Have you heard about Blake Koch (pronounced Cook)? He is a race driver on the NASCAR Nationwide racing circuit (minor league to the Sprint Cup). Recently he lost a sponsor – never a good thing for a race team. How he lost it is the issue.

Many media outlets are making ESPN the bad guys because they rejected his sponsor, the Rise Up and Register Campaign, which is designed to educate people about the importance of registering to vote in the upcoming elections.  Koch says that this is due to religious and political overtones of the sponsor and Koch’s website, www.BlakeKoch.com. But at the same time he is not angry with ESPN.

Here he says, ““My goal is not to beat up ESPN,” Koch said. “I have nothing bad to say about ESPN. They can air whatever they want to air. It’s their network. I watch ESPN all the time; I think they do a great job of airing our races.
“That’s not what I want to come out of this at all. But one thing I’m not going to do is stand away from my faith just to please (someone).

I wonder, wouldn’t you think all of this media coverage on the web and TV (Fox and Friends) has helped this driver?

Here it states, “Koch has been inspired by all the support, including hundreds of fans who have started a grass-roots effort through Twitter to convince Chick-fil-A to sponsor the No. 41 car.“

I understand he is an excellent driver with a sincere walk with the Lord. He is not trusting in a media adviser for ultimate acceptance. Way to go Blake. Let’s watch and see how God uses this in his life. I really think ESPN has done Blake a favor.

A couple of weeks ago I accidentally scratched the paint on a new car with my truck door. I certainly didn’t mean to, but I was responsible.

Did you read about the Dad of a player that broke the national championship trophy that the great University of Alabama football team earned last year? And it cost $30,000!

Carleton Tinker said this, “It’s that whole sinking feeling in your stomach, then your heart up in your chest,” Tinker said. “… As that thing’s rolling off the top, and it only took a second, all of those thoughts go through your mind. ‘Why couldn’t it have been the person before me? Or the person after me?’ But things happen.”  This was a sad accident, but insurance will replace it, and Tuscaloosa will receive yet another trophy in the near future. It is replaceable.

A mistake is never a sin. And a sin is never a mistake. A sin is done on purpose. When we rename a sin it doesn’t change it! There is no divine forgiveness for mistakes – because we do not confess mistakes, we only confess correctly when we admit our “deliberate breaking of God’s law!”

There should be shame for our sins. When we confess them to God, He takes away our shame. Jesus paid for that too.
Sadly, many people have “false shame” as result of mistakes. This is a sad situation indeed.

The lesson from these ramblings: Name a sin – sin, then repent and confess quickly. Don’t sweat the mistakes. Just get a broom.

• Condemned – because they see following God as impossible & they have already failed so much!
• Frustrated – because they feel the exalted tasks required of them is beyond them
• Ready to make excuses – because they know they have not done it yet and don’t expect to in the future.

It is as if an invisible wall is erected in the locker room.

When I asked one SEC Sports Chaplain what got him excited in his ministry, he said, “When a football player leans forward when I am speaking. Then I know he is really listening.”

This has been dealt with before by others – namely the Apostle John, our biblical Chaplain.

In I John 2:12-14 he slows down and makes sure his listener are with him. In my sanctified imagination is he was speaking he would of over and put his hands on everyone and call them “little children”. Then pick out a few and touch them and call them “young men”,and still others can call them “fathers”. And instead of writing 6 times – “I write to you”, he would say something like, “Listen to this” 6 or more times!

1 John 2:12-14

12 I write to you, dear children,
because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
13 I write to you, fathers,
because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, dear children,
because you have known the Father.
14 I write to you, fathers,
because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God lives in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.

He basically shocks them by saying – “There is no excuse at all for failure in this life.”

If that is you feeling then it is quite clear that you have not grasped the original doctrine, we call the gospel. You are approaching this all the wrong way. You have neglected the basics of all basics!

So the Biblical Chaplain – John takes no risk, doesn’t move on until he tells them to look back on the basics and if you didn’t understand it before = believe now, if you have started in the spirit and not are going in the flesh, back up the train and breathe in grace!

He mentions now 6 “because” clauses

Children – know your sins have been forgiven!

Young Men – know you have already won! You are on the winning side – Jesus defeated Satan.

Fathers – you know the need to be a good father – God is a perfect Father and he will provide, protect and lead you. He has your best interest at heart. He will not fail or die like an earthly father!

All of you can walk in confidence, you can accomplish what God calls you to do – if you have trusted in the living Jesus!

