All-Around Players (Friday Devotional)

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of powerful deeds, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

- 1 Corinthians 12:7-10

In 1974, Oakland Athletics owner Charles O. Finley signed Herb Washington to his first major league contract. The signing raised eyebrows around the league for a simple reason: Washington hadn’t played baseball since his junior year of high school.

You see, Finley had a hunch that it might be worth a roster spot to invent a new position, a “designated runner.” Such a player would rarely take at-bats or play defense, but would replace slower runners on the basepaths in key spots. Washington, a world-class sprinter who’d narrowly missed the 1972 Olympic track and field team, was the perfect fit—even if he wasn’t, strictly speaking, a baseball player.

Upon signing his designated runner, Finley predicted he would be “personally responsible for winning ten games this year.” But while Washington—whose Topps baseball card simply listed his position as “pinch runner,” the only player in the company’s history with that distinction—stole 31 bases and scored 33 times, the experiment was widely considered a dud by 1975. “Finley’s Folly,” as it was labelled, came down to one central issue: to be successful, you have to do more than one thing well.

Churches operate under the same principle—while every congregation is going to be better at some things than others, they can’t give 100% of their energy and focus to one area of ministry to the exclusion of all others. A healthy church can’t exist solely to worship but willfully neglect service to the community, any more than it can have a vibrant teaching ministry for adults but ignore children’s discipleship.

That’s because God gifts his children differently, empowering each of us for different works of the Spirit. The idea is not for all of us to be uniform in our giftings, but instead united in our diversity. Put us all together and you have a whole mess of strengths and weaknesses, bound together not by shared methodology but by shared love for the Lord.

Ask yourself, what gifts has the Spirit given you? How are you using them to glorify God and serve others? Don’t let your spiritual gifts go to waste—the church needs to do more than one thing at a time, and it needs you to make that happen!