Church Ministry and Wrestling: A Sport to Advocate<\/p>\n
Basketball is the sport of pussies.\u00a0 My dad is an exception; limited opportunities.\u00a0 He grew up on Paterson, New Jersey and there were no wrestling programs in his neighborhood.\u00a0 So, he did what he had to do.\u00a0 He played basketball, was the class president, and went off to the United States Naval Academy and played basketball there as necessary. \u00a0But, generally speaking, and compared to the contemporaneously occurring wrestling competition available to the athlete who is pursuing excellence in moral and physical development, \u00a0basketball is for pussies.<\/p>\n
It is for people who flail about throwing a rubber ball to the floor or to other players who spring about here and there, back and forth, like confused or indecisive cats running wild inside a cage.\u00a0 When the event is concluded, all recede from the cage and depart as members of either the winner- or the loser-team.\u00a0 Blame for the “loss” or credit for the “win” may be shared by all members of either the winner or looser side.\u00a0 Each member of the loser team may well assign blame to others or even the whole of his team.\u00a0 He need not accept full responsibility for a loss.\u00a0 He is not truly humbled by defeat as one ought to be humbled.<\/p>\n
Now the writers of Scripture were not ignorant of the sports and competitions to which humans have always been drawn down through the ages. And they used such sports as track and wrestling to illustrate the competitive and strenuous exertions which attend Christian discipleship and character formation.\u00a0 These strains of mind and body are portrayed in expressions like “running the race” of the Christian life and “fighting the good fight” and “wrestling against” spiritual powers and the contrary desires of sinful human nature.<\/p>\n
It may well serve to note that the cultivation of other virtues is better achieved exclusively by the sport of wrestling.\u00a0 First is personal responsibility:\u00a0 the singular person is responsible for his performance, victory, and defeat.\u00a0 He can blame no teammates for his personal loss of a match.\u00a0 The responsibility, the glory, the shame are all his to own. \u00a0(Agreed, there are also personal events in track and field, but these are not one-on-one events.\u00a0 The losers are plural; there is no singular loser as there is in a wrestling match.)<\/p>\n
Second is the personal discipline of self control, particularly with regard to diet.\u00a0\u00a0 The wrestler practices restraint of his appetite.\u00a0 He learns to fast, to deny himself.\u00a0 This is a discipline lost among many 21st century American Christians who are rich with food and excess body weight.<\/p>\n
Third is humility.\u00a0 It is related to responsibility.\u00a0 The wrestler will experience personal defeat by another, who in that moment is declared a superior.\u00a0 He will be humbled and bow before someone who has overpowered him quite personally.\u00a0 He learns to avoid blame shifting and, rather, to assume responsibility for his performance.\u00a0 He can blame no team for his solitary role in a personal fight.<\/p>\n
Another quality of the training undergone by the wrestler beyond the realm of character is the development is combat skills which serves him in his role as protector of his family.\u00a0 He is responsible to provide for the physical well-being (including protection) of his family.<\/p>\n
Now when a church has within its power and interest and leisure to actually take time, space, and effort to choose a sport to promote and to which devote its resources, which sport ought it to be?\u00a0 Which sport is best to select?<\/p>\n
Right.\u00a0 Not basketball.<\/p>\n
So here is our conclusion:<\/p>\n
Baseball is for boys.
\nBasketball is for girls.
\nFootball is for big boys.
\nTrack is for boys and girls, women and men.<\/p>\n
But, wrestling.<\/p>\n
Ah, wrestling<\/em>, is for men!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Church Ministry and Wrestling: A Sport to Advocate Basketball is the sport of pussies.\u00a0 My dad is an exception; limited opportunities.\u00a0 He grew up on Paterson, New Jersey and there were no wrestling programs in his neighborhood.\u00a0 So, he did what he had to do.\u00a0 He played basketball, was the class president, and went off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character-or-not","category-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2362"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2646,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362\/revisions\/2646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}