Relational Life - baseball or soccer style?

When it comes to being involved with significant relationships in our lives, we tend to live one of two ways. I call it the baseball vs. soccer analogy. I get these metaphors from my wife, who hates one sport and enjoys the other. I’ve played both of them as well, so my reflection is a combination of my own playing years as well as watching and rooting from the stands.

In baseball, the game is usually played with long periods of inactivity, followed by brief periods of intense action. This can even apply to the players. I remember spending long innings out in right and center field, not ever getting the ball or being involved in a play. You weren’t allowed to sit down, of course, because the coach would yell at you to get up. But you were stuck with inaction until the 3rd out was recorded.

In soccer, the game was played radically different. In soccer, the goal was continual flow. Very few stoppages of play were called, and even when the ball went out of bounds, it was a brief moment till it came back in and play resumed. The only true breaks in the action came at half-time and at the end.

So there’s the difference.

Baseball: a few minutes of intense action surrounded by long periods of inaction Soccer: a few moments of rest surrounded by continual flowing action

When it comes to our view of the relational life, which of these better describe how much we are truly relating to people around us? Are we going at it baseball style – a few brief interactions followed by long periods of isolation? Or are we going at it soccer style – long periods of relational activity followed by periods of personal rest?

We as a church must also be very careful in what we are perpetuating. Hosting programs and classes at the church, while good stuff, can leave the impression for followers of Christ that the Christian life is an acquisition of information and attendance of events. When in reality, the goal of all of our instruction is to equip you for a life of relational loving and engaging with others in a redeemed and transformed way.