A Gamecock Is Better Than Two Wildcats

I'm not the biggest basketball fan, but I do enjoy the time around the NCAA men's tournament, affectionately known as March Madness. Of course, the tournament goes into the beginning of April, so what do you call the part in April? April Agitation? April Acrimony? April Acerbity?

Anyway, three games particularly came to my attention - two of them were in the NCAA tournament, the other one was actually in the "we're not good enough to be in the NCAA tournament" NIT. Let's talk about the two NCAA games first.

The first game was Arizona vs. Illinois in an Elite Eight matchup. Arizona is my favorite college basketball team; I of course was rooting for them. Amazingly and stupidly, Arizona gave up a fifteen point lead with four minutes to go, and Illinois sent it to overtime. Illinois was ahead and Arizona had the chance to take the last shot. They called timeout, worked out a play that I'm sure they practiced a hundred times, and then went down the court with a few seconds left and didn't get a good shot off at all. Stoudemire clanked one, and the game was over. Illinois won. I was pissed.

The second NCAA game was again a team called the Wildcats, this time it was Kentucky vs. Michigan State. Once again the game went into overtime, and once again the team behind called a timeout, set up a play that they had practiced a million times, went out on the court and again didn't get a good shot off at all. Michigan State wins the game.

Contrast this with what happened in the NIT championship game, featuring St. Joseph versus the Gamecocks of South Carolina. With ten seconds left, St. Joseph ties it on a three pointer. Rather than calling a timeout, rather than setting up a play, rather than stopping momentum in order to think out a solution in order to win the game, the Gamecocks coach let the game continue and allowed his players to improvise. What happens? A three pointer at the buzzer to win the game and the tournament. I must have replayed the last thirty seconds of that game with my Tivo about thirty times.

What's the point of all this? Well, it's my second example of bad marketing in the church. My point is that sometimes churches spend all their time coming up with strategy, purpose, vision, direction, goals, directives, etc. in order to then do something for the sake of the Kingdom, when I believe God is calling us to take action now. I mean, it's good to have all that stuff, but in the churches I've been a part of, it seems like doing all of the background work ends up taking all of the staff and elders' time; time that could have spent actually running the church and meeting new people and fulfilling God's purpose for their church. They act more like the two Wildcat teams who had to strategize the "final shot" and act less like the Gamecocks, who actually made the final shot.

Another example of marketing gone wrong in the church.