Bobby Abreu, a great contact hitter with some power, won the annual Home Run Derby last night. Nobody gave him a chance going into the Derby. Sluggers such as Pudge Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Carlos Lee were the favorites. But an exercise such as the Home Run Derby is not about power. With competitors swinging at batting practice pitches, the Home Run Derby is about the most basic element in baseball – making contact. And with a media and culture obsessed with bigger and better and louder and longer, the unsung, unnoticed, underappreciated singles- and doubles-hitting Bobby Abreu put on the greatest show ever at a Home Run Derby (Bobby’s 41 home runs in the Derby significantly outpaced the previous record of 27 home runs).
Perhaps our churches can take a lesson from all this (OK, this is a stretch, I know). We can have all the loud, high-profile, so-called relavent worship and outreach programs ever to attract people to our pews. But the most basic element in the church’s corporate ministry, it seems, is making contact with each other and the divine. If our well-planned music and worship and communications ministries fail to facilitate relationships between people and with God, all the glitz and church marketing budgeting and music expense (be it on classically-trained tenors or on amplifiers and drum sets) is a waste. Like with baseball, it seems the basic element in church is making contact.
The Lutheran Zephyr 