While talking to a Christian brother about a popular preacher and the importance of appreciating our own pastors, I invoked Roberto Clemente.
Roberto Clemente, the GOAT
Growing up in a small town, about a half-hour north of Pittsburgh, PA, I dreamed of one day being a Pittsburgh Pirate. My plan was to succeed Steve Blass as the pitching ace of the team. If that didn’t work out, well then, I would take Richie Hebner’s job at third base.
My favorite player was, and to this day remains, Roberto Clemente. His Hall of Fame career stretched from 1955-1972. A career .317 hitter, with 3,000 hits, Roberto Clemente was a two-time World Series champ, National League MVP, World Series MVP, four-time National League Batting Champ, 15-time All-Star, and 12-time Gold Glove winner.
And his arm. Oh, his arm. He had a cannon for an arm. To watch him throw from right field, in any stadium, was a thing of beauty.
I still have memories of watching Roberto Clemente patrol right field of Three Rivers Stadium–which, for him, was from the wall down the right field line up to and included most of center field.
The Memento That Wasn’t
One Pirates game, probably during the 1970 season, is forever etched in my memory. It was a night game. We had pretty good seats on the third base side. Roberto Clemente came to the plate. During the at-bat, he fouled one off. I watched the ball leave Clemente’s bat and travel in our direction.
“No way! Could it be! Dad caught it!” A dream comes true.
I knew that ball (I was certain my dad would give it to me) would be my most cherished possession.
As my dad held the ball high over his head, and everyone around us cheered, another fan ran by from behind and snatched it out of my dad’s hand. I was devastated and too upset to be mad at my dad for not keeping a tighter grip on a piece of memorabilia that would make me the star of Lyndora Township, PA.
A Clemente Card and a Bribe
My love for baseball included a love for baseball cards. Please don’t ask if I still have the collection. It’s just too painful to talk about it.
Each week, on Thursday, I received a 30-cent allowance. As soon as it hit my hand, I ran down the street to Markiw’s Market where I bought three packs of baseball cards (10 cards and a stick of stale bubble gum per pack).
I was eight-years-old and going through catechism classes at our Roman Catholic parish, in preparation to take my first communion. My dad bribed me with a box of 1972 Topps baseball cards. Back then, a box was 660 cards. That was the equivalent to 66 packs of baseball cards. That worked out to 22 weeks of allowance, or $6.60.
The purpose of the bribe was to insure I would participate in my first communion at church, without complaining. Well, I knew there was a better than average chance that Clemente’s card was in that box. So, I would do anything to get that card.
That’s how much Roberto Clemente meant to me.
Clemente Had No Idea I Existed, but My Dad Did
I wanted to wear Roberto Clemente’s number. I wanted to play like him, hit like him, run like him, throw like him. When it was my turn at the plate, I mimicked the way he settled into the box, including the way he turned his head to loosen his neck. I wanted to BE Clemente.
Clemente, on the other hand, had no idea I even existed. He had no idea that I idolized him, collected his baseball cards, wrote his name on my baseball glove, gave him the place of prominence, in my Pittsburgh Pirates scrapbook. If we had passed each other walking down Bessemer Avenue, in Lyndora, only one of us would have recognized the other.
No, Clemente had no idea I existed, but my Dad did.
My earliest memories involved my dad and a baseball. As unorthodox as his methods were, my dad taught me not only how to play the game, but how to love and respect the game.
As for his practice methods, well…
Drills
To teach me how to catch line drives, my dad would stand at one end of the backyard, with me and my glove at the other end. Armed with a driver (that’s right; a golf club) and a hard, baseball-size rubber ball (after all, he didn’t want to kill me or damage his club), my dad would tee up the ball and hit it at me. My mission: get the glove in front of the ball before it took my head off. Shying away from the ball was not allowed.
My mom was not at all happy with my dad’s methodology. Her angst went well-beyond that of Ralphie’s mom and the thought of him shooting his eye out.
I’m sure I trembled as I watched my dad’s backswing. He wasn’t simulating a line drive to center at Three Rivers. He was going for the green at Augusta.
Having served 20 years in law enforcement, I’m very familiar with what are called non or less-than-lethal rounds. They move slow enough to not severely injure the suspect, yet fast enough that the suspect cannot get out of the way. That was the hard rubber ball coming off the face of my dad’s club.
There was only enough time to drop my jaw and blink. By then the ball had already struck me in the chest and driven me backwards into a wooden and chain-link fence. My mom screamed. My dad chuckled. And both rushed to my side.
The rubber ball had the simulated stitches of a real baseball. Those simulated stitches had left a perfect imprint on my chest. While it gave me quite the story and visual aid to show my friends for several days, mom instituted a life-time ban on the drill.
To teach me how not to be afraid of bad hops on ground balls, my dad took tennis balls, stood a couple feet in front of me, and bounced them at me as hard as he could.
And to strengthen my swing, he had me swing broken wooden bats that he taped–broken bats he had collected from the American Legion team in town. But he didn’t just have me swing the bats. He made a mark on the pear tree in the backyard and told me to swing the bat as hard as I could, hitting the tree–over and over again. I probably looked like a cartoon version of a servant striking a large gong to announce the entrance of royalty, with the vibration of the gong strike reverberating through his entire body.
Ball, Gloves, and a Shovel
Pennsylvania winters could be harsh. We could go months without ever seeing grass. But that never stopped my dad’s training regimen. I remember going to the Lyn-Hi Little League field that was near Lyndora Elementary School, in January. Armed with a shovel, my dad would clear the mound and the area around home plate. It was during a snowy day that my dad taught me how to throw a curveball. It was such a big deal to me that my dad thought I was old enough (I wasn’t) and strong enough (I wasn’t) to learn how to throw a curve.
