Home run. Long ball. Dinger. Moonshot. Bomb. Going yard.

For baseball lovers, the home run in one of the most exciting feats in America’s pastime. My family loves baseball, and our hometown team is the Texas Rangers. Every time a Rangers player crushes a towering shot over the outfield wall, fireworks erupt above the scoreboard and speakers blare the theme from the classic baseball film, “The Natural.”

Everyone loves the home run. It can give a team the added boost they need and turn the momentum of a game around completely. 

Some teams live and die by the long ball, as they say. Their lineups are loaded with players who either hit it out of the ballpark or strike out. While this strategy certainly provides entertainment and a few of these teams have experienced periods of success, most clubs would prefer players who maintain a high batting average, consistently hitting singles and doubles, because this ultimately generates more runs in a game and more wins during the season.

There’s nothing really exciting about hitting singles, but a steady string of them can prove more powerful than a home run. In more recent years, teams have executed this style of play—called “small ball”—with great success. This was clearly seen with the last season’s Kansas City Royals.

We live in a culture that thrives on fireworks, huge changes, big plays and momentous occasions. We like to be entertained. Major League Baseball’s All-Star Weekend features a Home Run Derby, not a Batting Average Derby. 

Often, I’ve heard people refer to sermons with baseball language. Church members remark that their pastor hit a “home run” on Sunday. Pastors languish over the fact that a sermon didn’t live up to their expectations, and they feel like they’ve struck out.

One of the best pieces of ministry advice I’ve received has been to focus on hitting singles and doubles rather than home runs. Just like baseball experts would say, if you try to hit a home run every time at the plate, you’ll usually strike out, but if you focus on putting the ball in play, you’ll actually increase your chances of hitting one over the wall. It’s more about patience than power. 

Long-term, consistently biblical preaching will better produce healthier disciples and churches. In this way, fruitfulness becomes a byproduct of faithfulness, not flashiness.

This advice reduces the weekly stress of producing buzz-worthy sermons with tweetable lines and humorous illustrations. It encourages pastors to prioritize explaining and applying the text of Scripture. Pastors begin to realize it’s more important to feed the sheep than to wow them with your wit. Church members leave each week with a better understanding of God and what it looks like to follow him. These singles and doubles help “advance the runners” toward spiritual maturity.

This not only applies to preaching but also to a myriad of other avenues of the Christian life. In the church, do we judge the value of our worship services by whether the Lord “moved powerfully and visibly” or whether the gospel was faithfully preached and Christ was exalted and worshipped? Are we more excited about a great week of VBS or youth camp than we are at the consistent disciple-making of children and teenagers? 

Certainly we pray for visible demonstrations of the Lord’s power, such as revival, but Jesus’ Parable of the Sower explains that it’s more desirable to have good soil that produces fruit with patience than rocky soil that generates quick growth with no root (Luke 8:4-15).

Consistency and faithfulness find value not only in the local church but also in our everyday lives, at work and home. It’s more important to demonstrate daily, sacrificial love toward your spouse than just springing for an expensive date or gift every once in a while. Likewise, epic family vacations have some value, but the week-in, week-out time spent talking with and discipling your children will bear more fruit in the long run.

In your own quiet times with the Lord, focus on a steady diet of the Word and prayer rather than being discouraged if you don’t have an epiphany every time you turn the page. Often times, this consistency tills the soil in our hearts that ultimately produces the greatest spiritual growth.

Life and faith truly are more about hitting singles and doubles. With this as our focus, we’ll strike out less and see more fruit over the long haul. And who knows, as we are faithful in the small things, we’ll likely experience a moonshot or two along the way.

Almost every day of the week, the students who comprise the collegiate ministry at Birchman Baptist Church in Fort Worth gather in groups to share the gospel at seven different college campuses in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. During the past two semesters, the flames of this effort have been fanned into a glowing fire with the addition of a collegiate intern, funded by a grant from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

 The grant program, which launched during the Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 semesters, supplied funding for an intern of the church’s choosing with a two-fold goal: (1) spur college students to share the gospel and disciple fellow students and (2) ignite a passion for local church ministry in those the Lord calls to his service.

Birchman hired Josh Owens, a recent graduate of the College at Southwestern, as their collegiate intern. Joey Tombrella, the church’s minister to young adults, said the decision to apply for the grant and hire an intern was an obvious and simple choice.

“Who wouldn’t want to have more focused help with ministry, especially when the goal is evangelism on the campuses? That is the greatest need,” Tombrella said. “The whole body of Christ benefits and is spurred on when evangelism is full force. People begin to say, ‘Hey, I want that!’ When one group starts sharing, others begin to start sharing and taking risks. Evangelism is contagious!”

