{"id":395,"date":"2011-10-14T21:07:09","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T21:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=395"},"modified":"2011-10-14T21:07:09","modified_gmt":"2011-10-14T21:07:09","slug":"i-want-to-do-it-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=395","title":{"rendered":"I Want to Do it Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I went and saw the movie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonypictures.com\/previews\/movies\/moneyball\/\">\u201cMoneyball\u201d<\/a> last night with Carrie, and it was long, interesting, and good. I wasn\u2019t blown out of my seat or anything, at least not at first, it was just enjoyable.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I liked the portrayal of Billy Beane \u2013 his courage, his inclination to think out of the box, his fatherhood, and his belief in and obsessive focus on winning a baseball championship with the limited resources available to him<\/li>\n<li>I liked his unlikely 2nd man, Peter Brand (who reminded me a bit of Mall Cop, both in name and demeanor), and his unique gift set contributing in a powerful way to the whole organization<\/li>\n<li>I liked the baseball in the movie, but I really liked the subject of the movie that was shamelessly using baseball to express itself\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What subject?<\/p>\n<p>Fundamental, DNA-level, hard-and-costly-but-potentially-revolutionary, wholesale change.<\/p>\n<p>This movie is not for sports fans (although they will like it), it is for anyone who has ever dreamed of taking on a system that needs to be improved.<\/p>\n<p>There was one scene that awoke something inside my heart that, unbeknownst to me, has needed some cattle-prodding for a while now.<\/p>\n<p>It was at a point where Beane, in implementing a brand new system of how to field a baseball team, finally experienced some success. The Oakland A\u2019s won a record-breaking 20 games in a row. They made history. But Beane, as he surveyed whether this milestone really mattered or not, told his buddy Peter,<em> \u201cUnless we win the last game of the season, everyone in baseball will write us off as a fluke. A romantic experiment that can have some momentary and significant success, but that ultimately is not sustainable and will fail.\u201d<\/em> (not an exact quote)<\/p>\n<p>He said, <em>\u201cBut if we win, then we will have fundamentally changed baseball and made it better. Now that would matter.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>My heart jumped into my throat with excitement, and I was borderline on the verge of tears. I had found myself in the heart of this movie\u2026and I was reminded of how nice it is to feel so\u2026explained.<\/p>\n<p>Beane didn\u2019t merely want a cool record for the record books. He wanted to win. Winning, in baseball, is defined as coming out on top of the MLB Championship game. But even that, at this point, would not be enough\u2026 Beane wanted to win the MLB Championship game <em>while utilizing a new, better system.<\/em> <\/p>\n<p>This explains my heart for the church. <\/p>\n<p>I grew up in a church system that steadfastly believed that regular church attendance, increasing Bible knowledge, and unified agreement on how we should worship on Sundays would produce the \u201cwin.\u201d And the definition of a win was clear \u2013 it was posted on the bottom of a number-tallying bulletin board in the hallway by the exit door: \u201cWeekly Sunday Attendance Goal: 1000!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If we had 1000 people attending on Sundays, people who came regularly, were increasing in Bible knowledge, and worshipped in the way we thought was right we would have considered that winning the MLB Championship. Of course, and rightly so, we would not have stopped there \u2013 just like a MLB team wouldn\u2019t quit playing just because they won a pennant \u2013 but it still would have been significant. It would have mattered to us.<\/p>\n<p>But that doesn\u2019t matter to me. As a matter of fact, I\u2019m trying to do my part as a \u201cGeneral Manager\u201d of a little \u201cball-club\u201d in Amarillo, TX to show the world that there is a better way, a better system, a truer one, one that is both more effective and closer to the intent and heart of God.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the better system I\u2019d like to see us implement with our team? Relationships. Intimate, brotherly, sisterly, authentic, and Christ-centered relationships with God and others. <\/p>\n<p>While I\u2019m way more comfortable categorizing a \u201cwin\u201d with the admittedly ambiguous words \u201cKingdom growth,\u201d I certainly would not be discouraged if we starting having 1000 people in our pews on Sunday mornings each week. But I do not merely want 1000 people in the pews\u2026I want 1000 people in the pews <em>because of, and because they want to help co-create, our new, better, truer system.