Train to be fast

Dear friends, last week, I had hoped to start a series on the Metaverse and the Christian life. I discovered that I was more ambitious than I realized, and I haven't had the time to do the thinking and reading that I need to provide another installment. In the meantime, here's a lighter piece containing another subject that's been on my mind. 

Last Monday during the Super Bowl, the L.A. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford threw a pass that made the entire NFL world’s jaws collectively drop. 

A tiny bit of context for non-gridiron fans. One of the most well-established principles of throwing a football is that you need to align your front foot in the direction of your target and square your shoulders so that your upper body is pointed in the direction that you want to throw to. In the screenshot I snagged from Youtube below (please don’t sue me NFL) you can see that Stafford’s (red circle, bottom center) posture clearly indicates that he wants to throw to the slot receiver (red circle, top right). The opposing team’s defender safety Vonn Bell (yellow circle), reads Stafford’s eyes and body language and immediately guns down to make a play on the imminent throw. 

Little does he know, Stafford was feigning this throw in order to draw the defender down from his position and lure him away from the actual intended target of the pass, who is superstar receiver Cooper Kupp running a deep post. So this happens:

Sorry about the blurry screengrab, and sorry about spending so much time talking about football; I promise this is leading somewhere, and plus I was just super stoked about that thrilling game, and plus this is my blog so I can write about whatever excites me so I guess I’m not that sorry. As the defender barrels down with a full head of steam, ready to take the receiver’s head off, Stafford contorts his body against his footing and forces the ball right into the spot that the safety just vacated. Instead of throwing the red arrow, he throws the yellow, whizzing the ball just past the outstretched arms of the duped defender. By completing this play, the Rams kept their drive alive, which allowed them to score the winning touchdown a few minutes later and become Super Bowl champions. 

Clearly it was a mistake for me to try to explain football stuff when I could have just linked to this guy, who does it a bazillion times better and with much better resolution. The point I’m trying to make is that this was an exceptional feat of athleticism made by an exceptional athlete, who happens to be one of the best at his highly-skilled, highly-technical craft. 

Things move so fast in the game of football. This entire play took place in under five seconds (I kid you not, look at the timestamp on the Youtube video), and in those seconds the quarterback needed to make a million calculations about what the defense is doing, what offensive play he called, how his receivers might adjust to their opponents’ coverage, be aware of the very big, very angry dudes around him trying to drive him six feet into the ground, and what he needs to accomplish in this play to keep his chances of winning alive. One thing he did not have time for is how to set his feet, position his hips and shoulders, and move his arms in order to make that throw. I guarantee you that part was automatic. He didn’t spend time reviewing the step-by-step beats that his highschool coach gave him to throw a football fast and accurately. He just did it. It was mindless. It was instinct. It was automatic. And it was of the highest quality. 

Last night, the English pastors held the first session of “Learn To Lead”, a new ministry training initiative to raise leaders for our church. My part was to run a 40-minute seminar on growing closer to God in Scripture. 

Between all my other weekly responsibilities of preaching, study, meetings, and planning, I didn’t have as much time to work on my training material as I would have liked. Some of you might know that this is kind of a special time in the life of my church, particularly for the English ministry, and the start of the year has been considerably busier and more stressful than usual. 

I was reflecting on my time as a ministry trainee ten years ago. Once, I was asked to run a similar seminar (albeit a bit longer than 40 minutes ) and it took me three weeks to prepare the material. During those two weeks, I cut back on my other responsibilities and did very little else except read and write and edit and practice. This week, I spent 20 minutes brainstorming my topic with Ying and Winston and 75 minutes in a coffee shop writing it up. In the evening, I edited it a little bit after dinner, and then during the seminar itself, when Winno was presenting his part, I practiced my material. 

I felt it was unpolished and sloppy. It was far from my best work. But it was my best effort. More importantly, it was the best that I could do without sacrificing other priorities in my life. I resisted the urge to work on it late through the night, I resisted skipping my exercise session to work on it. And I resisted opening up my laptop to look at my notes while having dinner with my family. 

Train to be fast

One of the things I’ve learned in my first couple of years as a pastor is that part of thriving in ministry is not just about doing things better but doing things faster. In fact, whether it’s in MTS or Bible college or as a pastoral intern somewhere, your training should be with the intent of producing high quality work in a shorter amount of time. So that things you do become routine and instinct. You train so that you don’t have to reread Fee and Stuart’s chapter on Old Testament narrative every time you prepare a Bible study on 1 Samuel. You train so that you don’t have to fumble around with your words when you meet up with someone whose marriage is about to fall apart. You train so that godly actions and decisions become instinctive when you’re facing complex church problems. 

Life moves so fast. And so far it is my experience that ministry moves even faster. You need to train so that your ministry “footwork, body positioning, and throwing mechanics” become unconscious. You need to train to read and write fast so that you can spend more time in prayer. You need to train to be a minister who reacts the correct, godly way without having to think about it for a million years. You need to train to not just to be able to occasionally produce work of quality and skill, but to become a servant of quality character and skill.