Isiah Thomas. Love him or hate him, the dude could play basketball. An exceptional passer, Thomas averaged 9.3 assists per game over his 13 year career. Though he never could master the correct spelling of Isaiah, it is obvious that Thomas understood the game of basketball. He is regarded as one of the top 50 players to ever play the game.
A point guard in basketball is like the quarterback in football. He is the field general, he runs the plays, he sets things into motion. To be a good point guard you have to possess a great feel for the game; something that is also required of a great coach. It was only natural that such a talented point guard would move on to be one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time.
If you follow the NBA you are laughing at my last sentence. Thomas was a train wreck as an NBA coach and executive. In his final season with the Knicks, Thomas only won 23 games. Things were so bad that Isaiah Thomas (a point guard for the Kings, that correctly spells his name) is booed whenever he comes to town.
Great players seldom make great coaches. Wayne Gretzky is unarguably the best hockey player to ever play the game. That success did not transfer to the bench, as Gretzky retired with a 47% career winning percentage.
How This Relates to the Church
One would think that a great player like Isiah Thomas or Wayne Gretzky would have a wealth of wisdom to share with players. Who better to teach players a slapshot than Gretzky? Who better to show young players how to lead a team than Isiah Thomas? Yet, for some reason it doesn’t translate. Why?
Likely, because Wayne Gretzky isn’t coach Wayne Gretzky and Isiah Thomas isn’t coaching Isiah Thomas. Granted athletes become great because of practice—something that we can all do. But great athletes also a great athletes because of God-given talent. Some things come naturally to Gretzky that won’t come natural to Ernie the Plumber no matter how many times he practices that slapshot.
I think this principle is also true in the church. And I believe it is one of the dangers of our celebrity culture.
Al Mohler can read thirty-six books per day and remember every word*. You probably can’t. Mark Driscoll (like him or not) can walk into the pulpit with a napkin and preach a solid sermon. You probably can’t. Mark Dever can work 35 hours on his Sunday morning sermon and run his ideas through a team of interns. You don’t have a team of interns.
Listen, I’m not saying that Mohler, Driscoll, and Dever make terrible “coaches” and that we shouldn’t listen to them. That’s foolish. But at the same time I have to wonder if there isn’t something very unhelpful that happens whenever our celebrities are the only ones telling us how we ought to go about doing this church thing. We’re only hearing one voice.
The church loses something valuable whenever we choose to ignore seasoned pastors that are just like us—plodding along in small churches, trying to be faithful with the underwhelming talent that we posses.
I’ve benefited greatly from the ministry of John Piper, Mark Dever, and a host of dead theologians. But when I come upon some real pastoral doozies I don’t do a web search on Desiring God, I call my friend Terry. He’s a guy that’ll probably never speak at T4G but he’s faithfully served his local church for some twenty years. (Not saying that Piper, Dever, and such haven’t, but he’s done it without being Piper and Dever and that’s my point).
Perhaps you need to put down that book from your latest celebrity and get to know a real pastor that’s just like you. Learn from him. Then maybe get back to reading that book from the experts.
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*That may be a slight exaggeration.
Well said…Amen!