Check out the article in the USATODAY  or this older article here

In today’s article it states:

“New York is a jolt for even veteran players. Where most teams have two or three beat reporters, the Yankees have 11 who travel to every game and some newspapers often send a second reporter. A typical Yankees home game has 25-30 reporters and, Zillo says, 75-100 credentialed media members including photographers and broadcast crews.”

That got me to thinking; that this is great advice for anyone, sports chaplains especially. The Scriptures have some sobering statements about our speech.

Matthew 12:36: “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.”

Proverbs 10:8: “The wise in heart accept commands, but a chattering fool comes to ruin.”

The Yankees make the point that the press will hold you accountable for every idle word – even if you mention Fidel Castro!

Some other apt advice from the Yankees:

• Think before you speak. There are no do-overs.

• Nothing is ever off the record.

• Lies beget lies, and bending the truth will ultimately find its way back to you.

• Do not under any circumstances take a naked picture of yourself and send it to anyone.

• don’t lie,
• own up to your mistakes,
• recognize that you’re on the clock even when you take off the uniform,
• Don’t take a picture with a fan without looking at what’s written on their shirt;
• don’t address outside topics like politics.

Good advice for you and me!

You’ve heard the saying, “15 minutes of fame”, and that everyone experiences it at some time in his life. Well, mine came (and went) during this past week with the Giants being in the Super Bowl.

I received a call from Joel Stein, columnist for Time Magazine. He wanted to write a feature on the role that faith in God plays in determining the outcome of sporting events, namely the Super Bowl. We had a lively discussion in which I informed him about specific activities of sports team chaplains, and he entertained me with an array of humorous responses. The result was a clever satirical essay. Stein is quite the wordsmith. I hope you enjoy the read.

TIME February 13, 2012 / U.S. Edition / Volume 179 / Number 6
Most Valuable Prayer.
Forget the stats. For the Super Bowl, I’m betting on the team with the winningest chaplain
By Joel Stein

I’ve watched enough post-game interviews to know that what wins football games isn’t the quarterback or the offensive line; it’s God. So to figure out which team is going to win this year’s Super Bowl, I went straight to the guys who serve as middlemen between God and the players. The team with the best chaplain isn’t just going to win but, from what I understand about theology, will also totally cover the spread.

Almost every NFL team has a chaplain who runs weekly Bible study and holds a short service on Saturday nights before games. Although I’m sure honesty is a key part of each of their belief systems, it is not a huge part of mine, so I left out the part about wanting to talk to them strictly for gambling purposes.

The Giants’ chaplain, George McGovern, is a kindly, white-haired man who is paid by Athletes in Action, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ that places pastors with most of the big football colleges and pro teams. After being a campus chaplain at Rutgers, he worked with the Jets and Mets from 1990 to 1995 before getting traded to the Giants and Yankees. McGovern is going to his third Super Bowl with the Giants, and the Yankees have won five World Series under him. God loves this guy more than he loves Tim Tebow.

I asked McGovern why his speeches have been so much more successful than those of any other George McGovern, but he said he has nothing to do with the outcome of the games. Which seemed like exactly the kind of Job-like humility that God loves. McGovern insisted that when he meets the 25 or so players and coaches–the most attendees in team history–for the Saturday sermons, he doesn’t even talk about the game. “It’s not a pep talk. It’s not a ‘God, help us win tomorrow.’ I’ve never heard a player or coach ask for a victory. It’s always thanking God for opportunities or health or ‘Give us the strength we need to play with passion,’” McGovern told me. I did not like the sound of this. From what I know about the Old Testament, God doesn’t respond to the soft sell. He’s more of a tie-your-firstborn-to-the-altar kind of guy.

When I asked McGovern to inspire me, he gave me a bit of the 20-minute sermon he delivered the night before the Giants beat the 49ers in overtime. It was actually a very thoughtful, touching talk about fatherhood that quoted Moses and the apostle Paul. But it didn’t make me want to win a game. It made me want to skip the Super Bowl party I was going to go to and take my son to the park.

I was about to put a lot of money on the Patriots when I learned that the Patriots are one of the very few NFL teams without a chaplain. They do, however, rely on Don Davis, who was the team’s chaplain until 2010, when he moved to Virginia. Davis, who is going to Indianapolis to give the team sermon on Saturday, is a two-time Super Bowl winner and ex-Patriots linebacker. This guy sounded like a King David–level winner, the kind of guy who would talk about parting seas of linebackers and the fact that if God wanted the Giants to beat the Patriots, he would have landed the Pilgrims in East Rutherford, N.J.