Owens said “part of living gospel-centered lives is to work side by side for the faith of that gospel,” referencing Philippians 1:27. As a growing Christian and even more so in his leadership role within the college ministry, that has been Owens’ chief aim.

“My main roles are to catalyze our students to share the gospel and make disciples on their own campuses and to mobilize the rest of our college ministry to come alongside and encourage each other in the task,” Owens said. “We have students at seven campuses, and at each we want to spur them toward sharing the gospel. We also have a large number of seminary students, and we want to deploy them alongside our students onto these mission fields. We desire to be intentional in the contexts where God has placed us. That will look seven different ways on seven different campuses, but the goal remains the same: to mobilize our students to exhaust their lives on the mission fields God’s given them.”

Birchman’s pastor, Bob Pearle, shares Owens’ sentiments and sees the collegiate intern grant program as a win-win for the interns chosen to serve and the world of lost people those interns are working to reach with fellow students.

“The millennial generation—one of our largest generations—needs to be reached for Christ, and this is a great tool to help [college ministries] reach their generation for Christ,” Pearle said. “The internships are very beneficial because they are helping to guide a young adult into ministry, and they can see first-hand what all it takes in service to our Lord.”

Sometimes “what it takes” is faithful, relentless sharing and perseverance, even when responses to the gospel seem few and hearts icy toward the gospel seem abundant. Tombrella recalled an instance that painted such a picture well.

“Last spring, Josh and another student went out on the Texas Christian University campus to share the gospel,” Tombrella said. “They met a student by ‘chance’ (divine appointment), and shared the gospel with him. Although he didn’t receive the gospel, they ran into him other times on the campus that spring. During spring break, our group went to South Padre for Beach Reach, and Josh met him there by ‘chance.’ He would later pray to receive Christ.”

Pearle says it is stories just like this that cause the work the Lord is doing through the college ministry of a church to spill out into the rest of the congregation, often spurring people of all ages to be bold in their witness for Christ. 

“I whole-heartedly recommend this to a church because it encourages the older adults to see what God is doing in the lives of these younger adults,” Pearle said.

Owens says that the time he has spent working alongside Tombrella has done more than help him be a better mobilizer of people; it has has spurred him to follow Christ all the more closely, the natural outpouring of that being a desire to see others do the same.

“By his life and words, Joey teaches us to treasure Jesus above all else, and to recognize Christ’s preeminence in all,” Owens said. “These are ancient words, and foundational not just for a gospel conversation but for life. It’s not that Joey never taught me anything more, but he never taught less; and these twin truths are joy sufficient to proclaim Christ to our seven campuses and the 7 billion people they represent.”

The news across our nation is ominous. Changes in attitudes and changes in laws have brought our communities to a point of moral crisis. Even in the Southern Baptist Convention, many of our measures of health are lagging or moving the wrong direction. Our cooperative ministry is being challenged from within and without.

Instead of withdrawing to a myopic existence or drawing our circles of fellowship tighter, we must reach out with others. Everyone needs encouragement. We can do much more standing together. The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention has a broad tent of styles, preferences and methodologies. The SBTC has a defined parameter doctrinally in the Baptist Faith and Message (2000). Amos 3:3 asks the question how can two walk together unless they agree. We can be together in these challenging times because we share a common conviction about biblical truth.  

Churches will find inspiration and information Nov. 9-10 at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston. SBTC President Jimmy Pritchard has led a “praying across Texas” emphasis this year. He, Ted Elmore and I have joined with pastors, staff and laypersons crying out for spiritual awakening in all 18 ministry zones of the SBTC. At the convention we will join our hearts in asking God for a fresh breath from heaven. 

A new format for the annual meeting will allow focused worship times, while most business will be concentrated in one session. During our time together, we will celebrate what God is doing in Texas and beyond as we hear testimonies of people being saved, lives being touched and churches-honoring Jesus.

A special highlight during one session will be a panel discussion on one of the most pressing topics facing local church ministry. Stay tuned for the topic and participants in a future announcement. 

I’m also excited about a significant historical event that will take place Tuesday night of the annual meeting—the Baptist Missionary Association of Texas will join the SBTC for an evening of worship. The BMAT and Convention Baptists parted ways about 100 years ago. The BMAT and the SBTC remain separate ministries, yet for the first time in almost a century messengers of the churches will jointly worship. Two reasons make this event possible. One is basic doctrinal agreement. We are both Baptist in every true sense of the word. Second, we recognize we are partners in the gospel not competitors. We are working together without compromising truth.

The joint worship service fits well with our theme for the annual meeting: “Walking in Unity” (Ephesians 4:1-3). It is more than a catch phrase. Being united during these difficult days is vital, and our unity is found in a confessional fellowship. What we believe cannot be negotiated away. 

