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In this episode of the Lead On podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, discusses the role of competition in Christianity, reflecting on his experiences as the chaplain for the San Francisco Giants and broader ministry leadership. He argues that competition is healthy for Christians and can coexist with their faith. Iorg emphasizes that true competition is not about defeating others but maximizing one's God-given potential. He outlines four key principles: understanding competition's nature as an internal challenge, focusing on controllable aspects like preparation and effort, competing for an audience of one (God), and using competition to serve and uplift others. By adhering to these principles, Christians, especially athletes, can compete intensely while maintaining their faith and integrity.
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Welcome to the lead on podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, talking with you once again about practical issues related to ministry leadership. Well, I've been watching the Olympics as millions of other people have around the world, and I am fascinated by the stories of the athletes involved and the way they have devoted their lives to the singular pursuit of excellence resulting in their capacity to compete at the highest level, the Olympics. Which raises an important question. Is competition healthy for Christians?
Jeff Iorg:Now, I've had to answer this question in multiple contexts over the years. Perhaps the most striking was while I served for 10 years as the chaplain for the San Francisco Giants. In that context, non Christian athletes, baseball players, would often resist the possibility of the gospel or of considering a commitment to Jesus Christ because they felt it would somehow soften them or keep them from excelling in their athletic endeavors. And Christian athletes often ask me about this issue because they really wanted to honor god and wanted to compete in the right or healthiest way possible. And there was always something about the way competition is presented in our culture that was a bit repulsive to Christian athletes because they really wanna win, but they don't necessarily wanna crush, you know, their opponents.
Jeff Iorg:Non Christians would ask me, if I commit my life to God, where will the drive come from to compete at a high level? And Christians would ask me, doesn't Christianity teach me to love everyone? And if I love everyone, doesn't that eliminate my competitive drive? These are good questions, and they relate more than just to athletes or professional athletes or elite athletes. They relate to every one of us who's facing the challenge of trying to get ahead in our career, in our area of professional responsibility, in our work, if you wanna say it that way.
Jeff Iorg:They these questions challenge us because we really wanna know, is it okay to compete, to try to get ahead, to try to win, to try to be the best? What about all that? Well, during my time as a baseball chaplain, but even more than that, while I was thinking about my own children and the questions they asked me while they were competing in various sports and athletics all through the years. And then going back even to my own years, years ago now as an athlete, I've been grappling with the same issue. Here's what I've concluded.
Jeff Iorg:Being a Christian does not preclude competing at a high level. In fact, Christian athletes should be the most competitive athletes, and they should be models of focused intensity for their teammates and peers. And if you wanna expand this outside of athletics, I would say Christians can be, and in fact, should be models of competitive drive in the healthiest way possible. Now that raises a whole another set of questions. What does healthy communication look like?
Jeff Iorg:What does it mean to be competitive in a healthy productive way? Well, I wanna give you 4 insights today into how Christians can understand competition, and I wanna make the case for competition and help you understand why I believe that we should teach children to compete, allow athletes to compete, and why we should tell people that it's okay to be a competitive Christian. 1st, Christians understand the true nature of competition. Competition, contrary to what our culture tells us, competition isn't about destroying or even defeating others. True competition is an internal challenge.
Jeff Iorg:It's competing to maximize your God given potential within the abilities and the opportunity that you've been provided. In recently watching the Olympics, there was one commercial that was played repeatedly, and it emphasized competition as crushing or defeating another person. Well, that's really not a biblical perspective on competition. The biblical perspective is that competition is about maximizing your god given potential, not necessarily defeating or destroying an opponent. You know, Jesus taught this principle in the parable of the talents.
Jeff Iorg:You can find that in Matthew chapter 25 beginning in verse 14 if you wanna read it later. The parable basically is the story of a master who gave 3 servants, talents or large sums of money to manage in his absence. A talent was about a year's wages for a working man. So the talent the the servants received different numbers of talents. And you may remember what happened.
Jeff Iorg:2 servants invested wisely, earned good returns, and were praised for their ingenuity. The 3rd servant buried his talent, saved it, and then returned it to the master. He was harshly rebuked. Now, Jesus' point in this parable is clear. God has given you talents and that could symbolize for, all of us, our abilities, our opportunities, and God expects us to maximize them.
Jeff Iorg:Now continuing the analogy from the parable, God isn't pleased when you save or hide or limit what he's given you. He expects production in proportion to the abilities and opportunities he has provided. Now think back to the parable. The 2 faithful servants weren't competing against each other. They were affirmed not for having equal outcomes, but instead for simply doubling what they had been given.