But when I asked Davis to lay some of his pregame sermon on me, he said he wasn’t sure what he was going to say yet. This was like hearing that Bill Belichick hadn’t started working on his Super Bowl playbook or Tom Brady hadn’t selected a hairstyle. When I pressed Davis, he said he was thinking of speaking about legacy. This seemed great until he explained that he meant the legacy the players would leave besides the Super Bowl. “I’ve played in a few of these Super Bowls and coached in one. They were big deals when you played, but life goes on,” he said. “It’s the things you do outside that have an impact forever.” When Davis gives this downer of a speech, he isn’t even going to wear his Super Bowl rings. He says that sometimes when chaplains who aren’t ex-athletes give their sermons, they try to talk about the game, which comes off as “cheesy.” Davis seems to be the one American who does not understand what a big deal the Super Bowl is. I’m sure Davis would have told Moses that asking God to let his people go would be “cheesy.”

After talking to both chaplains, I realized that when players thank God at the end of a game, they’re not saying God liked their team better. They’re actually being modest, saying they realize how small a part they played and expressing gratitude–just as they would for a meal, their health or a Friday. A chaplain doesn’t have anything to do with the game. He’s with the team for the same reason the caterer and the travel agent are: to provide basic services for guys who travel a lot.

So I’m not going to make a bet. Which I’m guessing is what both chaplains wanted all along. Man, they’re good.

1) Absence of Trust – when there is an absence of trust among teammates they will not be genuinely open with each other about their weaknesses and mistakes, it becomes impossible to build a foundation for achievement. This happens in sport when players perceive themselves to be self-sufficient or project the attitude that they don’t need anyone else. This occurs when the player believes he is superior to his teammates and cannot trust them to fulfill their responsibilities. This often results in the shifting of blame, finger pointing, gossip among team members and division.

Gandy and Glanville cite three factors that combine to drive up costs: an athlete’s desire to live similar lifestyle as his peers; a priority on ease, and quickness of service rather than cost; and the perception that there is always another massive check coming.

Part of the expense comes from the unique realities of an athlete’s life. For someone with a contract worth millions of dollars, the priority is ease rather than price. That luxury is expensive.

“Services cost more for these guys, mostly because no one has time to compare and contrast anything. It is all about speed and convenience,” Glanville says. “It’s not just because you’re showing off. You are so busy with the game. [During a baseball season], you have 162 games. You’re not paying attention to anything other than playing. I had one day when six or seven paychecks went into my back account and I didn’t even look.”

“Death where is thy sting!”

Can I share with you a painful experience I had a few years ago? I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Just walking on the beach with my little girl, Bailey. I didn’t think bad things were suppose to happen to you on vacation, but was I wrong! Maybe I was distracted by all the floats dad, the pack mule, was carrying, or by the fact that Bailey’s older sister, Shelby, has no fear of the ocean and was nearing Cuba.

But nonetheless it was somewhere in this moment that it happen. My bare foot stepped on a large, and very angry, hornet. I didn’t know those little fellas could pack such a punch, but before I knew it I was down on the sand wondering why I wasn’t flexible enough to get a closer look at what was now a throbbing and swelling foot!

What does God’s Word say?:

“Where, O death, is your victory? “Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:55-58

Sin in my life is a lot like being stung by that hornet. I can be just walking along, probably distracted by the cares of life, and never considering the possible dangers that loom (if I were really worried about getting hurt, I wouldn’t be bare footed to begin with). The only difference is I didn’t choose to step on the hornet, but I do choose to sin. I do choose to be disobedient to Christ.

Similar to when I have sinned against God Almighty, I was left with a swollen foot that for the next few days was uncomfortable reminder of my painful experience. The encouraging thing about stings, and sin, is that we can recover from both. One with a little Benydrl, and the other by the forgiving grace of Christ.

Next time I’m walking around barefooted, I will be watching where I step because I don’t want to get stung again. What about you? Will you allow God to guide your steps today and avoid the sting of sin? Just a thought!

Before I answer that question, let’s define some terms.  When I say “argue”, I mean to complain to the referee/official about a call they’ve made.  This is not just intellectual disagreement but a voiced complaint (which is usually accompanied by anger and frustration).

So, with that in mind, let me answer the question: When is it right to argue with referees/officials?

Never.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with my opinion but please do keep reading because I would love your opinion and feedback in the comments section below.

I have heard lots of explanations on why coaches think this is necessary part of the job and all of them are flawed.  Perhaps I will deal with them in a later blog post.  The question I’ve always asked coaches in relation to their arguing with referees is this:

How does your arguing bring glory to God?

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