My son-in-law is an account executive for the newly forming, Frisco-based, Texas Legends, an NBA D-League team. Last Saturday, he invited us to a walk-through of the Dallas Mavericks practice facilities and locker room.I'm not a huge NBA fan, but I have been to enough games to definitely jump at the chance when Ryan invited Graham and me to join him.
We were greeted by Donnie Nelson, the owner of the Legends, in the Mavs practice court under the AAC arena. I soon found myself intrigued with the special nature of what I was getting to do. This was where the sweat and coaching of a championship team took place before and between games.
We were then led into the locker room where the players "live" during the season. Our host kept saying that everything is within 10 feet of the players' lockers so they could train and be cared for without excuses of distance or inconvenience. That's Graham and me at Dirk Nowitski's locker wearing his practice jerseys. I only thought how big he was. (We didn't get to keep them.) That's Jason Terry's locker. See his long socks hanging on the side of his locker?
We saw the weight room, cardio equipment, taping room, and wet area where the players workout, recover, and are cared for before and after practices and games.As I left, I got to thinking, "What if we built our church facilities conceptually like they did the Mavericks' locker room?" What I mean is, everything is built and done to train, practice, and keep players in the game.
What if we saw the church as a training center designed to keep our people in the missional game where they work, live, play, and go to school? All we built and did--whether they were healthy or injured--served to keep them in the game?
I can't get the idea of church being player-focused for the purpose of helping those on the team play their best game every game out of my mind. How about you?
