{"id":414,"date":"2013-01-18T15:06:14","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T20:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/?p=156"},"modified":"2013-12-30T14:14:33","modified_gmt":"2013-12-30T14:14:33","slug":"what-the-church-can-learn-from-lance-armstrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/2013\/what-the-church-can-learn-from-lance-armstrong","title":{"rendered":"What the Church Can Learn from Lance Armstrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lance Armstrong is currently at the top of news headlines<\/a> as he\u2019s coming clean about his Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) use. It\u2019s everywhere. And honestly, that would usually keep me from talking about it. If it\u2019s popular then it\u2019s probably getting enough press and doesn\u2019t need my two cents. However, I couldn\u2019t help but realize last night as I watched the news that there are some vital lessons for the church to learn in this story.<\/p>\n

\"lance_armstrong_oprah_AP696822880576_620x350\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As someone who works in the church, I\u2019ve seen the good, bad, and ugly. But when we learn from other\u2019s failures we can be saved from having to make them ourselves.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0We will be tempted \u201cto juice\u201d to make our performance match the expectation of others.<\/b><\/p>\n

Lance Armstrong had a reputation to live up to. He wanted to be the best. So he blurred the lines. He inched out of what was acceptable as he moved closer and closer to that \u201cwhatever is necessary\u201d place.<\/p>\n

Sadly, I\u2019ve seen this happen in the church world as well. We \u201cjuice\u201d in our own unique way. We want our ministry to be seen as beefier than it really is. So we fudge the numbers a little on our attendance. We want to seem more spiritual than we really are. So we manufacture worship experiences rather than worshipping. We want to be relevant to our culture so bad that we dilute our message to make it more palatable to the people.<\/p>\n

Lance shows the church that in the pursuit of excellence, performance is the gateway drug. We need to know Who we\u2019re really trying to please and let that be enough.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0\u201cEveryone else was doing it\u201d doesn\u2019t excuse it or make it better.<\/b><\/p>\n

Even though he\u2019s coming clean, there is still this underlying message that he\u2019s communicating. It\u2019s the little morsel of justification that is nearly always expected in any confession: BUT!<\/p>\n

Armstrong is right, from what it seems. He certainly was nowhere close to being the only major athlete using PEDs in that time. But the popularity of mistakes does not lessen the potency of mistakes.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

In the church we have one example to live by and His name is Jesus. With whatever we do, individually as well as corporately, HE<\/i><\/b> needs to be who we\u2019re looking to. Any comparison that is going to be made shouldn\u2019t be with the standard of other people or other churches. It should be with Jesus.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Your accomplishments always get discounted when they come at the cost of your integrity.<\/b><\/p>\n

Though I don\u2019t follow cycling or honestly care much for it, I was saddened when Armstrong was stripped of all his accomplishments<\/a>. I suppose that\u2019s because I\u2019m still human and that\u2019s just awful. To see someone\u2019s life work thrown out with yesterday\u2019s garbage is heart-breaking.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s even sadder when you see this happen in the church world. And it does happen.<\/p>\n

A church or a church leader can accomplish much, but when they\u2019re integrity has been compromised to get them there, it doesn\u2019t matter. Everything gets taken away. We could argue whether it\u2019s fair or not, but it doesn\u2019t change that it\u2019s fact. It\u2019s what happens.<\/p>\n

So the message is clear: We need to make sure we don\u2019t get blinded by the lure of outter success<\/em> that we become an inner failure<\/em>. All the prestige of being a famous church leader is lost when it comes out that you\u2019re not authentic. And all the splendor of your amazing church fades when people come to realize that you\u2019re more about show than about actually being the loving, body of Christ in the world today.<\/p>\n

The reason this all matters so much is that we\u2019re not talking about Tour de France\u2019s. We\u2019re talking about eternal lives. And so let us be the Church that chooses in both the big moments as well as the small ones to just do this: Look like Jesus.<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lance Armstrong is currently at the top of news headlines as he\u2019s coming clean about his Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}