Live a Life Worthy - Coach Carter
I recently watched the film Coach Carter, I know that all the big Coach Carter fans out there will wonder how I made it through the first 24 and a half years of my life without doing so but seemingly I did. If you haven’t yet seen it, I would encourage you to do so!
It follows Ken Carter, a well-respected business owner and a former basketball player for the notorious Richmond High School. He’s asked to come back to the school to coach the current basketball team. After spending some time with the team, training them up and working them hard, Coach Carter takes them from being the laughing stock of the league to the very top. They are winning every game, being invited to the best parties and quickly becoming legends with their peers. They are champions.
But soon Coach Carter realises that despite the success they are currently experiencing, the reality is that winning the basketball league at high school isn’t going to get them very far in the rest of their life. Yes, they are gifted athletes, but the reality for them is that they are slightly arrogant, badly behaved young men with no qualifications or motivation to get any. Who, if they carry on the same way, will one day end up in prison.
But he sees that they could be more, could do more with their lives and he starts to call them to it. He teaches them what it means to work hard, not just on the basketball court. He teaches them discipline and manners, he won’t let them settle.
As I read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians I am reminded of Coach Carter, don’t settle for less than what you’re called to.
‘Live a life worthy of the calling you’ve received’
Coach Carter saw something in those young men, he saw that they were called to more than just winning the high school basketball league. He wanted them to be men of integrity, who knew what it was to work hard and play hard. The call to us is not dissimilar.
As Christian leaders we are called to live a life worthy of our call. Our call is to be children of the king of heaven. A call to be part of a royal priesthood, to be co-heirs with Christ. Not to settle because we know that that the battle is already won, and death is beaten but instead to respond to this call by rising up. Choosing to live a life worthy, one filled with integrity and holiness because we know we have been called to more.
When we lead, we do it in a way that comes firstly from the fact that we are children of God saved, not because of what we’ve achieved but because of who we know. To lead in a way worthy of that is to lead well. To lead with integrity. To be a leader who looks the same on the basketball court as the classroom, the same in the church service as the workplace. To always see the call to be a child of God, a representative of our loving father first, before our impressive leadership. To choose kindness and holiness over popularity and worldly pleasure.