Winning the Battle for a Generation by: Pastor Rick Jones
There have been times in my ministry when I’ve had to take inventory: what is ministry about, what does it mean to “take care of business” when it comes to fulfilling ministry obligations? There has always been and probably always will be those who would attempt to get us off our game, to focus on things that are not eternal or that are not part of the scriptural priorities of one in ministry. What do we do when we’re struggling with fulfilling ministry? We go back to the basics. Take for example a similar lesson in the lives of two great NFL quarterbacks and brothers, Peyton and Eli Manning, who also have had to come to terms with what makes a great quarterback, “getting back to the basics.”
Peyton Manning will retire with the best quarterback statistics in the history of the NFL. His younger brother Eli is also an elite NFL quarterback. Yet, both brothers have quietly spent the past few off-seasons going back to their old coach—Coach Cut—and allowing him to deconstruct them and take them back to their most basic quarterback fundamentals.
Coach Cut (David Cutcliffe) was Peyton’s quarterback coach at the University of Tennessee. They’ve stayed tight. “He’s always been my coach,” Peyton said in a recent interview. When Coach Cut started coaching for the University of Mississippi, Eli took notice and signed on to play there.
Peyton Manning was released by the Indianapolis Colts in 2012, when a serious neck injury left them believing his career was over. Enter Coach Cut. After watching tape of Peyton’s throwing sessions, Coach Cut told him, “Your mechanics are all wrong, you’re going to blow out your arm.” Cutcliffe then spent the next two years reconstructing Peyton the quarterback by taking him unceremoniously back to the basics. Eli Manning had a rough season in 2013, and similarly has allowed Coach Cut to carve him up and help rebuild him.
Why would these two premiere athletes allow their old coach to tear apart their technique and reconstruct their game? Because both Peyton and Eli know that a return to the “basics” isn’t a sign of failure. It’s actually the path to true success.
What are the basics to those called into ministry? Is it about being liked, being known for our social and personality skills? The Apostle Paul reminds his young protégé, Timothy, that ministry is first and foremost about one thing, to preach the gospel, in and out of season. 2 Timothy 4:2-5 (NKJV), “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
Pastor Rick Jones previously served on the staff of Defiance Area Youth for Christ for 36 years, first as a ministry coordinator and later as Executive Director. Rick is currently a pastor of an area local church.