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>At one point in the movie, young Peter was scared. He felt like Beane was living out the vision of the new system a little too purely, in a way and at a pace that was going to be too hard to explain or defend to the baseball establishment. He knew that if they implemented the vision too zealously, they could lose their jobs. Beane, on the other hand, knew that if they implemented the vision partially, the system-schizophrenic team would lose their games, and then they most certainly would lose their jobs. He knew that even if they by some fluke won, the establishment would point to all the things that remained of the old system (along with a little bit of pure baseball \u201cmagic\u201d) as the reason for their success. <\/p>\n<p>Beane, in the face of Peter\u2019s fear and tentativeness, said definitively that he was going to see this through\u2026all the way. Then he provocatively asked Peter, in a \u201cbe-careful-what-you-say-next-because-I\u2019ll-expect-you-to act-like-its-true\u201d sort of way,&nbsp; <em>\u201cDo you believe in this system or not?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cYes. I do. Totally,\u201d<\/em> was his slow, methodical, fully-owning it reply. <\/p>\n<p>Enough said. Because of this pair\u2019s resolve, the plot of the movie could go on.<\/p>\n<p>I felt like Beane was talking to me. Do I believe in this new system, this truer way of being God\u2019s church? Do I believe that this matters, or not?<\/p>\n<p>Yes. I do. Totally. <\/p>\n<p>So, I too can go on. Praise God.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an important question. Even the usually-resolved Beane found himself asking, at one point in the movie, while driving alone in his pickup contemplating, <em>\u201cWhat. Am. I . Doing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What I am doing is making disciples of Jesus Christ through loving, spiritual friendships. And I\u2019m asking our church family to organize itself in a new way, within a new system, so that they can do the same. <\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m seeing some amazing milestones, some truly incredible fruit from our church\u2019s intentional transition from the old faithful ways to these new and equally faithful ways. But I don\u2019t want to be satisfied until we win the proverbial \u201clast game of the season\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>I want to be able to look at our church family and see everyone in it actively and obviously living their whole life for God\u2019s glory, obviously and willingly becoming more and more like Christ, and offering themselves as spiritual friends to all the hurting people in this city who need the relief and abundant life that Christ offers.<\/p>\n<p>One more parallel from the movie: At the end, Beane is called by the Boston Red Sox and offered more money than any sports manager had <em>ever<\/em> been offered if he would just come there to implement his new system. He would have willing bosses, willing co-workers, and willing participants, and more money to implement it than Oakland had. <\/p>\n<p>But he didn\u2019t go. Why? <em>\u201cBecause I want to do it here,\u201d<\/em> Beane said, while sitting in the Oakland locker room.<\/p>\n<p>This captures the heart behind why, when given the chance, I decided against both planting a church or leaving the Church of Christ (and this is not to be mistaken as a condemnation of either). God knows that what we are doing here at Southwest, while rare, is not unique to us. There are church plants that begin with nothing but like-minded people, sparing their home churches the pain of transition, and themselves the discouragements of meeting resistance. And there are other denominations that are years, if not decades, ahead of us on this journey that I could potentially partner with. <\/p>\n<p>But I want to do it here. The Church of Christ people are my people. They have loved me. They have raised me. They have tolerated me. They have survived me. They have enabled me. They have taught me. They have not been perfect, any more than I have. But they\u2026they are mine. And I am theirs. <\/p>\n<p>The Red Sox went on to win the MLB World Series two years later, without Beane, but with his new system. I don\u2019t think this discouraged him. As a matter of fact, their success with the same system in Boston probably fueled his commitment to working towards it in Oakland. <\/p>\n<p>And he still is. <\/p>\n<p>And so am I. I don\u2019t want to go somewhere were it might be easier to make disciples through relationships. I want to do it <a href=\"www.southwest.org\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I went and saw the movie \u201cMoneyball\u201d last night with Carrie, and it was long, interesting, and good. I wasn\u2019t blown out of my seat or anything, at least not at first, it was just enjoyable. I liked the portrayal of Billy Beane \u2013 his courage, his inclination to think out of the box, his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pO6nf-6n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}