The Power of Bubba (and what it means for our church)

I saw a lot of things on Easter Sunday that thrilled me, motivated me, and left me speechless.  Now, a few days removed from it all, I’m beginning to put some words to what I saw.

First, you guys at The Gathering took a special day and kicked it up a notch or two!  As people kept pouring in the doors, I kept thinking about how hungry people are for truth, for something real, and I was humbled that the Lord would trust us with those people.  The team from Park Ridge Christian School opened the morning with an awesome creative dance and then I got to listen to a coffee shop turn into a worship-fest!!

One of the things that I love is the freedom at The Gathering to share with passion and without fear what we sense the Spirit is doing each and every moment, and it was off the charts to experience with each of you how very near God is to all of us, but especially on Sunday to those who are fighting off addictions.  The word of the Lord was clear and true.  YOU ARE FREE and He is with you in EVERY WAY AND EVERY MOMENT!

The teaching was a relief, not because I dreaded it but because I was so full of what God had shown me in Scripture specifically for that day and I was so glad to finally get to share it.  The resurrection of Jesus is, without a doubt, the greatest sign that JESUS IS LORD.  Believing that He is alive is good, but Romans 10:9 says that we’ve got to combine that with yielding our lives to Him as our LORD AND KING.

Angels threw a huge party when one person did just that, followed by a couple dozen who stood to publicly say that they wanted Jesus to rule their lives in every moment as Lord.

It can’t get better, I thought.  I was wrong.

As the afternoon went on, I watched 2 things unfold simultaneously: my Twitter feed showing church numbers from around the region and Bubba Watson marching toward an improbable Masters victory.  As I watched them both, everything came together and I realized something: ordinary Bubbas get to have their day.

Let me explain.  Bubba Watson may be the most unlikely and at the same time the most likable Masters champion ever.  He’s raw, he cries (a lot!), and he seems a bit uncomfortable, appearing unsure how to handle himself in the Butler’s Cabin during the jacket ceremony.  Asked if he ever dreamed of winning what may be the most prestigious tournament in professional golf, he humbly said, “I’m not sure.  I’ve never dreamed this far.”

He was so honest, so real, so unpolished, so vulnerable, so much like how I feel about The Gathering.

Watching Twitter cemented that feeling for me.  I saw unreal numbers of people in attendance at other churches and encouraging reports of how many new brothers and sisters we all have as a result of their services and I started to feel a bit like Bubba in comparison to Tiger.  Smaller, less polished, less prepared for the victory that had come almost unexpectedly because the dream had seemed almost unattainable.  And yet, ordinary Bubbas get to have their day.

You may feel ordinary, unpolished, raw.  Maybe you lead a church of a few and cringe when you read about the victories of the churches of the many.  Maybe you find yourself wishing you could feel more “with it.”  Wishing that your numbers from Easter 2012 were measured in hundreds instead of tens.  Maybe you’re lost in the woods searching for a shot that went way right when you needed it to stay in play.  The lesson we learn from Bubba isn’t what we’ll do in the good times, but in the hard times.  Those are the times that will define us.

And so, we keep our heads down. We play with courage from wherever we find ourselves; sometimes in the fairway, sometimes – often, in the worst possible times – in the woods needing a miracle to emerge victorious.  And in those moments, we swing with confidence that we are not alone and there is One Who loves to breathe His breath into the moments that take away ours.  And when we find ourselves on the green putting for a jacket of the same color, we weep, not because we don’t belong, but exactly because of the opposite: we belong there with everyone else who has stood there before and everyone who will stand there on sunny spring days still to come.

We weep because we realize that victory isn’t so much about standing alone on top of a mountain as much as it is about standing in a circle with others who have won before, too.

Everyone wins, from the polished Tiger to the weeping Bubba.

That, for me, is good news.

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