious, kind, loving, and wise, but some people will still resist you and may even be antagonistic toward you. Relax. Some people make assumptions about you due to poor relationships with others in your role, with others from your organization, with others in the Church, with Christian family or friends, or they simply don’t like how you wear your hair. Give them some space. An opportunity to serve may come along that can crash through those barriers and you may be the one person on the planet well prepared to care for the person and to extend the love to Christ Jesus in the most appropriate and timely way.

In summary, may I challenge you to love extravagantly and to serve selflessly, the lovable and the unlovely, the wise and the foolish, the amiable and the surly, the gregarious and the grouchy. In doing so, we emulate and honor the Lord Jesus.

Eight Ways to Worship On the Field of Competition

For the last several years I have been speaking, writing, and challenging others to consider sport as a form of worship for the Christian sportsperson. I believe that kicking a ball, swinging a bat, running a race, diving from a board, or any other sporting activity can be an equally valid a form of worship as singing a song, playing a guitar, performing a ceremony, or other, more religious activities.

For a few months I incubated some thought and selected some Bible texts that could help us embrace these ideas and reshape our thinking to view ways that we may worship on the field of competition. A week ago, I wrote a series of discussions that attempt to do just that. One example of the studies is below and the entire series is available to you. Simply email me at RLipe@fca.org for a copy. You are free to use it, to criticize it, or to trash it. I simply want to push the dialogue along and to broaden our thoughts and experiences re: sport and worship. Thanks.

Eight Ways to Worship On the Field of Competition

Roger D. Lipe (RLipe@fca.org)

Worship by Competing Sacrificially

·        Tell us about some of the things you sacrifice for your life in sport.

·        For what or for whom do you make these sacrifices?

·        What do you think you learn or gain from the process of competing sacrificially?

Romans 12:1-2 (NLT)

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice--the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly they way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

·        To what and to who do you give your bodies in training and in competition?

·        Is that similar to or different from giving them to God as mentioned here? Why?

·        What about training and competition is sacrificial? How so?

·        When does that sacrifice feel like it is the very stuff of life, a living sacrifice?

·        When do you get a sense that your sacrificial lifestyle sets you apart from most other people around you?

·        Why would God find such sacrifice to be acceptable and an act of true worship?

·        What are some of the world’s behaviors and customs that are out of step with God’s way?

·        By contrast, how would a new and transformed person compete and thereby worship on the field of competition?

·        How would worshiping in our sporting lives help us learn God’s will?

·        What would be good, pleasing, and perfect about knowing God’s will for you?

·        Let’s list some direct results from competing sacrificially, thus worshiping God in the activity of sport:

o   God accepts our ________________, which is living and holy.

o   We truly ______________ God as we compete.

o   God transforms us into _______ ________.

o   God changes the way we ______________.

o   We learn God’s _______, which is _________ and _________ and  ________.

·        Summary - Worship by competing sacrificially and you can expect that you will be transformed in your thinking and will discover God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will.