Pre-Game Speech

I love football.  Everything about it.  It has been a part of my life since I was able to toddle around the living room and play tackle football in the living room with my dad.  I began playing flag-football in 3^rd grade and then played tackle football 4^th-12^th grades.  In college I played on some great intramural men’s and co-rec teams at the You of A (Go Hogs!), and I have been playing every fall on a men’s league team here in Rogers.  I really love football.

One of my favorite parts of playing football and being on a team was the Pre-Game speech.  After a week of practice, watching game film and getting ready to take on your opponent, our coach would sit us down and give us a final charge. 

A good pre-game speech isn’t long and it doesn’t take a lot of words.  It is your coaches’ final chance to get across the big picture… the things that matter.  Sometimes it isn’t strategy; most times it is about life and how to live.

Here is an example of one of my favorites:

In John chapter 12, Jesus begins his final week on earth.  He is aware of what is about to happen.  It is almost “Game Time.”  So in the chapters that follow he is going to line out the big picture.  What really matters and what he wants to leave his disciples with. 

As a staff, Monday morning we looked John chapters 12-18 as if it were Jesus’ Pre-Game Speech to us and tried to point out some of the main points.  As “Game Time” approaches, what does Jesus want us to take to the field.

Here are a few of our notes:

Chapter 13: Jesus washes his Disciples’ Feet- servant

Chapter 14: 6 “I am the way the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Chapter 14: 15-23 He repeats that if anyone loves Him, they will obey his commands 3 times!

Chapter 15 He is the vine and we are the branches and he will send the Holy Spirit to be with us.

These are just a few of the thoughts that we had.  What do you take away from Jesus’ “Pre-Game Speech?”

Jesse