Here's a simple "compromise"

It's a difficult decision for some folks who want to be obedient to God, but the whole "faithful, wholesome, church-going, Bible-reading, sharing with the needy" vibe is difficult to pull off for a person who just isn't sure that the deal is worth it.

I've got a compromise suggestion for you.

See, if you've read my blog for a while now, you know that my research and study as a student of eschatology (the End Times of the Bible) strongly suggest that the "Rapture", as they call it, is very near - like, within the next eighteen months or so near. That's not very long. And Christ will only take the true Believers Home with Him then - there will be a lot of very surprised looking "Christian-in-name-only" folks left behind who won't understand that they were worshiping themselves and money and their lifestyles far more than Him. (The Lord warned us about the "narrow gate" to Heaven and compared it to the "wide gate" to Hell.)

But if you're worried about "ruining your life" by becoming one of the "Jesus-freaks", let me share my compromise with you:

Live the Christian life for eighteen months only. It doesn't have to be overt. Just follow His guidelines for a year and a half.

If we're right about the signs in the world, sometime during that eighteen months, the Believers will be Raptured to Heaven, and the rest of humanity will suffer through the Great Tribulation, the last three years of which will be the worst misery mankind has every suffered.

And if we're wrong? What have you lost? 

Maybe you'll find you don't mind the lifestyle. Maybe you'll find that the Holy Spirit residing in you is really a good thing. Maybe you'll become a lifelong Christian.

Or maybe you'll have spend a year and a half living a good life, and you feel like you want to go back to your old sinful ways. Well, if we were wrong about the Second Coming, perhaps we're wrong about all of it. (Despite the accuracy of every other prophecy in the Bible.) So you can go back to sinning with more faith that you're not going to "miss out".

What have you got to lose?

Year 34 began today

Today, I began my thirty-fourth year of teaching, starting our summer school credit recovery program. (Which is nearly identical to what I do at the alternative school throughout the rest of the school year, which is why I've been doing summer school the last several years.) When I started teaching, in 1984, I did so because my mother was dying of cancer, and she needed the help teaching her band classes. I discovered that I enjoyed teaching, that I was good at it (considering I was just starting), and that it felt like I was doing something worthwhile for a job.

So I made it my career. Twenty-nine years of that was being a music teacher - mostly band with some choir, classroom music, orchestra, electronic music, guitar, and math thrown in. In the early years, when rules were more lax and I taught at a small school that needed subjects covered, I also taught a little bit of art appreciation, p.e., drama, and even a semester of special education. (The district fired the previous SpEd teacher mid-year after a string of abusive behavior was uncovered. I was asked to put the program back together again so they could hire a "real" teacher for the coming year. I learned what a joy it was to work with kids at that end of the spectrum, and that the paperwork would kill me.) Mostly, however, I was known as a band director.

And it was after one of our many big performance trips, a four-day trip to march in the Portland Rose Festival Parade in 2012, that made me realize that I could no longer handle the physical demands of the job of a high school marching band director. I literally got off the bus at the high school late Sunday night after a long trip home from Portland (including a broken bus in Pendleton), stood watching the crew unloading the bus as the students unpacked their gear and got picked up by parents. I then went inside the building, made sure everyone was cleared out and had their rides home, and went into the auditorium and commiserated with and on the piano for an hour or so. Making sure it was the right decision.

It was. Even with the Lord's healing help that summer, I would not have been able to teach the band that year. Unfortunately, I saw the program deteriorate that year before my eyes under my hand-picked replacement. It fell to my sixteen year old son to tell the recalcitrant students, "Look, my dad is NOT coming back, okay? So suck it up, and make the best of it!"

Meanwhile, I've spent the last four years of my career in charge of the alternative school, where I could be much more sedentary and still help students who needed it. Fortunately, with the reduction and difficulties that have faced that program since I left, I've been in a building across town, where I didn't have to hear about the problems with the band program nearly as often. Heartless, yes. But the current director doesn't want any advice from me, it seems, so there's a limit to what I can do about it. As a Christian, I refuse to lie when someone asks me what I think of the band situation. ("Well, they're working really hard, aren't they?")

That was the kind of program I was running when I started: a small one. In the little town I started in, though, when there were only thirty or so kids in each grade, having twenty-five kids in the high school band was still respectable. I built that program to the point where we had about half the school in grades four and up in the band program. But after eight years in that little school, the educational funding crisis in California had reached the point where they were going to merge my program with the band program in the neighboring town, and that director was retiring, so I'd be running both programs. (They were looking out for me, I'll gladly give them that.) But I could see the writing on the wall - music was a dying part of the California school system.

