"Quiet Strength" - Will it make the situation better?

As you now know, I learned a lot from coach Dungy in his book, Quiet Strength. I hope to acquire a copy of his next book, Uncommon very soon.

Another theme from the book that struck me personally was a lesson Tony learned from his dad and tries to follow in his own life. Whenever life was unfair or difficult, and Tony or one of his siblings was tempted to strike back in anger or frustration, his dad would reply, "Will it make the situation better?" As you can imagine, life in the NFL brings many opportunities to express frustration and anger.

Tony writes, "I don't often lose my cool with officials. Whenever I start, I usually hear my dad's voice asking me, "Will it make the situation better?" I've learned that while it may feel good to vent, it's better to listen to my dad's wisdom and rely on quiet strength instead."

I see two key ingredients in this difficult life lesson. First, it deals with the deception of feelings and emotions. Second, it encourages us to think less of ourselves and more of others. Let me expound on these for a minute.

The subject of emotions and feelings is a difficult one for me. I don't show much emotion. Unlike Chandler Bing, I am not dead inside; I feel emotion, but I don't often show them. I don't know if this is good or bad, but I think there must be a balance between epxressing some, but not all, of what I am feeling. Emotions are tricky little buggers because we can and we can't control them. Imagine this scenario: the phone rings and upon answering it, I receive some really bad news. Instantly I feel a random combination of sadness, disappointment, fear, and even anger. Those feelings rush through me and I can't not feel them. (And I believe that anyone who tells me that I can control how I feel is lying to me.) However, I can control what happens next. I might want to punch a wall as an expression of anger or cry as an exprssion of sadness. And at that point, I do have a choice. I can control how I respond to the emotions I am experiencing. I don't have to punch the wall!!! (And I believe that anyone who tells me that I can't control my reponses is really just deceiving themselves and excusing their own bad behavior.)

The tricky business of emotions is that the feeling of negative emotions is almost always followed by the temptation to respond in a bad way. Then I naturally assume that that since I can't control my feelings, I also can't control my reponse to these feeelings. However, as coach Dungy shares here- YES, I CAN CONTROL MY RESPONSE TO THE EMOTIONS I AM EXPERIENCING! (I wrote that in all caps for myself- not to preach to you)

The insight I gained from this lesson is that our normal response to difficult situations is to please ourselves. When I feel sad, I want to cry so that I feel better. When I am happy, it just feels good to smile. These examples are not bad, but let's be honest: these are self-pleasing actions. When I feel angry with someone- I am tempted to scream and yell back at them- but I am really doing it to make myself feel better. Coach Dungy's father encouraged him to step back, think less of himself, and look at the situation. Rather than exchanging tit for tat, jab for jab, and hurt for hurt (and essentially make the situation worse), Wil Dungy enouraged his children to forego their own need for relief and respond in a way to heal the relationship or at least push the situation in a better direction.

Wow- another life lesson for me. When I am in a difficult situation, experiencing some negative emotions, and feeling like adding to the negativity, the challenge is to stop and ask myself, "What can I do to make the situation better?"

So here we go. Maybe sometime I post an update of how that is going.

The Pastor/Coach- "Do What We Do"

For Christmas, I received, a copy of "Quiet Strength," a memoir written by Tony Dungy, former head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. I liked the title, for I am also pretty quiet, and I liked the author- for whom I have a lot of respect. And in my quest to understand my job as pastor/coach, I thought I might learn something from coach Dungy.


One of the themes repeated in the book is Tony's mantra, "Do what we do!" When the Bucaneers were playing a championship-caliber team, he would encourage his guys to play their game, just as they had practiced, and "do what we do." Whether winning or losing, he encouraged them to "do what we do!" When the team lost, he showed them how they failed to "do what they do."


Dungy built the team with a few founding principles. First, they would play "no frills" football, doing ordinary tasks with extraordinary skill and consistency, rather than rely on big plays and superstar players. Second, they would build the team for long-term growth by making the most of their draft picks, picking up players who would work well within their offensive and defensive schemes, rather than trade for veterans who had played under other systems.


When Dungy and his team lost the NFC championship game in 1999 to the Rams, the Bucs owners made a few personnel changes. Tony was forced to fire Mike Shula, his offensive coordinator, even though he strongly objected. Tony felt like Mike had done an outstanding job of building a strong offense. Mike and Tony shared the same coaching philosophy. When Dungy let Mike go, he felt like he was breaking his philosophy and founding principles that had guided their team's growth. Reflecting back, he writes that letting Shula go was the decision he regrets the most in his coaching career.


Then the general manager acquired Keyshawn Johnson from the Jets in exchange for two first-round draft picks. Another major break from Dungy's founding principles. He writes on page 174, "But I believed we were moving away from some core beliefs as an organization by looking for the quick fix." In other words, the management team was failing to "do what we do."


The mantra, "do what we do" struck a chord with me. I am so often tempted to take shortcuts to make easy fixes. Probably because I am such a people-pleaser, I sometimes let the people around me push me into not "doing what we do."


One of the foundations for our church, which was put in place long before I became pastor, what that we wanted to create a casual and relaxed environment for worship. I played guitar for the worship team and would often refill my coffee before sitting down to listen to the pastor's message. I loved it! Another foundation for our church was that people take priority over programs and buildings. Buildings serve ministries and ministries serve people, and it is NEVER to be the other way around. Those principles were challenged in August of 2001 when we moved from leased space into our current facility. We also purchased brand new chairs to replace the stained and flimsy folding chairs we had used for years. At some point a decision was made to put the coffee and refreshments table in the lobby, accompanied by a sign asking people to keep all food outside of the sanctuary. The real reason? We wanted to keep our new chairs clean. We strayed from our philosophy of creating a casual and relaxed environment for worship. And we paid for it. This opened the door for other decisions to restrict and control the environment for worship.

After you have been around New Vision Church for a while, you probably begin to feel like I often repeat myself. Things like, "faith is personal, but it is not private." That is a foundation that affects our outreach and our personal growth. So I constanly encourage our folks to invite their friends. I constantly invite and encourage our members to join a LIFE group. I constantly remind our people to get to know their neighbors. I often say something like, "this is going to take all of us," and then proceed to invite our members to give of their time to some good cause. Why do I repeat myself? These are the things we do, and we need to constantly remember to "do what we do." When we introduce ourselves to visitors and new people and work to remember their names next time we see them, we are "doing what we do."

Coach Dungy tells his readers that it is okay to change our methods when they don't work, but we have to be careful when we tinker with our basic foundational principles. So if I come across as stubborn and unwilling to change in some area, it is probably because I believe we are dealing with a foundational principle that should not change, but merely needs to be executed better.

Let's "do what we do!"