Jeff Iorg:And they were not affirmed for beating anyone else's results, but only affirmed for making the most of what they had been given. Listen. You are responsible to maximize your god given abilities and opportunities. When you exhaust your full potential, you are competing at the highest level. Now in sports, when you've done all you can do, you either win or lose.
Jeff Iorg:That's the beauty of keeping score. The essence of competition, however, is not revealed by the final score. The true nature of competition is in measuring the effort expended in proportion or relation to the abilities and opportunities that you have. When you give everything you have and still lose, the issue was not failure to compete. Let me say that again.
Jeff Iorg:When you give all you have and you lose. The issue was not failure to compete. The issue was shortage of talent. Your opponent was just better than you. That's how life works.
Jeff Iorg:If you've competed and given all you have in the moment, you live with the results and you move on. I saw a beautiful and humorous example of this while I was serving as the chaplain for the Giants. We had a player on our team, let's call him Tom just to preserve anonymity. We had a player on our team that was a very committed Christian, serious about his walk with the Lord, regularly participated in chapel services, read the Bible, witnessed the gospel, was really one of my favorite players to work with over the years. We'll call him Tom.
Jeff Iorg:Tom had a friend who played on another team. His name, let's call him Bob. Bob was also an equally committed Christian. And in fact, in the off season, these guys were good friends. And on one occasion during spring training when I was down visiting with them, we actually went to a bible study together.
Jeff Iorg:So these were good brothers. Tom, he's a pitcher. Bob, he's a hitter. Both of them at the top of the game. Both of them well paid.
Jeff Iorg:Both of them highly, regarded, on their teams. They were playing each other. And Tom, the pitcher, threw a particular pitch, and Bob, the hitter, knocked it out of the ballpark for a home run. After the game, I was watching the pitcher be interviewed, and the reporter stuck the microphone in his mouth in his face and said, what happened on that pitch to Bob? Did you throw the wrong pitch or did you put it in the wrong location?
Jeff Iorg:And my friend, Tom, smiled and said, neither. I threw the exact pitch that I wanted to throw in that moment. And then he smiled and said, but, you know, Bob gets paid $18,000,000 a year to hit that pitch. And every now and then, he's gonna do it. And I thought that's the essence of competition.
Jeff Iorg:My friend said, I did exactly what I intended to do. I prepared well. I was at my best. I threw the pitch I wanted to throw. Well, the other guy was just better than me that day, and he hit it out of the park.
Jeff Iorg:And I laughed when he said, some days, he gets paid $18,000,000 and some days, he hits that pitch. Well, that's the essence of competition. Understanding that you maximize your abilities and your opportunities. You do the very best you can in the moment, and then, win or lose, you're content to live with the results knowing that you competed at the highest level no matter the results. Alright.
Jeff Iorg:Here's another big idea. Christians compete best when they focus on what they can control. As I've said, athletes keep score. We like to total the points, total the runs, measure the times, and we like to determine a winner or a loser. Now I know we're in a culture where everybody gets a trophy, but, you know, athletes don't really like that.
Jeff Iorg:They like to recognize the winner. Maybe everybody else gets a pat on the back, but they have no problem no problem keeping the score. But in the context of doing that, it's easy to lose focus and allow those outcomes to measure the quality of effort. But you know, in sports as in life, outcomes are often impossible to control. Here's what I mean.
Jeff Iorg:A perfect pitch can be lined for an out or singled into the outfield. Just 6 inches makes the difference. A touchdown pass? Well, it might be caught and everyone celebrates, or the same perfect pass might be dropped. A judge's mistake can ruin a perfect gymnastics routine.
Jeff Iorg:In all these cases, outcomes are out of your control. That means outcomes are an elusive measure for your competitive drive. In other words, you can't always answer the question, did I compete, by looking at the final score. You know, there's a proverb with a military analogy that, provides insight about this point, and it's a proverb that I used frequently when I was a a baseball chaplain to help players understand this concept. Proverbs 2131 says, the horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the lord.
Jeff Iorg:The proverb underscores the importance of preparation and effort. In other words, the proverb says this, saddle your horse, equip it with armaments, and ride it into battle. Get the best horse and the best weapons possible, but don't trust in them for victory. This proverb teaches that you are responsible for preparation and effort. God is responsible for outcomes.
Jeff Iorg:You know, when you focus on controlling outcomes, you will be frustrated, Because anytime you're focusing on what you cannot control and assuming in some way that you can control, you are headed for a meltdown. When you become preoccupied with the score or the officials or or the media or the performance of teammates or the decisions of coaches or any other variable, you lose focus and you feel stressed and you find yourself worrying about things you cannot control. Now true competitors, keep their focus on their responsibilities, preparation, and effort. Now listen. When both of these are maximized, you are competing at the highest level.