I moved to Idaho that summer, no job in hand. I'd decided that Boise felt the most like Sacramento had felt when I was a kid (I was 28 that summer), and sure enough, after ten days of applications I had four job offers in hand. (My reputation had followed me north.) I took the one in Kuna ("Q-nah") and taught grades 6-12 for seven years, building the program there from seventeen students in the high school band to the 110 we marched my final year. I taught some math and guitar and electronics and orchestra, but primarily band. As the town grew, and my new wife and I decided we wanted to move farther away from the big city, the school district in Payette offered us the sun and the moon and half the stars to take over their band program. Unfortunately, that offer wasn't really there until the fourth year (after I'd raised quite a stink over broken promises), and that was the general theme of our seven years there. We had some great friends, however, some amazing experiences, and I learned a lot about teaching in - shall we say, difficult circumstances.

And for the last eleven years, I've been here in Jerome, my favorite stop along the way. Now beginning year 34, my 53rd birthday approaching in August, my health deteriorating slowly, I think I have enough strength in me to make it through the 2017-18 school year, especially with the superb assistant teacher I have. And ideally, she and I can help more students rise up from the dregs of scholastic society and make it back on track to graduate.

And by the end of next school year, if we haven't been snatched up by the Second Coming of the Lord by that time, it won't be long after that for us to wait. I feel confident that if we start a 35th school year in the fall of 2018, all the other true Christians and I will fail to finish that school year. At this stage of my life, as fragile as I've gotten, that's the goal: make it to Christ's pick-up date. That may not sound like much of a career goal at this stage, but frankly, that's more important to look forward to than anything about the dying profession of teaching in this country.

The Great Commission isn't just for preachers, folks!

When Jesus rose from the dead, and had proven Himself to be God in human form, He gave the people who witnessed His ascension one instruction. 

Go forth and spread the Gospel to all corners of the earth, making disciples out of all that you meet.

He did not just tell the apostles to do this. He did not imply that only those who would be teaching should do this. In fact, He did not exclude ANYbody in this.

We are ALL supposed to spread the Gospel and make disciples wherever we go. 

We should ALL become the figurative "Johnny Mustard-seed".

In Ephesians 4:11-13, Paul writes the following:

And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints (that's US, folks!) for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ, until we ALL attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

The explicit purpose, then, of the "showy" people in the church - the preachers, the teachers, and the other reachers - is NOT to convert the world themselves, but to teach all of US how to convert our very small part of the world. Our "oikos", as my pastor likes to call it, using the Greek word for our social and work community. Thus, in a manner much quicker than were it left to a handful of orators, the entire world will hear the Gospel from people who care about them, and have the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work within their lives and come to Christ.

We want to help them not only learn the faith, but to reach a mature understanding of Christianity, "so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine" (4:14)  In these Final Days of the End of the Age, there are many false prophets spouting versions of "gospel" that SOUND appealing. Worst of all may be the "prosperity gospel" evangelists, the folks who claim that God wants you to have material wealth and success. There is no place in the New Testament that supports this claim.  If you have any doubt, consider what happened to Christ's disciples - none of them ever attained any kind of wealth or status (except within the Christian church, of course), and all except John were killed horribly by the Romans or the Jews. If they didn't get any "prosperity", why would we? We're already the most prosperous people that ever lived on the planet! 

No, our job is to bring the Truth to all listeners while there is still time - and I've told long time readers before, I don't believe there's more than two years left before the Lord brings His Believers home. He's just waiting for us to finish OUR job: to finish spreading the Word of the Lord to every corner of the earth. 

And there are plenty of people within your sphere of influence AND mine who desperately need our help to get saved before it's too late. "Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him Who is the Head, into Christ." (4:15) Speak to those people with love in your heart and in your words. Help them find their way.

The lost people in your oikos are NOT the enemy. The devil that holds them prisoner is the enemy. 

Free the prisoners before the execution. Free them before it's too late.

Here's the latest from my Australian footy column...

Here's this week's column from The Roar, examining the season to date in the AFL. Enjoy!

The explanation behind a famous verse...

If you have even a cursory knowledge of the Bible, you're probably familiar with the passage in Isaiah, chapter 55, verses 8-9:

"For My Thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My Ways your ways", declared the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My Ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."

