From January 2006

 A DAILY TASK 

Bill Snyder, the head football coach at Kansas State University for 17 years, recently retired.  The high point of Coach Snyder’s years at Kansas State was his team’s upset victory over Oklahoma University, 35-7, in the 2003 Big 12 championship game.  Just before that game, some national sports commentators were calling that particular OU squad the most outstanding team in the history of college football.  The following statement best summarizes, in the most general way, Coach Snyder’s 17-year tenure at K-State: under his leadership, the worst college football team in the nation rose to become one of the best.

Key word: leadership.  He led his team.  One way that he led them was to teach them.  And one of the things he taught his players was this principle: each member of the team had the responsibility, each day, to improve just a little.  The quarterbacks, the punter, the kicker, the defensive backs, the wide receivers, every player on the team was asked to do one thing: every day, improve just a little.

That is not a bad rule of thumb -- which is not to be confused with the Church’s authoritative teaching! -- for Christians in the Church: every day, increase just a little in faithfulness to Jesus Christ.  Each day, increase in the knowledge of Christ, in the trust of Christ, in obedience to Christ, in love of Christ, in service to Christ, in love of neighbor, and/or in service to neighbor.  Every day.  If that is done, God will take care of the rest.

As residents of the Wesleyan wing of the Church universal, we should understand this goal of daily striving for Christian improvement.  After all, we Wesleyans are strong believers in sanctification and even Christian perfection.  We believe that, because of the grace of God at work in our lives, we can (indeed, should) be growing in holiness.  And we even believe that, in God’s good time, we can reach Christian perfection: a perfect love of God and neighbor.  Usually, this is accomplished by God’s grace changing us a little bit each day.

Here we stand, at the beginning of 2006.  We do not know what, in the particulars, awaits us.  But we can know a daily task: each day, to increase just a bit in faithfulness to Christ.