Don’t you think that God is maybe a little more concerned with the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised in this world?  I mean, I am just as big of sports fanatic as it comes, but let’s not blame God for the current standings in the NL Central!  The reason for the standings lies central on the players and managers of those teams!

Interesting article on “faith & sports” on CNN.com.  It is definitely a good read.

What do you think?  Does God really care about sports? Have we “trivialized” faith by “blaming God” for wins and loses?  Is this kind of “evangelism” more of a turn-off than turn-on to people?

When did God become a sports fan? – CNN.com.

Tonight was our first baseball game for Taylor’s team.  I am managing his team this year and it has been a lot of fun.  We played really well but came up a bit short tonight.  However, one big thing that I know I personally learned was that we all need to learn WHO we should listen to–in baseball…and especially in life.

My fellow coach came up after a half inning and said, “Only one of us (coaches) needs to talk to a batter at a time. I noticed that I was trying to talk to a batter and I looked down and you were already talking to him.  They aren’t hearing both of us…(probably neither of us when we are talking at the same time.)”

We also have a couple of players that have a really hard time “nicely ignoring” the crowds and focus on just coaches and fellow players.  When I was umpiring, one of my mentors used to say, “you can’t have ‘rabbit ears.’”  Meaning, when you are behind the plate, especially, you need to focus on your job, not listen to your critics calling balls and strikes from the stands on the 1st or 3rd base lines.

I was reminded tonight of the passage in the Gospel of John where Jesus tells about the sheep and the shepherd.

³The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” ⁶Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

⁷Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.^[a] He will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:3-10

So, who are you listening to?  Are you trying to listen to too many things all at the same time? Are you listening to the encouragers in your life?  The critics? Let us focus on the Master’s Voice, which brings us life!

It was really something to see him be so laid back and roll with the punches.  No overreaction, not tantrum, no clubs thrown, no curse words.  We would all do well to take a play out of D.A.’s playbook.

How about you?  Any good stories of when you saw someone cool under discouragement or failure?

Came across this article the other day about the fact that Edmonds may not even take a contract with the Milwaukee Brewers if it is offered to him because he wants to be around his family.  He didn’t play last summer and was around his family the entire time, which hasn’t happened ever in his lifetime.

“You just get comfortable in a certain life and it’s like just how you get comfortable playing baseball for so long,” Edmonds said. “You think that’s all you have and then you get home and realize there’s more to life. The family, having kids and how much they actually enjoy you being home.

“I got to take the kids to school and be there for my daughter’s 16th birthday. It’s just a different thing.

“Now I wake up some mornings and doubt myself for making this decision.”

Alright, maybe I am beginning to be a huge Edmonds fan.

What do you think?  Why do we often take for granted the great things in our lives?

Edmonds feels pull of his family – STLtoday.com.

In honor of March Madness with some really cool history thrown in for good measure…

This Day in Sports: Texas Westerns Starting Five Makes a Whole Lot of History – SportsCenter.com.

I first met him while I was serving at Hopedale Baptist Church in Ozark, MO.  He was a huge help to me in the student ministry as well as traveling companion on several trips, basketball watching, golf playing, early morning music store line crashing, and baby photographer when Taylor boy was born!(I know that really wasn’t even a sentence!)

He took an interest in video production and web development while he was living in Nixa, MO.  He then served several summers on staff with World Changers, a ministry of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (wow, we have some long names in SBC life, don’t we?).  While he was doing World Changers, he met some folks that had ties to the Kansas Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists.  They offered him a position as a media guru (probably not his actual title) in their office in Topeka.  During that same year, Jenny and I felt called to plant a church in Nixa.  Brad created a promotional video for our church plant.  We are eternally grateful for his hard work on it.

Then, to go a step or two more, he built us several different websites for the church.  He is an amazing developer and brilliant with web developing (as you can tell from SlideShowPro Director.)

How did he get to Montreal?  Well, it is a pretty long story, but basically, he had several friends from Kansas-Nebraska, World Changers, and NAMB that got him up there.  Then he stayed, fell in love, and the rest….you know the drill.

This past fall, he and his beautiful bride, Nora moved to Nixa, MO.  (Nora and Brad met and married while Brad was serving as the communications director of the Canadian National Baptist Convention.) Make sure you check out Nora’s blog to record all of the fun details of a “Greek-Armenian-Canadian, french speaking Montreal native” living in the “sticks” in the Ozarks!

He has continued to be a very good friend all the way to Montreal, Canada by way of Kansas and back to the Ozarks. (Check out some of his handywork on e-quip.net. and his recent venture at SlideShowPro.net and SlideShowPro Director.)

Anyway, Let’s GO HABS!!  And let’s hear it for friends!!

The Original Habs.

It is interesting to think about the small differences between batting 1.000 and .000. Even the difference between .200 and .300. An extra bit of hustle. A good bounce. All lead to the ever-elusive hit. Almost every Hall of Famer gets out 2 of 3 times he is at bat.

In life and leadership, we all need to realize that more often than not…we will make an out. That shouldn’t keep us from swinging for the fences! We need to realize that even the best strike out–a lot!

Keep swinging!

Here are some fuzzy pictures at the game this morning.

I played golf on my high school golf team (Go Chiefs!!–That’s for Ronnie!).  With those experiences, I learned a lot of lessons about integrity and life.  I also learned that the game of golf is officiated by each player and there is the possibility for a lot of cheating to take place.  I had an experience one time during a match where an opponant’s father was watching the match.  He came up to his son after we left the green and told him something.  The player then told the guy with the score card that he had not properly marked his ball on the putting green and would need to take a two stroke penalty.  Amazing couple of minutes for sure.  Turns out that his team needed those strokes to win and they lost the match.  Again, there is a ton of stories like this that come out of sports, especially golf.

So, for the weekend hacker, don’t kick your ball from behind the tree, play “winter rules” in the middle of the summer, take a mulligan every hole, and the list goes on and on.  Play the game with integrity and most importantly–enjoy the game!  Enjoy the day that the Lord has made!  Enjoy the people you are playing with (though it is extremely difficult at times!). Enjoy this terrible, horrible, exellent, frustrating game we call golf!

When have you seen someone show integrity when no one would have known?

SANY0303

Originally uploaded by dalestine

I am trying to get an easy way to get pictures up on my blog and have come across flickr again. I think I will be able to post pictures from my iPhone and blog them with relative ease.

This is a great picture of Taylor is one of his last games of his season this summer. The guys did an awesome job of growing and improving this season and actually won the post season tournament. (I like to call it our own little World Series . . . but who’s keeping track!) The guys only lost one game the entire season–their first game against the Mudcats! They kept working hard and getting better. I am really proud of them!