On the surface, if you think about it, that actually sounds a bit pompous! I mean, while He's perfectly within His Rights to remind us that He is superior to us in every way, it's kind of tacky to point it out so bluntly, don't you think?

We have generally taken the two verses to answer the universal question, "WHY would God ever DO such a thing?", filling in whatever the inexplicable event du juor is. "Because God is smarter than us and has a better plan than we do... Because He sees the future and knows what the alternative would cause, and He's looking out for us... Because His priorities are simply different than ours..." and so on, right? Sound familiar?

All of that may also be accurate.
But that's not what God was saying.

As always, context is king. Isaiah chapter 55 begins with a description of the glorious kingdom to come - much of the last two dozen or so chapters are about the End Times, and 55 is no exception. Verses 1-5 tell "everyone who thirst, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy, and eat!" (v. 1) Your cognitive dissonance takes over at this point - "you with no money, spend money?"  He now has your attention. In verse three, He invites all to join the Davidic Covenant, whether you knew Israel or not! The clearest invitation in the entire book of Isaiah is in verses 6-7: "Seek the Lord while He may be found!", and it's equally clear that this invitation is available to Gentiles as well as Jews. Not only that, it's available to sinners of all levels:

"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." (V. 7. And you thought forgiveness was only a NT thing!)

At this point, the reader/listener is undoubtedly saying or thinking, WHY would God DO this amazing thing?

The answer is Isaiah 55:8-9.

He does not think as we do,  for we are sinful, unforgiving creatures who cannot see or think on God's level. Someday, perhaps - but certainly not now.

God's mercy is so profound that the only explanation we can grasp of it is to be told that He is simply that much more elevated than we are. At least, at the time of Isaiah, there was no way for us to grasp it.

NOW, however, we have the Holy Spirit within us, Who can help to elevate us towards a Christlike view of the world and humanity. We still can't think like GOD, but we can begin to aspire to being like Him, and He can work with us, His Children, in striving towards that goal while still on earth.

My Baby Brother - A Short Story Of Everlasting Friendship

This is the story I referenced last Wednesday, authored by my oldest son. Hamilton Smith was three years old, almost exactly, when our second child Emerson was born. This is the short story he wrote about a year ago on the subject. -gps

February 22nd, 2000 

           He was such a cute little baby. His tiny feet, tiny hands, tiny head, and huge ears. He was so funny looking. As I held him in my arms, he slowly moved, blinking like the slowest tortoise and mouthing like he was savoring the sweetest candy he’d ever tasted, slowly rolling his little tongue around his mouth, never stopping but having no clear direction. His hand moved just as randomly, opening and closing, fingers shifting independently, like he was trying to regain feeling after lying on them. I smiled as he was fascinated by his own hand, as if it was recently given to him as a gift. He stuck his little finger in his mouth, gently licking it as he looked up at me. He looked surprised, as if without his tiny sausages to distract him, he finally noticed the world around him. I had to laugh. He was half my size and I could barely hold him. He is only five days old and I was three years old. The hospital chair that I sat in was soft and poofy. It was nice to finally see him. I had been waiting for him for what felt a year. I didn’t even know he was a he until a few months ago. I’d felt him in mommy’s tummy as often as I could. He was so active. He loved music, especially mommy’s cowboy music. He loved the guitar sounds the most. He’d dance inside mommy and make her have to go potty. It was funny to see her make funny faces when he danced. I always hoped that he made mommy be silly like that to make me happy. It was our first connection. Now, I could finally hold him and see how silly he is. Mommy is still stuck the hospital. Daddy says that she is very tired from delivering the baby. But, I think mommy’s just being lazy because she had to carry him for so long. I mean, all she had to do to deliver the baby was lay there. The doctor did all the work. But, I’ll let mommy be tired. I know that she is a nice mommy and she deserves a break from being a good mommy. I’ll take the baby home and take care of him until mommy is ready. I don’t mind. I can feed him some cereal and juice. I’m good at making that, but I can find some of mommy’s cookbooks and learn more, like mommy. Then, I’ll play with him. I have lots of toys.  We can play with stuffed animals or build Legos or even drive my little cars. After that, I can put him to bed. He can have mine and I’ll sleep next to the bed in the floor. I’ll protect him and make him happy. He will be safe from the bad of the world. I am so lucky to have him.  


