How Long Until Drew Brees is Sidelined?

Mike Leake

Since 2001 those on the cover of Madden games have been under a curse. 

  • 2001 Eddie George—horrible season, never returned to his Super Bowl form
  • 2002 Daunte Culpepper—horrible season, blows out both knees never the same
  • 2003 Marshall Faulk—injured ankle, Faulk never again rushed for over 1,000 yards
  • 2004 Michael Vick—fractured fibula one day after release, then that whole dog thing
  • 2005 Ray Lewis—poor season, injured the next, but returned to form
  • 2006 Donovan McNabb—injury plagued season w/sports hernia, missed final 7 games
  • 2007 Shaun Alexander—broke his foot, never the same
  • 2008 Vince Young—first time in his career injured, spiraled out of control
  • 2009 Brett Favre—continues to retire and unretire (chalk it up to brain contusions)
  • 2010 Troy Polamalu/Larry Fitzgerald—Fitzgerald may have broken the curse, but Polamalu missed most of the season with injury

This leads us to our original question.  How long until the jinx strikes Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees?  My prediction he breaks his coccyx in week 7 against the Browns. 

Underwear and Tubesocks

Mike Leake 1 Comment

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,  -Eph. 4:11-12

According to the Bible pastors (among the other office mentioned) are gifts to the church.  But I think that most pastors are probably more like underpants and tube socks to a 7 year old boy rather than a shiny new bicycle.  They are necessary but not all that shiny. 

Monday’s Ministry Musing: Video Teaching?

Mike Leake

If you attend a traditional church there is a pretty decent chance that at least on of your current Sunday school classes is using a video curriculum of some sort.  I know that smaller churches especially use these quite frequently.  I also understand why churches use these.  Who wouldn’t want to have Louie Giglio teaching your pupils instead of Joe the trucker with no theological training? 

In my past life as a youth pastor I received numerous pleas from companies to try their product for our teaching time.  I never did because one of my great passions is preaching and teaching.  However, I am now an associate pastor and my responsibility in some areas is less “hands-on”.  Rather than teaching myself I am responsible for filling certain areas with people to teach.

Yet, I still would rather have Joe the trucker teaching instead of pre-packaged teaching from some of the best teachers in the world.  Why? 

First of all, God has placed Joe the trucker in our local church and not Louie Giglio.  Therefore, assuming that Joe the trucker has a passion and a certain giftedness for teaching, he is meant to fill that teaching role even if he is less polished. 

Secondly, my job as a pastor is to train the people in our local church for the works of ministry.  I am not certain that I am faithfully doing that if I pop in a video rather than spending the hard work of training an unpolished trucker how to teach the Bible.

There are also other practical reasons that I prefer not to use pre-packaged videos.  And I am not saying that in every instance using videos is wrong for a teaching session.  They can be very helpful if used in moderation and accompanied with more personal teaching.  But as for me I prefer training instead of polished. 

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P.S. I really love the Louie Giglio videos and have used them on occasion myself.  I used the passion teaching series simply as an example.  In my opinion those are actually a great resource to use to compliment the regular teaching of an unpolished Joe the trucker.

Concerns with House Church

Mike Leake 3 Comments

Aaron Menikoff has voiced some of my concerns with the house church movement. 

My desire is that these house churches be, in fact, churches. Whether the pastor is seminary-educated is not the point. Is the “church” led by a man or men who meet the biblical qualifications of an elder? Is the Word of God clearly taught week in and week out? Are the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper regularly celebrated? Is there a careful accounting of who is “in” the church by virtue of repentance and faith and who is “outside” the church by virtue of unbelief.

If you do comment, I encourage you not to necessarily comment on the “led by a man” section.  If this is a discussion I would prefer this to be about the ecclessiology itself and not the gender debates.