This summer marks my thirtieth year in a ministry role with the United Methodist Church. I started working as a lay staff person at my home church, St. Luke’s UMC in Memphis, in the summer of 1994. I entered seminary in 1997, was commissioned as clergy in 2000, and ordained an Elder in the legacy Memphis Conference in 2004. Some might consider me a “second career” pastor, though just barely. My first “career” only lasted four years.

I love sports but was always a frustrated athlete, never good enough to make the team beyond church league basketball or softball. I also enjoy creative expression and sharing a good story. Thus, coming out of high school I combined the two, earned a communications degree in college, and embarked on what would be a four-year experience in the minor leagues of sports media at a small market TV station, WBBJ in Jackson, TN.

As you might expect, high school sports are a life blood source for stories and interest in small towns. In the early nineties, there were very few high school coaches more successful than John Wade Tucker at Milan High. When he retired in 1997, he was the all-time winningest coach in the history of high school football in the state of Tennessee.

Coach Tucker was built like a fire hydrant, short and stocky with crew cut hair. He was great to interview but really didn’t seem to enjoy it. You could tell he tolerated the media only because he wanted to promote his players and the school. His responses were always short, but had substance. As part of a preseason story about some of the local teams expected to be successful this season, I called Coach Tucker to schedule an interview. He said in his gruff, brief response, “Come to practice tomorrow, but it will need to be quick.”

The next day, I made the drive from Jackson to Milan, in neighboring Gibson County. I remember getting the camera set up on the edge of the practice field and waiting about 15 minutes in the hot August sun. When the team took a break, he hustled over to my position and said, “You got five minutes.” I framed him in the camera shot, started rolling tape, and held the microphone in front of him. My first question was something standard, such as “Your team had a great season last year and won a playoff game. How much potential do the Bulldogs have to meet or exceed those expectations this season?”

Coach Tucker replied with a grunt, “Huh, well potential don’t mean much…just means you might do somethin’, but you ain’t done nothin’ yet. If we give a strong effort and do what we’re supposed to do in practice and in the game, something good can come from it.

Recently I walked through two sets of arches on the campus of the Scarritt Bennett Center, across from our new office in the Denman building. Engraved over one arch is, “Expect Great Things From God”. Over the other arch it reads, “Attempt Great Things For God”.

God sees great potential in our lives, but only if our hearts and minds are open to Christ and the movement of the Holy Spirit. I don’t know what kind of coach Jesus would make, but if he were asked about the potential for divine success for one of the disciples, or even for a local church, I believe Coach Christ might say something like, “I expect great things. But great things will only happen through faithful attempts.”

Coach Tucker didn’t measure potential just by winning and losing. He saw expectations and the potential for success becoming reality through effort, both in practice and in the game. People of faith often view how they act or what they do at church as the game itself. But church is practice for developing ways to offer the love of Christ to a hurting world, one person, one church, one community at a time…all while following the commandments and example of our One God. We cannot claim to be winners if there are people around us who still suffer, who are lost, who feel unloved.

Only when we have made a faithful attempt to live and share the love God has poured into us, can we claim a victory. God knows our potential and expects great things, but only if we are willing to exercise faithful attempts in the game of life.

We are past the halfway point in 2024. What a year it has been thus far…and the months ahead will be, shall we say, interesting! But the team of the Foundation and Development Fund will not be distracted nor discouraged! We are working to meet our potential in achieving the great things God, and all of you, expect of us.

May we all do what we have been called by God to do and be faithful in our attempts both in practice and in the game…for something good can come from it!