Let’s pray for God to use us in our state, nation and world. Join me at Champion Forest this November. I need you. We need one another. The world needs the gospel! 

Now and again, someone talks in public as though only his friends can hear him. That happened in Atlantic Monthly as a staff writer applied the Obergefell case on same-sex marriage to the possibility of legalized polygamy. Staff Writer Conor Friedersdorf was attempting to refute that claims of Fredrik de Boer that the legalization of same-sex marriage opened (and should open) the door for multiple-partner, legally recognized, civil unions. More on de Boer’s assertions later, but here’s where Mr. Friedersdorf seemed to forget that we were watching. His first argument against de Boer was that the battle for same-sex equality is not yet over. Fredrik de Boer had acknowledged that advocates for polygamous or polyamorous unions had stayed quiet to avoid giving ammo to conservatives who would assert a slippery slope toward any kind of union under the sun. De Boer’s point being that this is completely true and now it is safe for advocates to say so without endangering same-sex marriage. 

Here’s the good part, Friedersdorf says that one argument against polygamy is that same-sex marriage is still not the law in all places—advocates for multiple unions should remain quiet to avoid agreeing with conservatives. To be fair, Friedersdorf disagrees with polygamy for additional reasons. In doing so, he takes the role of “conservative” in this discussion. 

He argues that state-recognized polygamy is not a human right, for example. Well okay, many of us remember when abortion was not a human right and neither was same-sex marriage. One might make the case that we only need to wait until the president’s views evolve a little more and Justice Kennedy becomes sympathetic to the suffering of polygamous people—presto-change-o, human rights!

He also argues that polygamy is patriarchal and thus victimizes women and children. If we’re going to consider polygamy, let’s wait until our society is thoroughly egalitarian. This is not an argument against polygamy but rather one against polygamy right now. He is also saying that we need to make sure that the more powerless members of our society must be protected from likely and possible negative consequences of taking such a big step. Is the impact of institutionalized same-sex marriage more certain? How about the impact of same-sex parents? If 40 or even 30 percent of Americans believe our nation’s embrace of new models of marriage and family will have victims, what evidence answers their assertion? Look at the religious and regional make-up of the court (Justice Scalia made this point in his dissent) and tell me that evangelicals in Texas or Oklahoma or Arkansas or anywhere between the Alleghenies and the Rockies had a voice. We believe, a majority in fly-over states, that same-sex marriage will not serve the common good—that it will have victims. We must grimace when same-sex advocates argue against polygamy because it will harm the helpless. 

The arguments continue but this is enough to see what I’m saying. Both sides of this argument are monumentally wrong, but one side has a more valid point. The Supreme Court, in a series of decisions culminating in Obergefell, has removed moral arguments (what Justice Kennedy calls “bigotry”) for defining marriage and family. Conservatives are not being hysterical when we say that laws even liberals this week consider negative are now imaginable, even a logical extension of what’s already the law. 

What was illegal then, unimaginable a decade before, is now the law of the land in our country. If there is no moral reasoning behind our laws, then all will be decided by what can be made practical or popular.

In the name of compassion and fairness another organization argues against the status quo because adults have a fundamental right “to sexual self-determination,” adding that “criminal law is not the appropriate means to preserve a social taboo.” Society is deemed cruel in this report, echoing Justice Kennedy’s rhetoric, by pointing out that this minority was being blackmailed, kept from their children and forced to live in secret to avoid society’s scorn. These points are made in the report of the German Ethics Council on incest. Their recommendation is that the possible negatives of those relationships are outweighed by the happiness of those who wish to openly and legally marry siblings. While Germany has not legalized incest, the report was written by employed social scientists who were not hooted out of the room. The “reasoning” in this report is not dissimilar to the discussion of same-sex marriage in our country over the past 10 years. What was illegal then, unimaginable a decade before, is now the law of the land in our country. If there is no moral reasoning behind our laws, then all will be decided by what can be made practical or popular. That kind of change apparently takes a decade or so. The barriers are down. 

I’m not trying to be unfair. Multiple-partner relationships or the marriage of siblings will not be legally recognized anytime soon, unless public sympathies, unencumbered by reason or analysis, move that direction. When the more populous regions of our country do find polygamist or incestuous relationships romantic, the courts of that day will find an appropriate right to support that in the U.S. Constitution. There is no reason for them to say “no.” And people will march in the streets and praise them as wise and compassionate, even if they now cannot imagine such a thing. When you willfully flatten all the fences, you really have no say over what passes in or out of your former boundaries. Safety in that place is an illusion.