I miss watching baseball teams play ‘small ball.’ ‘Small ball,’ for the uninitiated, is what you do when your team doesn’t have a lot of power hitters to drive in runs.
Take for example, our Atlanta Braves. This year’s team has been endowed with powerful bats who can swat homeruns and extra bases most anytime they want. The Braves have little need to ‘manufacture runs;’ that is, to methodically work to ‘get ‘em on and get ‘em in.’ When you have the kind of firepower that the Braves have in their line-up this year, you don’t have to play small ball. You can swing for the fences with reckless abandon knowing that scoring runs is not going to be a problem.
But there’s a kind of elegance to playing ‘small ball.’ Like watching an army of ants working together to move an object 5,000 times their size, the offensive strategy that is needed to play ‘small ball’ requires focus, patience, and a perseverance that few have an appetite for.
This is how a team can manufacture a run: Draw a lead-off walk. Steal second. Have the next hitter pull it to the right side of the infield. Advance to third on the fielder’s choice. So now it’s a man on third with one out. A fly ball to center field will score that runner on a sacrifice fly. You just scored a run without the virtue of a hit.
Or, perhaps you get on board with a swinging bunt. You advance to third on a hit and run because the shift in the infield opens up a hole. You cross the plate by dashing home on a wild pitch because the man on first is distracting the pitcher with his gargantuan lead.
It’s a thing of beauty.
Oh, I know. Everyone loves the long ball. And if you can loft one over the fence, or into the right field corner, then by all means, do so. But not every team can sock it to Peachtree Street. So, you’ve got to find a way to score runs any way that you can. Besides, if you play ‘small ball’ each time you come to bat, you could walk away with 9 runs, if not more, by the time you get to the ninth inning.
‘Small ball’ requires discipline. It requires trust in the other folk on your team. It requires buying in to the vision a team has for winning. If advancing the runner isn’t the team’s number one goal, an over-eager batter will hit into a double play. She’ll strike out swinging for the fences. He’ll pop it up on the infield because they were too eager to hit a 6-run homerun.
Here’s the connection to 669 West Main Street: Like ‘small ball,’ the work of the church is a grueling slog. Progress is measured in indices that our world doesn’t value. Doing and being church is a grind.
As much as it pains me to say this, there are few homeruns in church work. There are few things that a group of faithful followers of Christ can do that can change their fortunes as quickly as a Ronald Acuna, Jr. homerun can. Call it what you will—a silver bullet, an ace in the hole, a winning lottery ticket—the work of the church has few easy solutions to difficult—often systemic—challenges.
Practicing Anam Cara, or soul friendship, is a decidedly ‘small ball’ approach to being the church. Yes, you’ve heard it from me before. My contention is that practicing soul friendship is a way for us to be Christ to one another. If God comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ, then God’s unconditional love to us is best expressed in our relationships with one another.
Anam Cara is a slow-burn kind of spiritual discipline. Just as Christ lived and taught, God is best understood in the dynamic of a relationship. All the scripture-reading, choir-singing, mission-triping, and worship-attending won’t match the firepower of a relationship where we are heard, forgiven, and loved. It’s our relationships that change us most-completely.
‘Small ball’ can be effective, but it’s certainly not easy. And neither, of course, are relationships. Deepening a friendship is risky. It requires vulnerability and a willingness to self-disclose. It means practicing commitment, trust, confidentiality, confession, and forgiveness. Above all, it requires time.
I have been struck by the number of individuals in our church—and beyond—who are willing to deepen a friendship through the Anam Cara Project that I am leading this fall. Perhaps there is a genuine hunger for deeper friendships. Of course, I think we’re on to something as I believe that these relationships have the power to change us and the church we attend.
Soul friendships may not be as flashy as a praise and worship band, or a 10,000-seat auditorium, or a hip, skinny-jeans pastor. It’s an ancient and Gospel-centered approach to being church, however. And it’s not too late for you to get in the lineup to join our team.
What is it that Margaret Mead famously said? “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
Now, swap out the word, ‘citizens’ for ‘friends’ and we may just have runners in scoring position.
Batter up.