Ministry

Looking forward to better days

I’m a Crows fan.

Just the simple disclosure of that information will do one of a few different things for you.

Either:

You don’t care – you aren’t into football or sport
You empathise with me – you are also a Crows fan, or you know what it is to be part of a losing team
You perhaps chuckle – maybe you are a Port fan? Or, it is so bad, that if you don’t laugh, you can only cry.

If you’ve been paying even passing attention to football this year, you would know that the Crows have not won a single game of football this year. It looks like a long winter for me, and because of how badly the Crows are playing, even if they make great choices from now on, it could be a couple of years before things get better.

We know this, because it’s the choices that a football club has made in the past that affects its future, in terms of list management, skill and talent development, culture and more.

The same, of course, is true of us as people.

We make choices today that affect our tomorrow. We all have choices in our own past – some good, some not so good – that are impacting our lives today, and we all have different ways of dealing with them. Again, some of them may be good, and some not so good.

If you are like me, you may use some of the following:

Cover-up – Remove evidence of it happening
Denial – it didn’t happen
Deflection – it isn’t quite true
Blame – it was someone else’s fault

A much better response to our poor choices looks more like this:

Honesty – admitting what went wrong
Responsibility – owning our part of what went wrong
Assistance – getting help to make things right

At Endeavour, students display an amazing capacity to respond well to poor choices. That is a testament to the families of students, their teachers, the schools that they came from before being here, and the culture that is continually built by staff and student leaders. It’s these responses, these choices each and every day that mean that they can look forward to a better future – not just academically, but in every area of their lives.

At Endeavour, we also know that the best response to poor choices is how God responds – with grace, with compassion, with understanding, with love, with forgiveness – and then also with a new and better path to walk. A path of love, of courage, of forgiveness, of hope.

It is these things that help us to look forward, and no matter our circumstances, look forward to better days.

Even for Crows fans like me.

God bless you,

Chris Mann

Pastor