March 12, 2003 

         He is such an awesome little brother. He is so fun to play with. He loves playing with the little cars. We make them drive all over the house. We go up the stair rail and across the floor.  We slide them around and make little engine sounds. Mom doesn’t like it when we play so much, but it’s too much fun to stop. We play quietly, so mom doesn’t yell at us. Sometimes, if mom gets too angry at us, we have to go outside to play. We like to kick the soccer ball around. Even though he’s only three, he still kicks really hard. We take turns with the ball, kicking it back and forth and around and around. We have so much fun. We can play together all day. Mom and dad say we’re like two peas in a pod. I think that means we play good together. And I know that’s true. I love my brother very much.  


November 4th, 2005 

         School is kinda hard. Me and my brother have to be in separate classrooms. It’s hard. I miss playing with him. But, the part about my day that is the most fun is coming home and trading stories about our days in different classrooms. We learn different things every day. When he is learning how to add 2 plus 2, I’m learning how to multiply 2 by 2, which is funny because both are equal to 4. Math is so weird some times. We read different things too. I read stories about monsters in school while he reads books with big letters about snakes. He says he likes his teacher and I tell him that I like mine too.  We like to walk to school together, if mom will let us. I think she’s a little too protective of us. But, I know she just cares about us. She’s a good mother. And my brother agrees with me. I don’t know what I’d do without him.   


September 23, 2011 

         Middle school is much different than elementary. Each class has a different group of kids. It’s hard to keep track at time. But, it’s cool to work with such advanced material. Algebra, high school literacy, even world history. It’s all super cool. Little bro seems to enjoy it too. He gets atom science and American history, he loves that. We get better lunch options too. We get actual choices for lunch now instead of having to eat the one thing they make for us. After school, we have basketball practice. When we get the ball, no one can stop us. We read each other’s minds and react before anyone can figure out what happened.  After practice, we always walk home together, recounting how awesome we are. Mom tries to pick us up, but we like to make her worry. Yes, we’re evil little children, but we know that all we need is each other.  


January 4th, 2014 

          Holy, we were so naive in middle school. High school sucks. No one seems to care. Classes are hard and fast. And we have to run between periods to make it on time. We still do basketball and even do a little acting. We are so tired by the end of the day, we basically sleep all evening. Mom thinks that we’re lazy, but we both argue that we just do too many thinks in a week. Plus, our jobs don’t exactly allow us to sleep all weekend. We both work at a burger joint, I work as a cashier while he works as a cook. It is awesome. Plus, we made a deal with our manager so that we always work the same shifts together. We are lightning fast. From when the guest orders to when they get the food is never more than a minute and a half. We’re awesome as always.  


September 2nd, 2018 

          This is hell on earth. Why would anyone agree to go to college? It’s impossible. We’re so tired, always hungry, and never completely sure what is going on. The one good news is, we’ve roommates! We can always be together. Also, mom worries less and now only bugs us every couple…hours. Yeah, we need to find her a hobby. We’re think woodworking… But anyway, here we are at the state’s best college. I’m studying engineering and he’s studying psychology. It so fun to continue this journey with him. He is so awesome. I’m glad that I have him.  

July 23rd, 2023 

          Finally finished with the hell known as school and we can finally be real adults. We got apartments right next to each other. So we can be separate but still together. He and I both have decided to maybe look into actually dating now. I chose to try online dating while he is trying café dating. I think he’s crazy and that he’ll never find anyone decent his way and he feels the same about my method. But, we think we’ll trade methods soon, just to try another way. He’s too funny sometimes. Glad he’s been by my side.  


February 19th , 2024 

           Great news. We both found our soul mates. He found his online, while I found mine at a local diner. His is blonde and tall, mine is brunette and short. We both love our matches to death. We do double dates and other annoying brotherly stuff that the girls both seem to enjoy. I have to hand it to him, we both found winners.


June 4th, 2029 

          Man, do we look sharp. Double monkey suits, fixing each other’s bows. We adjust our boutonniere. An hour away, both of our feet are cold and shaking. We both proposed at the falls, sun shining, water glistening. They said yes. We hugged our girls, hugged each other, then giant group hug. It was such a happy day. Now, as we stand on a grassy field, white arc in front of us and balloons forming the aisle. Out come our brides, their white lace flowing in the gentle breeze, the sun reflecting off their faces, tear lines running down them, smiles plastered on. We both have to hold each other up just to keep from fainting from both of their gorgeous beauties. We take each of our brides’ respective hands, the baby soft skin resting nicely in our rougher hands. We both lean now and whisper to our goddess in white, “You are way prettier than she is” to which they smirked, glanced at each other and whispered back, “I know”, hidden giggles followed. The ceremony went perfectly, both of us dipping our bride into the kiss. The reception was lively and long. Our mother cried and cried and cried. We both told her to suck it up, to which she punch us, leaving us “groaning” in pain. We went back home, opened a wine bottle and shared a lovely at home honeymoon, the four of us were inseparable, me and little bro especially.