Jeff Iorg:So when your preparation is at its best and your effort is at its peak, you can walk away and say, I competed at the highest level. I gave everything. I was at my best. I did all I could. But what if you lose?
Jeff Iorg:You still walk away with your head held high because you know you competed at the highest level. You competed at the things you could control, and you did not measure the success or failure of your competitive effort by the score. Listen. When you focus on outcomes that you cannot control, you will eventually lose your competitive focus because you will spend too much time wasting emotional effort on things you cannot control rather than competing to maximize the things you can control. So Christian competition, first of all, Christians understand the nature, the true nature of competition.
Jeff Iorg:And second, Christians focus on what they can control. Here's another unique aspect of competition for us. Christians please an audience of 1. Now athletes and, frankly, a lot of the rest of us perform in front of people. Whether it's a small crowd of family and friends or an international media audience.
Jeff Iorg:You do what you do in front of people. But if you've been doing that very long, you understand that trying to please people is an exercise in futility. You will never satisfy the crowd. Now an example of the fickle nature of a crowd happened to some missionaries in the bible. You can read this story in Acts chapter 14 beginning in verse 11.
Jeff Iorg:The missionaries performed a miracle and were then acclaimed as gods, and the crowd tried to offer them animal sacrifices. Now the missionaries discovered what was happening and resisted strenuously. They stopped this sacrifice because they knew they weren't gods. Very shortly, however, the same mob was incited to riot, stoned the missionaries, dragged them out of town, and left them for dead. Every time I read this story, I'm reminded people can turn on you quickly.
Jeff Iorg:Drawing your competitive drive from what others others say or write about you is a fool's errand. One day, people may almost worship you, chanting your name and acclaiming their allegiance. Oh, you're the greatest, they will say. Then the next day, they will be calling for your head. I call this the doctrine of the crowd.
Jeff Iorg:One day, the crowd are chanting your name, offering sacrifices, and almost making you out to be a god. And the next day, same crowd, destroying you on social media. Same crowd. The Bible warns about giving too much credence to what people think. It reminds you in 1st Corinthians chapter 4, it is the Lord who judges and who is our ultimate evaluator.
Jeff Iorg:This means you're challenged to glorify God in every activity, including sports, but in every other competitive activity of life as well. It means that you play for an audience of 1, that you have the spiritual discipline to keep your focus on pleasing god and depending on him as your ultimate evaluator. You ask yourself, not what does the crowd think or who's cheering me on today, But you ask yourself this question, what does the lord what does the lord think of my preparation, my effort, and my attitude? Because going back to what I've already said on the podcast, you can't control outcomes, You measure the true success of your competitive drive by asking, did you compete well in your preparation? Did you compete well in the effort expended?
Jeff Iorg:Did you compete well in the attitude that you held during the event? Did you do those things which you can control at the highest level? And if you did, whether the crowd cheers you on or not, you can know that the lord is pleased with you. And true competitors, true Christian competitors, are not so focused on what the crowd thinks, but are instead focused on what the Lord thinks. Well, one last aspect that makes competition different and unique for Christians is that we compete in order to meet the needs of others.
Jeff Iorg:We compete in order to meet the needs of others. Most athletes, even golfers, compete in a team context. I mean, after all, even a golfer has a caddy and oftentimes, a support network standing on the side watching. This means, whether you're in a sport like golf, which appears to be individual, or a sport like football with a team all around you on the field, it means in any one of these contexts, other people are depending on you, which means you must compete at the highest level because other people are counting on you. While it's true in most any activity or endeavor of life, this is, of course, particularly true in sports because you almost always have teammates.
Jeff Iorg:You know, Jesus said in John 15:13, no one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. And then Jesus later added in John 13:35, by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. And then he said again in Matthew 2313, the greatest among you will be your servant. In these passages, Jesus taught love for people and demonstrating that love through service as a primary Christian responsibility. Now what does this mean, particularly among athletes or others who are in a competitive environment?
Jeff Iorg:It means this, show up every day. Do your job with everything you have, and sacrifice yourself to make your teammates successful. We compete as Christians and Christian athletes. We wanna do our best. We wanna maximize our preparation, our effort, and our attitude, not for what it brings to us, but instead, what it does for others so that others are blessed, served, inspired, and even made successful by the work we do.
