I like running.
I like college ruled notebooks. Wide ruled are for lazy people who don’t know how to respect a margin.
But you know what I like more than all of those things put together?
Professional athletes who quit sports and become pastors.
Is there anything better than that? I was reminded of this a few days ago when Glen Coffee, a 23-year-old running back, quit the 49ers. Here is what he said:
“It was a struggle for a long time. Actually when I look back I feel I never should have entered the draft in the first place. Football was no longer my dream. I found Christ in college. It changed my views on everything. But I still was a football player because it was expected of me, it was something I did all my life. I was basically wasting the (49ers’) time.”
Wow, that is wild, isn’t? The NFL is the dream for so many people. It is the light at the end of a difficult tunnel, the finish line to a hope that often starts as early as Pop Warner football. And this guy and several others have walked away from it.
But every time I hear about something like this, I have the following questions:
1. If you quit a professional sport and become a minister, can you still play in the church softball league and just crush it like your name is Gary V non-stop?
2. If you quit the NFL and become a minister, do you ever want to go Terry Tate in the office and tackle an elder who is giving you static?
3. Is it hard to give up all that money? My dad is a pastor and I am almost positive he didn’t make a few million dollars each year or have a bonus structure for each person he baptized.
4. If you quit the NFL, do you have to, by Christian law, make the greatest exercise Bible verse your “life verse?” You know, Philippians 4:13, the weightlifting verse, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
5. It’s it comforting or distracting if I bring one of those giant foam fingers to the first sermon you preach?
6. Do you ever talk with Mase, the former rapper and protégé of Diddy? Puff Daddy, Sean John, Sean Puffy Combs, Bartholomew Winston III? He quit rap when he was at the top and became a minister.
7. Is it true that if you had a blinged out grill there’s enough gold in it that you could melt it down and mold it into an offering basket?
8. Do people ever tell you, “You were a light in a dark spot like the NFL. You should have stayed instead of quitting!” And if so, do you ever sleeper hold these people?
It’s doubtful that Glen Coffee will answer these questions for me and I don’t know if he ever even had a grill. A lot of unanswered questions. One thing I do know though is that in addition to making you say uhh, Master P could probably outfit a megachurch with grill wrought offering baskets.
Dare to dream Jon Acuff, dare to dream.
