Hockey – Church – and the winning culture

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Today’s Blog Post
Hockey – Church – and the winning culture 

Fire the Coach! Get rid of the idiot of a General Manager!! Our teams are losing so someone must be at fault!!! Fire someone and do it NOW!!!!!

Recently in Toronto the Maple Leaf Hockey team fired their coach and had another one hired before the old coach’s seat was cool. Their team was not winning so the guy had to go… and new one was placed into the role to make the Team a winning team. They didn’t win and now it is over.

Yesterday the Montreal Canadians fired their General Manager. The “Canadians” had the worst record in history some say. The once hugely successful team was so low it was hard to imagine.

Now Montreal is looking for a General Manager that is perfect and can speak French. Their answer is somewhere out there in the big world of “Fandom”… all the fans are experts and know that he was the problem.

These are only two teams that have been infected by the attitude that one man can make it all happen. There are too many teams that work this way. Way too many!

But we have forgotten something very important here. The team is about players that play together – and do that well. Gone are the days of a loud mouth leader that can intimidate the lowly player that is too dumb to know the abuse that they were under all the time. Low salaries and abuse kept these idiot players humble and hoping for a spot to play – for their coach or GM.

People flocked to a Hockey Arena to see what the loud mouth coach said or did… the hockey players were secondary.

As time has gone another factor has also entered the equation of success. More and more players are really, really good. It is not like the old days when only a few were good and if they were on your team you would win. Now there are many good players, in fact so many that good is average now... and great players are filling each team as they move past good.

As I watch this hockey world I see good and even great players doing everything they should do in order to win. But the problem is the other team is just a little better. The other team wins not because of the coach or GM… but because they worked together better at that moment. They were just a little better.

The problem with the Win or Lose world is that Win is the only way… AND when someone WINS – someone loses. And someone will always be better – no matter how hard you try. But should you be that winner, eventually one more will come along and knock you off the winning spot. You will lose eventually.

So why write about Hockey? In fact if I am honest, I could care less about hockey more than anything else in my life. I have no idea of what is or isn’t happening. I had no idea that the Montreal Canadians had lost so many games – until it was announced that their GM was gonzo!

What I see in Hockey is our cultural shift. I see where a Win is everything. I see that a Win means more money and someone making millions off the attendance of fans at a game. And I see that when you lose and no one comes to the game the one at the very top doesn’t make any money – which is not good.

That cultural shift is everywhere. In so many things you must be a winner. It all becomes a game. More is better and the best is the most. The best can only be when you have more in attendance and more paying clients or fans.

And if whatever you are doing doesn’t produce a better something, someone must be at fault.

The big switch in thought…
The church work that I am most familiar with is also prone to this better and best attitude. It has a great need to be the winner in the community. It is in the game just like other teams of churches in the community are also in the same game.

And in the church the bigger and better team wins. But like hockey, there will also be a loser. In fact there will be many losers with only one winner.

It shouldn’t be that way. In my mind the churches are all part of the “Team”, working under one GM or Owner. But somehow there has been a cultural shift take place and we have become driven by the winning attitude.

Maybe it is simply the fact that the folks now running the whole operation are from a different cultural stream. They must win. They struggle all week to win in their business world – and on the weekend they see the desperate need to have their church do the same.

The last time I looked at what the church was all about, God was the centre of the focus with Jesus being number one. When did it change to where winning is number one and we will do anything to not be number two – the first loser?

It may have happened when we invested huge amounts of time and energy into buildings and carry gigantic debt loads that may never be paid off – ever!

As I have attended a number of different churches in our community I see one thing that becomes strikingly clear. The churches are not full by a long shot. They could seat up to 500 hundred or more – but have as little as 75 to 100.

In some cases the churches have an idea that they will get some of the folks to leave one church and attend theirs by offering a bigger and better program.

Man, does that ever sound and feel like the hockey world!!!

Since retirement came to me at 64 years and two months old, I have been given many stories where ministers that are about the same age are worried about their position as “coach” or “GM”. They are afraid that they will not make it to the end of their 65 years… because they will be fired.

And some have actually felt that pain as they were finally fired. The church needed a new coach or GM.

Going back to hockey again. A hockey team wins when the great players and the good players – and even the not so great play hard and well.

A church is filled with Players. They are not fans. But perhaps that the is the real problem somewhere back there players gave up. They became fans. Fans started knowing better than anyone.

The church came into existence not to be a winner… but rather a place that offered Life more abundantly.

What is a winning culture in a church?
As for Hockey… I used to play and loved it. But it was fun back then.

As for church… well many of the people I met this week used to attend… but it was fun back then….

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com