Winning and losing as a team
Posted Jan 19, 2019
Daily Scripture
Galatians 5:25-6:4
25 If we live by the Spirit, let’s follow the Spirit. 26 Let’s not become arrogant, make each other angry, or be jealous of each other.
6:1 Brothers and sisters, if a person is caught doing something wrong, you who are spiritual should restore someone like this with a spirit of gentleness. Watch out for yourselves so you won’t be tempted too. 2 Carry each other’s burdens and so you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks they are important when they aren’t, they’re fooling themselves. 4 Each person should test their own work and be happy with doing a good job and not compare themselves with others.
Reflection Questions
Hall of Fame quarterback, Roger Staubach said, “It's okay to have personal ambitions, but you have to take someone with you.”* One person alone, even a star, can’t take a football team to the Super Bowl. Winning teams work together to win the game and the season. As Christians, we celebrate our personal relationship with Jesus, and develop this relationship through hard work, self-discipline and sacrifice. But this relationship leads us to come together with other believers to serve as a team with a common purpose and goal. God created us to live in relationship with one another, as teammates who can restore one another, carry each other’s burdens and bring the Kingdom of God to a reality on earth.
- Paul stated the obvious about teams at the start of today’s passage. Teams don’t function well if members are arrogant, make each other angry, or are jealous of each other. Are there places where you need to release arrogance, anger or jealousy to more fully follow the Spirit? Injured football players are sometimes carried off on a stretcher. Have you developed relationships with people who will carry you when you hurt, when your burdens become too much to bear alone? Whose stretcher would you help to carry?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, some days I’m happy and whole, and some days I’m hurting. Make me the type of teammate who helps others who hurt, and who is willing to accept the help of others when I’m the one who is hurting. Amen.
Family Activity
Every position is important in football, just as every gift and ability is important in the Christian life and they all must work together. As a family, talk about how each person can use his or her God-given gifts and abilities. Discuss how those can each be used to serve those within and outside of the home. How can those same gifts be combined with those of other family members to work and serve? Using construction paper, draw pictures of your home, your neighborhood and the world. On the pictures, write or draw the gifts of each person where they might be best put to work. Also, write or draw about how each person’s gifts can be used to serve others. Pray together, asking God to help guide you to use your ideas and gifts. Thank God for giving them to you. Display your family’s pictures as reminder to serve and work for those who are in your home, neighborhood and world.
* Quote found at https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results?q=Staubach.
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Lori Trupp
Lori Trupp is the Director of Children’s Ministries at Resurrection Leawood.
Dr. Brené Brown is one of my favorite authors, speakers, and researchers. She has devoted her life to studying and writing about human
connection. Brené writes, “Connection is why we are here, it’s what gives
purpose and meaning to our lives.” In her research, however, she discovered
that so many of us struggle to feel connected.
In fact, in a recent nationwide survey conducted by the
health insurer Cigna, half the country reported feeling lonely. According to
the survey, 54 percent of respondents said they sometimes or always feel that
no one knows them very well. Even more (56 percent) reported sometimes or
always feeling like the people they’re surrounded with “are not
necessarily with them.” Two-fifths reported a lack of meaningful relationships
and companionship; saying they are “isolated from others.”
Lack of connection can have a serious impact on our health.
According to former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, "Loneliness and
weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to
that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than
that associated with obesity.”
You are probably ready for some good news at this point!
Study after study has shown that people who are involved in a faith community
are less lonely, healthier, and live longer than those who don’t. In our faith
community, we can find connection by attending worship, by volunteering, by
taking classes at Grow Night on Tuesdays, by attending support groups at Care
Night on Thursdays, by participating in Family Night on Wednesdays, by serving
in our worship services or in Sunday school classes with our children and
youth, and so much more. There are so many ways to connect here at Church of
the Resurrection! If you are looking for a team you’ve got one, right here at
church.
To find ways to connect, visit www.cor.org. Your teammates can’t wait to welcome you!