December 28th, 2031 

            The circle of life, I guess. The girls announced their pregnancies together, my girl being a week ahead of his girl. We cared for them religiously. We would take care of them as our mother took care of us, with a constant sense of panic and neverending worrying for their safety and wellbeing. They sometimes grew tired of us and sent us away on a fishing trip while they watch soap operas and talked gossip to each other. We’d come back if even one of our phones rang or beep, regardless of what the issue was or if there was even an issue at all. We rushed home a few times because one of them butt dialed us. We didn’t care. We wanted them happy and safe, to which they always replied, in between reassuring kisses that they were fine and we were too paranoid. But, we both cared about our girls more than our own lives. But in the end, we stuck together, little bro and I.  


September 13th, 2032 

             They came. Our babies finally came. I had a girl, he a boy. We named them after water. Mine is Crystal and his is Bayou. We kept our babies warm and safe while our hard workers rested. We never left their sides, cradling the babies in one arm and holding the soft hands in with the other. We knew our lives would be better with our little miracles in our world, brightening ever single dark corner. We looked at each other and silently went, “You did good, bro.”  


September 23rd, 2050 

           We love our world. Never did we want so badly to make the world perfect. Perfect to protect our babies from the world. All we wanted was our angel soul mates to be happy and our miracles of life to grow up healthy. We watched as they first walked, talked, and started school. Saw them struggle with life, with friends, and with school. Saw them hide from us to walk home alone and unprotected. Even saw them find the girl of their dreams. In their young eyes, we saw us. We saw our rebellion and joy with each other’s company. As they left for college, we saw their spark and saw our own. Brothers forever.    

           I lay there on my bed. My chest feels heavy, breathes barely making it into my lungs. I start to have a big headache. I can hear my sweetheart in the joining room, whistling as she careful cleans. I call with what breath I have left for her. As she comes in, rushing to my bed, I pull her close, gently kiss her, and say for a final time “I love you.” My eyes slowly drift closed as silence begins to consume me.


February 17, 2000

           He was such a cute little baby. His tiny feet, tiny hands, tiny head, and huge ears. He didn’t move. I had to watch from behind a plastic barrier. I was only three and I saw them baby that my mommy had had in her for months, lying there in the little bed. He didn’t look like me. He was blue and purple and he didn’t move very much. Grandma brought me to see the new baby. She heard mommy was going to have him and so she rushed over here. I was so excited that I fell asleep in the car. She woke me up at the hospital. I wanted so badly to see the new baby. But, they wouldn’t let me hold him, like mommy promised. He looked sad and asleep. The little light on the blanket wasn’t on like the other babies’ blankets. He was quiet and still. Mommy said that baby was sick and had to stay here. So, Grandma took me home. Before I got back on the elevator, I ran back to mommy and told her to get better soon and bring baby home so I could keep him warm and happy. She teared up, and whispered, “OK, honey. I promise.”

February 21, 2001 

          I never saw baby again, just a silver can with a name written on it. I told mommy the name on the can was a good name for baby.  

          I miss baby. 

You think God can't HANDLE your problems?

God created the entire universe with four words.
He created every creature on the planet - and beyond, if any exist.
Every star, every galaxy, every ounce of matter and energy that exists, exists because of Him.

And you think He's incapable of dealing with your rent payment?

Read this excerpt from chapter 40 of the book of Isaiah, verses 12-31 (with my comments):

12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
        enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?

(Think about that: The world's oceans fit in the hollow of His Hand...)
13Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD,
or what man shows him his counsel?
14Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?
15Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
16Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17All the nations are as nothing before him,

(MY only fear has always been not that He wasn't big enough, but that He was TOO big to be bothered with my problems. Yet, there He is, consoling me and loving me when I pray to Him each morning and each night. Amazing...)
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

18To whom then will you liken God,

        or what likeness compare with him?

