Crippling them…

January 16, 2008

There’s this fantastic scene in the movie Remember the Titans that I’ve been reflecting on.

Denzel Washington’s character Coach Boone has been really tough on his players and his assistant coach tells him to go easy on them. Coach Boone replies by saying, You’re crippling them. You’re crippling them for life.

I wonder how often we do this in the church?

When we don’t expect much from people, when we do things on behalf of everyone, and when we demand nothing from people in response to the gospel?

Maybe we need to ask more of our people - not because we need a power trip or want to do less, but because of our love and concern for them.

Otherwise, we’re crippling them for life.

If you liked that post, check out...

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Posted in Character, Leadership

Comments to “Crippling them…”

tony sheng said:

January 16th, 2008 at 12:02 pm

that’s one of my favorite movies.

in my opinion, it’s a really important concept. when our summer teams go out, i always make a big point of telling the leaders that they need to let the students do as much of the ‘ministry’ as they possibly can, including letting them fail even when the leaders can see it coming.

not only is it a different perspective on who you are leading, it’s also a different perspective on your role as a leader.

good post.

Christi D. said:

January 16th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

Great point, Lon! I can see this with our kids too! If we don’t discipline them or demand much from them, we are taking away from who they could become.

Brandon Donaldson said:

January 16th, 2008 at 5:36 pm

Lon, so good. I think in the church we do this on many levels. Afraid to set the bar to high in following Christ because we don’t want to scare them off.
I think the truth is they are wanting to know the bar is higher. They sense that it is; they sense that they could actually live up to it; they sense they were created for it, but no one is pushing them there. Fear of failure can be crippling thing…and it starts with the leader.

Lon said:

January 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 am

Thanks for the reflections folks. I’m still learning to let people fail and fall flat on their faces, it’s tough to not step in and just take care of things ourselves.

it can be a fine line between encouraging and being over-bearing though - but I really do feel that most people live life without anyone at all expecting much of them at all in the areas that actually matter.