1 Out of the Driveway and Into the Game Protecting and Developing a Comprehensive Biblical Worldview in Christian Youth Michael Burns August, 2006 All Rights Reserved 2 Table of Contents Introduction . 3 From Goo-to-Zoo-to-You? . 12 180 Days at the Temple . .31 Planting Your Feet in Mid-Air . 58 Putting on the Right Glasses . 76 Sloppy Agape . .103 Every High Hill and Spreading Tree . .122 Rare Jewel . .134 Loving Thing Air . .155 Mind Control . .169 Coming With the Clouds . .182 Conclusion . 204 3 Introduction – Out of the Driveway, Into the Game Crash and burn; you’ll rarely see that phrase used in a positive manner in our society. No decent person likes to watch someone else crash and burn, especially a kid. Yet, I found myself in a position for eight years where I had to do just that. I knew it was coming every year and it was never pleasant. Nor did I ever really get used to it or hardened by it. So, what was the position? It was that of a high school basketball coach at an inner city high school. Every year in the early fall, we began the process of forming that season’s basketball team. This was always a time of big dreams, high expectations, and big talk. Usually the biggest talk came from the new young players or the new kids who had transferred to our school. As the process began, we would spend two weeks trying to get the kids to quit. We would run them more than most of them had ever run in their life. It was always fun to watch the returning players as they observed the code of silence on the first day of conditioning. They refused to tell the new players what we were about to do, but you could see the twinkle in their eyes. They knew what these new young bucks were in for. We took them to a very high and steep hill and had them run up and down the hill twenty-five times, and that was just on the first day. It got worse as the conditioning period went along. Some quit, most didn’t. Most of these new players were buoyed by the belief that they would be the next big star of the team. Once the actual tryout and practice period began, shooting, dribbling and defensive drills were the order of the day. For a solid week we would run certain drills looking for good form and the hard workers. This is where an interesting phenomenon developed almost every single year. There were always several new players who would begin to shine during this time, but quite often, one of those players would look especially good. I am drawn to think of one year in particular and a player that we will call Nazir. Nazir was a kid who spent his early years living in a very rough environment in the inner- city, passed from family member to family member. He had also spent time in foster care. The one person he had spent very little time with was his mother, and he didn’t even know his father. Then, at the age of ten, he moved to much nicer and quiet neighborhood with his grandmother. He began to struggle academically in his suburban schools and he missed the inner-city. He had lost any street credibility and wanted to get it back. So, he convinced his grandmother to send him to our school. Once here, he was going to be the next great player at our school. As the drills began, Nazir looked incredible. His form was flawless, his concentration was impeccable. He was determined too. During conditioning, one of his shoes broke but rather than 4 quitting, he took both shoes off and actually ran the hill another ten or twelve times in his socks. As the week wore on we were extremely impressed by this kid. When we began to participate in light scrimmage-like drills he looked even more impressive. He learned the offense quickly and could shoot like a budding star that he was sure he was. Even the older players were impressed and began to accept him as one of their own, which was very unusual that early in the process of forming a team. At the end of practice on the second day of the week I told the team that the next day we would be having our first full-speed scrimmage. After practice, Nazir was extremely excited. This would be his chance to finally show off his entire game. It would be his time. We had a brief conversation, however, that began to deflate the balloon of high hopes that I was inflating about him. I asked him where he had played ball before this. He informed me that he had never really played in a league before this. There are no middle school sports in our town so that is not that unusual. What was unusual, though, was when I asked him what park he played at. He told me that his grandmother had not wanted him to go to any parks, especially not back in the inner- city. “Well, where did you play,” I asked him. This is when the vase fell off the shelf. He informed me that he had learned to play by shooting in his driveway. He spent hours every day shooting and dribbling next to his house, in the driveway, by himself. At those words, I wished him luck the next day, but in my heart I knew what was coming: crash and burn. The scrimmage began and it went exactly as I had feared it would for Nazir. One of our senior guards, who wasn’t quite ready to step aside for this new, young, hotshot, arranged it so he could guard Nazir in the scrimmage. Everyone on Nazir’s team was confident, knowing how good he was. They knew all they had to do was get him the ball and he would carry them to victory. On the first play on his end, Nazir ran the offensive play beautifully, caught the ball and sent up a shot. This shot was different from his many other shots during the first week-and-a-half of practice. Rather than the perfect, eye-catching masterpieces he had been launching, this shot looked more like an injured Canadian goose trying desperately to keep up with the other birds. The shot didn’t even hit the rim; it unceremoniously banged off the bottom corner of the backboard. The senior defender smiled because he now knew what I had feared. Nazir was a driveway player. The remainder of the practice season went for Nazir as it does for most of the players of this sort. He continued to fail in scrimmages and his confidence plummeted, despite our best efforts to encourage him. We put him on the team, hoping that his great potential might be realized at some point, but he never recovered. He limped through the season without ever making a contribution to the team and quit the team over the summer. 5 Nazir discovered what so many other hopeful young men had. Shooting in a driveway or a gym all by themselves is of some value, but it is of almost no value if they never learn how to play in real situations. Hitting a shot is one thing. Hitting it when you’re tired, sweaty, and have a determined defender hanging all over you is quite another thing. Nazir was completely ineffective when the real heat came. He looked great in the driveway, but he simply could not handle what a seasoned, gritty defender was going to do to him. It interrupted his flow, broke his concentration, and stifled everything he wanted to do. He simply didn’t know how to respond. Players that looked far inferior to Nazir passed him by in his scrimmages because they were calm and collected under the fire of a real game. Anyone can make basket after basket when they are by themselves in a driveway (My sincerest apologies to those who have tried and cannot yet master the fine art of putting the ball in the hoop), not everyone can do it when the pressure is on and the opponent is attacking. So, what is the point of all of this? Simply this: this same phenomenon happens to teenagers every day on a spiritual level. There is a disturbing phenomenon that is far too common in the Christian world. Teenagers who were raised in a Christian home and seemingly begin to walk with Christ as His disciple, crash and burn right before the very eyes of their parents, youth workers, and spiritual family. How could this happen? Why does this happen so often? Kids who seem so spiritually mature and sound crash and burn during the test of the high school years and by college have completely walked away from their faith in Christ. Is this just a normal phase of growing up or is this a problem that can be fixed? I am convinced that this all-too-common phenomenon is not just part of being a teen. It is a result of a well-thought-out plan of attack by Satan. Satan is a formidable adversary, yet he has already been defeated Christ. Anything Satan can throw at us, no matter how fierce it may be, can be overcome by following biblical principles. What happened to Nazir is very similar to what far too many parents have done unwittingly to their children in the spiritual realm.