(All the "gods" in the surrounding nations - and in Israel itself, for that matter - were man-made, created as we create any other supernatural explanations for what we don't understand. Isaiah's description shows how farcical that is.)
19An idol! A craftsman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and casts for it silver chains.
20He who is too impoverished for an offering
chooses wood that will not rot;
        he seeks out a skillful craftsman
to set up an idol that will not move.

21Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

(The "circle" of the earth...2600 years ago. Amazing.)
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

24Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

25To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
26Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name;
by the greatness of his might
and because he is strong in power,
not one is missing.

27Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD,

and my right is disregarded by my God”?

(Here's a great way to remember that we can never hide from the Lord: How do you pray? Quietly, at home, maybe even in your head? If God can hear you then, if He is expected to hear your thoughts...why do you think anything is ever hidden from Him?)
28Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.

(NEVER FORGET THIS. He gives power to His children who need strength increased. Pray to Him, and He will not forsake you.)
30Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

"They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."God's strength is with us, always, simply for the asking. Without it, given my health, I would have failed a long time ago. God chooses not to remove my disease from me (long-time readers have heard my belief as to why), but He does not allow me to wallow in weakness because of it. What strength do I need to make it through His tasks for me that day? God will provide it for me. And if He has the strength any one of us needs at any time, simply for the asking, what strength does He Himself possess?

You think GOD can't handle your problems? There may be a reason He has not taken care of your current issues, my friend - you haven't asked, your personal sin issues are getting in the way, there's a purpose for that problem in your life (as with my disease) that will be beneficial in the long term, or some other reason - but His "inability" to cope with your problems (or ANY of our problems!) is NOT the difficulty.

Sustainable League Growth

[Originally published in the Roar, May 23, 2017]
 

            Three closely related issues floated in the background this week, behind the jumper punches and the injuries and the comparisons of flawed title contenders. Both issues speak to the general philosophy of the Australian Football League as an organization and as an association of clubs.

            One is the decision two weeks ago to freeze the number of clubs competing in the AFLW in 2018 at eight, the same eight teams which battled this February and March, with the intent of expanding by just two teams in 2019 despite the intense interest of at least six of the current AFL franchises in fielding a women’s team as soon as allowed.

            The second is the fallout from the home-and-away game held in Shanghai in round eight between Port Adelaide and Fold Coast – sorry, Gold Coast. Despite the game being a sell-out, the general tenor of the conversation following the game was more apros pos to a novelty event, rather than a landmark, first-of-its-kind game that would set the precedent for a series of such games in the future.

            Finally, while not currently drawing large numbers, support in Hobart and Launceston for the Hawks and Kangaroo games continue to poise the question that having a team full time in Tasmania might be at least as economically viable as the last two franchises placed by the AFL in Queensland and Western Sydney. Yet no desire by either current tenant or the league as a whole to place one there has been evident.

            All of these decisions show a conservative approach of the AFL as an administrative body that should not surprise anyone who’s followed the game for any length of time. While the league brass is more than willing to tinker with rule changes and schedule formats and playoff tickets and fighting regulations from moment to moment, anything requiring investment of capital is looked upon with great trepidation. 

            Whether that’s good or bad depends on your own opinion on the topic.

            For the purposes of this article, set aside the day-to-day discussions – all the questions laid out a moment ago, about rules and schedules and playoffs and such. We don’t have room for both topics here.

            But when it comes to expanding the game into new markets, the AFL has consistently shown itself to be on the side of concern. If you were the holder of the purse strings, you might very well have the same opinion: it’s easy for us to roar, “Tasmania deserves a team!” or “The success was there this year! Let’s make the AFLW a 12-team league next fall!” But if we’re wrong, we’re not the ones who would be left paying the bills – the AFL is. (And then us, because they’d have to make it back somewhere.) 

            These issues are all related: Tassie, China, AFLW expansion. They all involve the assumption that professional footy has audiences out there waiting to consume the product in numbers exceeding what’s currently doing so. But consider where we’ve been first.

The immediate precursor of the AFL, the original Victorian Football League, was indeed “Victorian” from its official beginning in 1897 until about 1980, its members clustered in and about greater Melbourne for those eight decades. In fact, exactly the same twelve clubs participated (with wartime exceptions only) from 1925 through 1981.

