Training for Christians and Churches: Long-term vs Short-term

As I’ve continued to think about the parallels between athletic training and development and Christian/Church development I’ve had some additions to make to my earlier post. Rather than make long posts, I’ll deal with them one by one. First up:

Long-term Training vs Short-term Performance 

Train for the Long-term

The training model is important for its parallels to training athletes, not to game-time performance of athletes. That is to say, that training takes place over decades, while game-time performance is just a short-term metric by which to judge how well an athlete has trained. It might take a few hours to judge game-time performance; it may take a few seconds. Developing Churches, developing Christian practice, developing and cultivating one’s spirituality takes time.  Even in a sport like powerlifting, a frequent expression is “this is a marathon, not a sprint”.

And let us run with patience the race that is set before us (Heb. 12:1).

Injuries, mental lapses, and flagging interest can set an athlete back for what seems like a lengthy duration. However, within the context of a lifetime of training, these occurrences are relatively small hiccups. One should not look to any single moment in the timeline as the moment of performance by which one judges the value or growth of one’s spirituality or a Church’s development. The race is long and requires patience, not snapshot judgments.

I have a tendency in my athletic endeavors and in my Christian life to want to see results faster and make dramatic changes quickly. It is clear that the way Episcopalians in the United States are being Church isn’t working well. I’m convinced that the evidence for this is not in our dwindling numbers, but in the faith that we are cultivating (i.e. the results aren’t found in declining ASA but in long-term dilution of faith). I am one who buys into the language of revolutionary change and quick action w/r/t the Church adapting to a post-Christian world. I am not satisfied with ongoing conversation and little action, especially at the parish level. Most of that dissatisfaction comes from seeing parishes continuing to operate the same way they have during the preceding decades of Christendom. Most of my judging happens when I see a snapshot of who they are, a Sunday Eucharist.

However, I must remind myself that the timeline for revolutionary change in a Church is significantly longer than I might expect or want, and certainly longer than any given Sunday Eucharist. I tend to want to use game-time performance as the metric by which I judge the Church’s response to its current context, rather than how it is training. It is always worth noting that the time scale for change in the Church, even at the local level, is quite long. Radical change is happening, the scale is simply different than that which I attempt to view.

Do not judge Dan Marino on his performance in Super Bowls.

Finally, at some level with athletes, change occurs at such a small level that athletes no longer see it. It will begin to seem that there is no return on their investment of time and energy. It takes either an extraordinarily self-aware athlete to work through this inability to see change at the small scale, or a very good coach. The coach frequently provides the insight necessary to see change over the long-term. That outside input is often the catalyst for new performance. The Church is in need of some very good coaches these days, good coaches for individual Christians and good coaches for the larger institutions.