Most Valuable Player

Sometime ago, I read the old African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Like any good quote it finds a way into the mind and latches hold. Not simply because of the structure, making it memorable but also the truth contained in the lines.

As someone who often wants to go fast, it’s a reminder to me, that big dreams require teams to achieve them.

If you’ll allow a football analogy, I’ll explain a bit further.

Every great coach in the world knows that a strong team trumps individual talent every time. I imagine that Bill Belichick, the coach of the New England Patriots, reminded his guys in the locker room of that before the big game this past Sunday. No matter how talented you are, we will not win the Super Bowl if we don’t play like a team.

And then at the end of the game, most coaches shoot the pregame message in the foot. Why? Because they hand out a game ball to the most valuable player. They recognize in the locker room, one individual who was the linchpin for success. I imagine you don’t have to get many “game balls,” before your head starts to swell with pride and before other players on the “team” become jealous of you.

My point is this, if we want to go far at Unity UMC, we have to go together as a team. This is why Paul says in Romans 12:12, “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.” We are a church made up of a variety of people with different gifts and abilities, but we all have something to offer to the team -- and her mission to make disciples of Jesus. May we learn to be an even better team.