Jeff Iorg:Show up every day, do your job with everything you have, and sacrifice yourself to make others successful. This means true competition is about checking your ego at the door and focus on helping other people achieve their goals. Make team goals your primary goals. Now while I was working with the Giants for those years, it was my privilege to have a very good relationship with a player on the team, a superstar by every definition of the word, also a committed Christian and person who made a tremendous difference in setting the tone and the attitude for the ball club. One of the things he did was every time a new player would be called up from the minor leagues and would be there for the first time, this veteran, superstar would go over to the new player's locker and shake hands with him and say, welcome to the San Francisco Giants.
Jeff Iorg:Now remember why you're here. Someone, somewhere saw you play and believes you can help us today and you can help us to win. That's what we're here for. We're here to win. We're not here, any one of us, to make any individual successful, but we are here to win.
Jeff Iorg:And you're here today because you're gonna help us do that. When I first saw this happen and then talked to several younger players who'd heard that speech, it was amazing how it changed their perspective. They had been called up to the big leagues. They were excited to be there, but also a little bit fearful of the whole experience. But here was this veteran superstar walking across the room shaking their hand and saying, you belong here.
Jeff Iorg:But never forget why we're here. We're here to win, and we're here to win as a team. And he modeled sacrificing himself for the good of others, never putting his own agenda, his own statistics, his own contract first. But instead, always making sure that he modeled team first. Serve, sacrifice, and show love by making other people successful.
Jeff Iorg:And because he did that and then challenged other people to do it, you know what happened, they would rise up with him and wanna do whatever it took to get the job done that day. You know, nothing undermines respect among competitive people, particularly athletes, like failure to prepare and give maximum effort. Players will forgive mistakes. I've seen this over and over and over. Players will forgive mistakes made by teammates.
Jeff Iorg:If those teammates are well prepared, highly motivated. If those teammates have maximized their effort, their preparation, and their attitude, if they have done all they could do to prepare for the moment even if they, quote, unquote, failed in the moment, their teammates will still rally around them. But there is something unforgivable about shoddy preparation and lackadaisical effort. When you're not ready and you don't try, your teammates notice, and they can be very unforgiving because you have failed to do this basic task of what it really means to show love to others, which is to put their needs before yours. So when you fail to compete, meaning you fail to maximize your own preparation and effort and attitude, you are letting other teammates down.
Jeff Iorg:And you're a Christian, you're limiting your witness for the gospel, and in fact, possibly even undermining it. So that the next time you wanna talk to someone about Jesus and what he means in your life, they may not respect you enough to listen to what you have to say. I've talked today about the case for competition. I believe that we should teach people, particularly Christians, how to compete and how to do so at the highest level. But remember, competition is not about crushing your opponent or even defeating them in a sporting contest or any other kind of life activity.
Jeff Iorg:True competition is about maximizing the abilities and opportunities you've been given, about focusing on what you can control, preparation, effort, and attitude, about doing all these things to please an audience of 1, not playing to the crowd, but competing in such a way that you know god is pleased and satisfied with what you've done, And finally, competing, meaning that we maximize our abilities and opportunities, that we give a maximum effort related to our preparation and attitude, and that we do so for the benefit of others so that we demonstrate the love of God and our own commitment to valuing and, extolling and placing higher than our own needs those that come from the people around us. We give ourselves in competitive drive, not for what we can achieve, but for what others can achieve because we showed up and competed at the highest level. Listen. I believe Christians, and particularly Christian athletes, should compete. They should be models of intensity, maximizing their abilities and their opportunities for the good of others.
Jeff Iorg:They must focus on thorough preparation and intense effort, not outcomes. They must compete to have the attitude that reflects their relationship with God, because they perform for an audience of 1. The ultimate evaluator. Not the crowd, but the Lord. And they compete, not for personal glory, but to demonstrate their love for their teammates by sacrificing themselves that others might receive the success, the honor, even the accolades that might come to them by the efforts that I might make on their behalf.
Jeff Iorg:Well, if you've been enjoying the Olympics or the Major League Baseball season, or you're getting ready for the NFL season coming this fall, or maybe you're just a person who coaches a kids sports team, soccer, basketball, now maybe coming up soon, football. And you've wondered, should Christians compete? I hope today the podcast is giving you some insight into how you can help this important issue be made more clear to the athletes under your care, or the athletes who live in your house, or maybe for you, if you're an athlete or so. Thank you for listening today. We continue to carry on this conversation about practical issues in ministry leadership.
Jeff Iorg:The case for competition will help you to guide athletes as they do their work. It's a part of your ministry, particularly a niche that you may have as you relate to the athletes around you. Put this into practice today as you lead on.