            But by then, there were competitive teams across the country in other leagues. Expansion for the VFL first meant a tentative toe in the pool, a move from South Melbourne to Sydney before the 1982 season, and then the addition of the Bears in Brisbane and the Eagles on the West Coast in 1987, leading to the full-out name change of the league in 1990, the self-declaration as the nation’s footy league. Additions in Adelaide (1991) and Fremantle (1995) had root clubs in place already when they were annexed, and then the league sat at a very manageable 16 teams for fifteen years.

            Then, it decided to force expansion.

            New teams were planted in Western Sydney and Gold Coast by the league. These were not organically-born clubs like the last two debutantes, or all of the original teams. The powers-that-be sensed a pair of markets that would be economically viable to expand their product, and expand they did.

            However…

            The backlash from traditionalists has been biting. While banner banter is meant to be light-hearted and witty, there was an ounce of bite in the Bulldogs banner when they came to play at GWS last September: “Your club was born in blood and boots – Not in AFL focus groups” That isn’t an unusual sentiment around the league. When I was first pressured to “claim” a team around then (being American, I have no geographic alliances), I half-sarcastically cast my heart with the Giants, because they didn’t seem to have any fans of their own.

            Meanwhile, Australians have spoken with their feet. The average attendance at an AFL game has been over 31,500 every year since 1997. Of the other 16 clubs, the lowest game-average attendance over the last 20 years is for Brisbane at just under 25,000. (North and the Bulldogs are next above them on the list, both just under 27,000.) Sydney is 11^th out of those 16, at just under 31,000. Placing second teams near Brisbane and Sydney, given those numbers, might be questioned in hindsight.

            The result? The average combined attendance at Gold Coast and GWS games since their entry into the league seven and six years ago, respectively, just barely equals that of Brisbane.

            Gold Coast has had perhaps the most exciting player of his generation, Gary Ablett Jr, as its headliner for all seven seasons of its existence, although injuries the last two years have taken the luster off that. GWS now claims the title of “Premier Favorites” for 2017, at least before injuries started decimating their list. And yet – attendance in those communities continues to disappoint. I won’t pretend that a losing product the first several years doesn’t hurt; culture issues with the Suns may have taken their toll on the east coast; code competition is stronger there than in Melbourne; and the size of the stadiums themselves aren’t going to threaten any MCG records. 

            The point is, the AFL has reason to be conservative about expansion on any level right now.

            The best leagues took these steps slowly, and at some level with the quality of the product in mind as much as the money to be made. The Canadian Football League tried a massive southward expansion in 1993 when (despite financial issues for virtually every Canadian team already) it accepted the Sacramento Gold Miners into the league, joined the next year by four other US teams. By 1996, however, the “American Experiment” was history, a financial mess that only produced modest interest in the States and a whole lot of upset Canadians, as oxymoronic as that concept sounds.

            The various American competitors to the National Football League usually were in it for the fast buck they thought they could squeeze out of a football-addicted nation. But the XFL, the WFL, the UFL, the WAFL, and Donald Trump’s USFL all came on with money and television contracts and the hopes of carving a niche for themselves. Instead, they ran themselves into bankruptcy, all within five years, usually less, trying to present themselves at unsustainable levels of competence. (Like our current president.)

            On the other hand, the WNBA has been playing women’s pro basketball in the US with the financial support of the NBA for twenty years now, and despite that nest egg has never rushed to expand unreasonably. The league has ranged from its original eight teams up to twelve, but never beyond that number – as one franchise began to struggle, another home would usually be found for the team.

            Even the mighty National Football League, with the resources of a small nation and the American populace in the palm of its hand, has been smart enough to barely dip its toes into international waters, putting on once-a-year games in Mexico City (to 150,000 people) and three to four games per year in London (to sell-out crowds in Wembley). It had experimented over the previous 25 years with the “World League of American Football” (with teams in the US, Canada, and Europe, to two years of some success), which brought the CFL expansion the following year to fill the void left by its closing, and “NFL Europe”, which had some success as a training ground for NFL players, officials, and even rule experimentation over the course of fifteen seasons. 

            So, based on historical precedent, going slowly on all fronts is the wise move. Based on the “double-G” experiment in the AFL’s most recent expansion, being cautious is understandable. As tempting as the Tasmanian market is, if none of the current clubs thinks it can make an eleven-game go at it each season, tapping the brakes is smart. (And don’t ask about more games in the NT just yet, either.)

            And when ten thousand Chinese (judging from the broadcast, most of whom weren’t Chinese) coming out in a city of far more than ten million is considered a reason for excitement? Flying that far to play in the smog seems like too much wandering even for the Wanderer just yet.