Play in Space

This is my first season coaching Lacey’s soccer team.  I’m learning a lot about the world’s most popular game.  It is a very fluid game – as such one of the most difficult concepts to teach young players (in my very limited experience) is the idea of positions.  There are different positions on a soccer team and each of those positions has slightly different responsibilities, but the tricky this is that all of those positions are very fluid.  They tend to shift from place to place around the field.  Young players have the tendency to herd around the ball and simply follow the ball wherever it goes.  Therefor, one of the most important principles to learn in soccer is to play in space.  Teammates have to learn to trust each other and to spread out.  They must divvy up the responsibilities of covering the field of play and trust each other to follow through on those responsibilities.  Further they have to "man up" the opposing team.  If a team continues to follow the ball, huddling together, forgetting to cover the opposing team… well the game will be lost.  This principle is so important that you can hear little league soccer coaches imploring their team at practices and games to spread out!  Play in space!

On Sunday mornings we need to remember the same principle at Wallula.  We need to play in space.  It is really easy to follow the comfortable and important relationships we’ve developed over the years while our guests go "uncovered."  Our banquet team does a great job of preparing coffee and refreshments that make our time of fellowship very enjoyable, I’m just afraid not may  of our guests feel "invited."  This Sunday why not grab a cup of coffee & then spread out, head down to the worship center and foyer – - even with your cup of coffee & find someone you’ve never talked to, introduce yourself, ask if you can bring them a cup of coffee.  Let’s do our best to make everyone feel welcome at Wallula!  An easy way to increase the welcome quotient is to play in space!