When we hear the word coach, we immediately think of sports. Okay, there are some of our women reading this that say, “No we don’t. We think of purses!” The rest of us, though, think of sports. By presidential proclamation from 1972, today has been designated National Coaches Day, a day to honor those men and women who not only lead our teams to victory but coach us through defeat.
The job of a coach is difficult. You must take a team of players with various skill sets (or limited skills), help them develop and coalesce as a team, while helping them to learn that there is no “I” in TEAM. They must work together, relying on each other and developing a bond of trust and a culture of comradery.
Conditioning, weight training, and practices are all tools the coach uses to build his/her team into a competitive force. Plays are written and drilled. Eventually, it all comes to a head at a game, meet, or scrimmage. There will always be winners and losers. The team must be good at both.
Coaches develop tight bonds with their players. Good coaches sense when something is amiss. They will help the players keep their grades up. They will counsel them when there is trouble at home or with other relationships. Coaches will be a confidante and listener, hopefully steering the athlete the right direction.
A coach, though, may be coaching something other than sports. The reason we don’t think of them as a coach is because they go by different titles: director, mentor, leader, head, friend, or parent. Think about it. All these other titles are doing the same thing for other people as a coach does for a team. Could another category of coach be a pastor?
Ephesians 4:11-13 says, “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; (12) For the perfecting of the saints, for
the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: (13) Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Leading the team (church), coaching the players (individual Christians), and helping them develop the skills needed for the game (fighting the good fight, submitting to God, resisting the develop, participating in the Great Commission, etc.), providing the counsel, encouragement, and instruction as needed – sure sounds like what a coach does. Only this is for eternal glory, not temporary glory.
Also, the older people of the church are called into coaching. Titus 2:2-8 says, “That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. (3) The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; (4) That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, (5) To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. (6) Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. (7) In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, (8) Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.” Aged men and women are supposed to be coaches, taking a young team under their wings and showing them how it is to be done.
Alright, coaches, we are in the final quarter and the final minutes of the game. We need the team to give 110%. We need them to banish fear and an “it-can’t-be-done” mentality from their thinking. As a coach, we cannot provide the encouragement and inspiration if we are on the sidelines looking gloomy as if all hope is lost. We need a fire in our eyes and hearts that lets the team know that so long as there is breath in our lungs, we must continue to fight on.
David portrayed this coach’s mentality in Psalms 71:17-18. May we lay it to heart and put it to practice. “O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. (18) Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.”
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