Brothers and Others

I played basketball at a local church gym, I'll leave unnamed, last night. Now before I tell this story you need to understand something about me that is a major flaw of mine: I'm a jerk. A lot. Meaning I can be a pretty big smart alec and just flat out sinful.

First, let me tell you who was there. It was a band of brothers. Hence, the post title.

• I had my youngest brother Chase with us. He drove.


• My brother in law Ben played.


• 2 fellow elders at Crew, Brian and Jason.


• Brothers in Christ from our area.


• People I didn't know. They were others.

Second, here are my impressions through the night. Prepare yourself for an honest reflection. Not whether it was right or not. In fact they weren't right responses. That's my point as you will see. Here are some thoughts that I either thought or verbalized:

• The guy who let us in to the gym had a Dutch Boy haircut. I thought that was pretty stupid looking. Turns out he was a magician and I made a comment about that. He also wore a Larry Bird jersey and I was having a field day with that little quirk.


• This church is also a church that is more separitist in their ministry philosophy and I don't like legalist at all. Based on this fact alone, I kind of walk into this gym with an attitude.


• Another thing I noticed was that they had a banner up with a psalm. I think it was Psalm 24. But it was referenced as Psalms 24, not Psalm 24. The words ...mighty in battle... were the only part of the psalm they printed. It motivates their basketball team I guess. I didn't like that either. Who's mighty in battle? The Philistines? The Israelites?


• About half way through playing they have someone, this time it was Larry Bird, give a mini sermon and invite folks to trust Christ. They call these things devos which is short for devotionals. I cannot articulate how much that aggravates me. Not the mini sermon, but that they were called devos. Devo is a band not a quiet time.


• A few miscellaneous items: I lost every game I played in. I think it was 5 losses. I called an Asian fella who wore trendy glasses Rob Bell. I also made a racist ping pong remark since there were Asians there. What else? Oh, I called another guy fatty.

Here's where God called me to repent. It was when Larry Bird was giving his "Devo". He did a really good job. He shared the gospel. The gospel got me. Here they are giving me a place to play basketball and invite my friends to play basketball. I also left my check book there and last night, the magician Larry Bird called and he's mailing it to me.

Man, I suck! The gospel means that God loves people who wear Larry Bird jerseys, people who refer to mini sermons as devos, he loves legalists, he loves bad basketball players, and he loves insecure self righteous smart mouths named Josh Perry.

I prayed to ask God to forgive my bitterness and asked him to give me a heart like Christ. I mean think of what Christ must have thought when he walked our earth. All the stuff he could have slammed on and made fun of. But he loved us and died for us. Thank God.

Since our blog is called real and I want to be real I shared real. So, let's not think that real means right. Many times real is sin. Many times real needs repented of.