On the Solid Rock: The Rockies and Faith
I was serving as a Village Missionary in Colorado when the Colorado Rockies began as a baseball team. What a great start! Fans filled Coors Field every game. Someone in our church had season tickets and every summer she would give us eight seats behind first base in the club section. Our last summer in Red Feather Lakes I missed my once a summer game because a forest fire started above Red Feather and I had to, as a member of the fire department, go fight it. I’ve always been mad at that camper that laid a long log across his fire ring and then left it! By that time the Rockies were only a shell of what they had been at the start.
We moved in November and the Rockies continued their downhill slide. I would check up on them occassionally but it always seemed like they were in the cellar. But now this year they are in the world series!
So, it was with interest that I read the article in the New York Times on Oct. 23 titled “Rockies Place Their Faith in God, and One Another.” Although many on the team walk with Christ, the main emphasis has been the selection of a team based on character. Could players with character actually help a team? Absolutely! I encourage you to read this article.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Good article, thanks for posting it. By the way, just for the sake of accuracy, the first few years of the Rockies existence they played in the old Mile High Stadium until the completion of Coors Field.
Jim
January 14th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
This is my first visit to your web site and for the most part, I liked what I read–especially your leadership approach to ministry (preach the Word and Love the People).
However, I have made one disturbing observation of the Village Mission activity in my area. Every church which invited a Village Mission pastor very quickly changed it’s historical identity, i.e. Bapitst. I asked a Village Mission pastor about this and he confirmed that removing the name Baptist was one of Village Misson’s objectives. A second objective was to take a softer doctrinal view of the Scriptures for the purpose of attracting more people.
Are these two objectives consistant with Village Mission’s goals and if so, can you justify them biblically?
January 21st, 2008 at 11:47 am
Village Missions believes that we should seek to reach a community for Christ. Although some flexibility exists on our part in renaming a church, in a small community a church name can erect a barrier to reaching people. They are more apt to attend a community church rather than a “Baptist” church, which speaks of an association with a particular denomination. A church can remain “baptistic” without having Baptist in its name.
We do not take a “softer doctrinal view of the Scriptures.” We have a strong statement on the inerrancy of Scripture, as well as other central tenets of Christian doctrine. Please see our Doctrinal Statement at http://www.village-missions.org/about/doctrinal-statement.php. We encourage Village Missionaries to emphasize the major tenets of the Christian faith as listed in our doctrinal statement. We also encourage expositional teaching through books of the Bible as the best way to ground believers in the faith.
Thanks for your comments! Brian Wechsler