Thursday, August 1, 2013

A Faith Walk Moment

This past weekend we took our son to a baseball camp. It was a 3-day intense, skills assessment, educational, and physically challenging weekend for him. The camp was all that it was advertised and more, as far as being intense. I think Kenny learned a ton and was pretty worn out by late Sunday afternoon.

Parents were allowed to stay at the camp and follow their kids around to the various stations all weekend. I love baseball and played the game growing up, all the way through high school myself. I really enjoyed learning stuff that I had no idea about, but wished I had learned when I was Kenny's age. There were college coaches, as well as, a coach from professional baseball, along with student coaches who had attended the camp themselves at one point or another. The campers ranged in age from 8 or 9 through college-age and there were kids from all over the country, including players from Division 1 colleges.

The first night of camp, the coaches explained to the group the importance of  integrity and character. The college coach explained how young men need to be careful with social media and what is posted on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, because coaches will look at those things as part of their evaluation process on whether to recruit you or not to recruit you based on what is posted. I really enjoyed that, knowing we were at the right camp. The coaches cared enough to not only teach the boys how hard work pays off, but also how being a young man of integrity and good character is just as important.

On the second day, in one of the breakout sessions, one of the coaches was teaching the boys how to throw a change up, a curve ball, pitching locations, the importance of changing speeds to keep hitters off balance. It was great teaching. But then he decided to teach the boys how to scuff or scratch the baseball in one area of the ball. He explained that by doing this, the ball will curve much better and this will give you a better advantage over the hitter. I know the rules of baseball well enough to know that this is against the rules. In fact, at the professional level, if a pitcher is caught scuffing the baseball, he is thrown out of the game and suspended for 10 games.

I was disappointed that this man was teaching a group of teenage boys how to cheat. Now, that may not have been his intention. He may have been just wanting to have some fun and look cool to the boys. I don't know what he was thinking. So, I let it go at the moment, but at the end of camp we were given an evaluation sheet for the camp. When it came to coaches, I stopped and thought about what I should do. I decided that for the most part the camp was outstanding, other than this one thing, which was wrong and disturbing to my spirit. I decided not to mention it on the evaluation sheet, but to send the camp director a personal e-mail instead when I got back home.It bothered me the rest of the weekend, on the way home and I was definitely going to discuss it with Kenny.A faith walk moment was about to happen.

I waited until Monday night at dinner to ask Kenny what he thought about that particular breakout session. He laughed and said he thought it was funny. I asked him if he understood that what he was being taught was cheating and he said yes. I asked him if he would ever think about attempting to do that himself and he said no. So, I asked him if he remembered how they talked on the first night of the camp about making sure the young men had integrity and character and how that didn't match up with the teaching in that particular segment. He understood what I was saying. Then I told him that I felt bad because I didn't say anything in the evaluation process for coaches and told him I was thinking about e-mailing the head of the camp. The subject got changed and we ate the rest of our dinner. We were about to finish up when Kenny asked me, "so are you going to e-mail them?". I responded, "which do you think would be better, me sending an e-mail or you sending an e-mail?". He said that he thought it would be better coming from him.

So, I was impressed that Kenny came to that conclusion. I don't know if he will follow through on the e-mail, but am very inspired that he knew what he was being taught was wrong. He understood the difference between talking about integrity and character, and then being coached something that contradicts that.And that he understood the impact of bringing that to the attention of the camp director would be more powerful coming from a 15 year old camper, than a parent. I'm very blessed to be Kenny's step-dad.


"Integrity means "wholeness" or "completeness"- the opposite of hypocrisy.The bible uses the terms "upright" or "blameless" to describe a man of integrity. He continually thinks, speaks, and walks honestly before God and others."

"Integrity reflects God. There is no deceit in Him. No corruption. No darkness. John 3:33 says, "God is true", meaning He is exactly who He says He is. He's not hiding an evil dark side or misleading you in any way. There is no injustice or deceit in what He does. His words are true, His ways are true, His judgments are true. And because He is looking for followers who will worship Him "in spirit and truth", (John 4:24), your job as a man of resolution is to embrace a life of truth and integrity before Him."

The above quotes come from the book, The Resolution for Men..

Terry Langenberg
Twitter: TheLangenberg
Facebook: TheLangenberg

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