I recently read When Pride Still Mattered by David Maraniss, which is considered to be the definitive biography of legendary football coach Vince Lombardi.
If case you’ve never heard of him, Lombardi was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1959-1967. When he took over the team was struggling, having suffered multiple losing seasons. But under his leadership, the Packers became a dominant force in the NFL, winning championships in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 1967. Then, later on in 1967, when the NFL hosted its first Super Bowl, the Packers won that too. And they did the same the following year. In 1971 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, cementing his legacy as one of the greatest coaches in NFL history.
Now before I get to the negative, let me first state some positives. Here’s what I liked about Lombardi…
- He understood the power and necessity of repetition. Repetition was at the core of his coaching philosophy. Doing the same thing over and over again – whether a play or calisthenic – he believed would make his boys fearless and instinctive. As someone who next week will share the Church Policy manual for the millionth time, I appreciated his understanding of how important repetition is.
- He had a good dose of common sense. He wanted his team to be better than others teams so he learned what other teams did for conditioning and told his team they were going to surpass that. I love that! What good common sense! I once read how the average CEO reads 12 books a year. As soon as I read that I said to myself “I don’t want to be average so I’m going to read more.” This is just common sense stuff, but as my mother frequently said growing up “Common sense, unfortunately, isn’t that common.”
- He was innovative. When he started coaching in the NFL there was a culture of strictly adhering to a pre-drawn play. No matter what happened on the field, players were to run the play. Well, Lombardi came along, introducing his “run to daylight” philosophy, that emphasized the idea that a running back should not just follow a predetermined path or rigidly stick to a specific hole that the play design suggested. Instead, “run to daylight” meant that the runner should instinctively adjust and head toward open space – the “daylight” – where there is the best opportunity to advance the ball. And this innovation revolutionized football. So I love how he wasn’t looking to follow pre-determined rules. I love how he looked around and asked “What makes sense to do?” And then he did it. That’s great!
- He understood the power of focus. When he took over the coach’s playbook went from 4″ thick to 1.5″ thick. Last week we talked about the power of focus, and I told you how before McDonald’s exploded they cut 2/3rds of their menu. Well, likewise, Lombardi cut the playbook by 62.5% so that they could do a few things well vs a lot of things poorly.
- He was punctual. He expected his team to be on time, which meant arriving 10 minutes early. Meetings would start at 9am, not five after nine. And do I even need to explain why I love this?? 🙂
So clearly, he had a lot going for him. However, his obsession with winning led to an unhealthy balance in other important areas of his life, particularly when it came to his family. Lombardi was an amazing coach, but was a terrible husband and father. Maraniss (the author of the book) has it that he was an absentee husband and father (both physically and emotionally). He was at work at 8am each morning and stayed at work until late into the night. He was forever on road trips with the team, or out recruiting prospective players in various states. On the rare occasion he did spend an evening at home, it often seemed to his family that he wasn’t there – especially during Spring drills, Fall practice or the regular season (which took up half of each year). The dining room was his extra office, where he would diagram plays and plan what he would tell his troops the next day (all while ignoring his family). As a result, he was way closer to his players than his wife or kids, with his wife coming to view the game of football as a temptress that lured her husband away from her.
So he was a success at work, and a failure at home, or as I prefer to put it a successful failure.
Now I chose to talk on this because like Lombardi, at New Day, we unapologetically want to win. But unlike Lombardi, we should never sacrifice family on the altar of ministry, as so many have done. In a 2011 interview with Christianity Today Billy Graham stated that if he could do it over, he would have spent more time with his family, which is so sad. Jesus once asked “…what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36 ESV) And we likewise, might ask “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his family?” What we need to understand is that ministry is unique. In the NFL you can be a success at work while being a failure at home. But in ministry, it’s being a success at home that qualifies you to lead Christ’s church. All this to say: In our efforts to reach the world, let’s not fail to reach our family. It’s God, family, work – not God, work, family.
DISCUSSION QUESTION: Even though ministry is very demanding, how can we prioritize family over work?
NOTES FROM STAFF DISCUSSION
We have to set boundaries. For example…
- Don’t take calls in the car if you’re with your family
- Capitalize on the opportunity the Sabbath provides for family time
- Adjust your schedule to maximize time with your family
- Make sure we’re home (with our family) in the evenings more than we’re out (for ministry purposes)
- Don’t work at home
- Put family time on your calendar to reflect its importance and so you can honestly tell others demanding your time that you’re unavailable
- Give yourself permission to say “no” or “not now” to requests that come outside normal work hours
We have to prioritize time for recruiting volunteers so that they can help carry the load, preventing work from spilling over into family time.