Minor League Home Run

Yesterday I hit a homerun.

Well that's the current jargin we pastors/teachers use to describe a really great teaching: content and delivery both excellent. We "De-Coded the DaVinci Code" and spend only a few minutes MythBusting(that's our teaching series title for May 2006.) Most of the high impact moment was a discussion of the canon and why the Gospel of Philip or Thomas or Judas are not included in our Bibles.

I wanted Touchstone Community to know that the church has known about these "gospels" from the beginning and are not trying to supress a secret. It is no secret that the Christian community knows of them. We rejected them as not "measuring up" to the standard of Scripture. I grew up in a community of faith which either didn't know these things or else didn't deem it important enough to teach (Sunday sermons, Sunday School or Bible Study.)

It wasn't overly technical and most commented later that they were glad we had such a firm foundation to our beliefs (as opposed to the fragile, fanciful framework Dan Brown manufactured for his "Fact: page.") I felt used of God to correct a problem that existed in the church of my childhood. I could literally feel the teaching hit the "sweet spot" on delivery!

However, there were less than 30 in the stands. Very minor league ballpark. A bit run down.

Honestly, it gets hard to step up to the plate game to game and swing for the bleachers in this setting. Like all minor leaguers, my day job takes so much time, energy and focus away from my passion--the game.

Then I think of the "great cloud of witnesses."

Like Kevin Costner's middle-aged, minor league home run leader, I may never play in the House that Ruth Built. I may never speak His word to hundreds or thousands. But I am playing for the love of the game, making the most of this opportunity and it still feels great to knock it out of the park.