The Pirate Game I Missed
Mrs. Martsoff was my first-grade teacher, in Room #2, at Lyndora Elementary School. Back then, classrooms kept ledgers in the classroom that included the names of students who attended the classroom, each year. Three generations of my family’s names were in the ledger for Room #2.
In first grade, I developed, let’s say, an inappropriate vocabulary. I was learning new words every day and unbeknownst to me, not all of them were good. After all, I was only six.
One day, during lunch in the school cafeteria, I was trying out some new words on my friends. They laughed. However, one of the lunchroom monitors happened by our table and heard my comedy act. She reported it to Mrs. Martsoff, who then called…
…my mother.
All of this, of course, happened without my knowledge.
Shortly after we returned to Room #2, after lunch, the door to the classroom opened. A hush fell upon the room as my mom entered the room.
This was unprecedented. And every student in my class knew it. Everyone knew that my mom being in the classroom meant one of two things: either someone in the family died, or I was about to. The answer became clear when my mom stopped, surveyed the classroom until her eyes met with mine, and then she smiled. It wasn’t a, “Oh, there you are, Tony. Mama loves you” kinda smile. No, no, no. This was a “I brought you into this world and I’m gonna take you out” kinda smile.
She walked to Mrs. Martsoff’s desk. The two women spoke in whispers for just a few brief moments.
My mom turned to leave the classroom. Before she exited, she looked my way one more time. This time there was no smile. Just a burning glare that would make Superman’s x-ray vision seem like a mere twinkle of the eye.
I think every six-year-old in the classroom was petrified. I know I certainly was.
I remember walking home very slow that day. I knew a whoopin’ was comin’. My mom meted out the corporal punishment in our house. And she was good at it.
My mom sat me down on a chair in the dining room as soon as I walked in the backdoor. This was a new tactic. Usually, my body didn’t make it completely inside the house before the first blow was struck. Her modus operandi was to, in one sweeping motion, grab my arm with one hand (to prevent my escape) while simultaneously leveling the first swat to my backside with her free hand. This initial strike was often followed by multiple strikes that came with sniper accuracy and machine gun rapidity.
“I’m not going to spank you,” she said with a soft yet rather sadistic smile.
That was horrifying. “She’s not going spank me? Wait; she is going to kill me,” I thought.
No. It was worse than that.
“I called your father at work. He’s on his way home,” she announced.
My dad never came home early from work, at the ARMCO steel mill.
This was really, really bad.
The mill was walking distance from our house. So, it only took a minute or two for my dad to make the drive home.
“You are grounded for two weeks. During that time, you and I will not play catch,” he said.
“Couldn’t mom spank me, instead?” I thought.
“And…” He continued.
“Wait,” I thought. “What could be worse than a two week ban from playing catch with my dad?”
“I was going to take you to the Pirates game tomorrow night,” my dad explained. “I will be going without you.”
That did it. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I didn’t protest. I knew it wouldn’t do any good. And I didn’t want to add injury to insult–meaning, I didn’t want to add a spanking to what was already the most devastating punishment my dad could have imposed.
Roberto Clemente would be in right field. He wouldn’t be looking for me in the stands. Remember, he had no idea I existed. But I’m sure my dad looked to the empty seat beside him, during the game that night. My dad knew I wasn’t there.
Clemente Never Saw Me Play
Roberto Clemente never saw me play baseball. Tragically, he died just a few months before my ninth birthday. Had he lived a longer life, he still never would have seen me play the game we both loved. But my dad did. In fact, my dad saw every game I played. He went to every practice. Most years, he coached or assisted my teams.
My dad kept meticulous stats of my childhood baseball career, which ended when I was 15. I still have the scorebook my dad kept for what he called my “perfect season.” I was 13. We were now living in Southern California, and I was playing Pony League baseball. I was a pitcher. During that 20-game season I amassed a 10-0 record, with over 100 strikeouts, and two no-hitters. I batted over .300 and had a couple homers. I still have the game balls for the two no-nos, both signed by my teammates.
Roberto Clemente was my favorite player, but my dad was my biggest fan.
American Evangelical Fandom
It’s taken us a while to get here, and I hope you didn’t mind the trip down memory lane. I hope you will stick with me as I explain my Roberto Clemente metaphor.
American Evangelical Fandom, which has spread to the four corners of the world (I’ve seen it during multiple trips to Kenya and other countries), is a real problem for the local church. Every Christian reading this, especially in these days–decades after the advent of social media, has his or her favorite preachers, teachers, conference speakers, podcasters, bloggers, and dare I say, even polemicists. Some will say this doesn’t apply to them because their favorite teachers/preachers are their pastors. And some of them will mean it. Some of the fan favorites are tried and true, Bible-tested, rock-solid yet imperfect, evangelical celebrities. Some professing Christians are drawn to rank heretics and false teachers. Still others are drawn to polarizing figures who are right about some doctrines and dead wrong about others.
Criteria for Fandom Varies
The criteria for becoming someone’s fan can vary. It can be as simple and laudable as, “He rightly divides the Word.” It can be as simple and not-so-laudable as, “I like him, and he agrees with me.” Or the reasons could be darker. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I like what this guy has to say because he doesn’t like the people I don’t like.”
Christians sometimes become fans of celebrity theologians and pulpiteers because they find the celebrity’s philosophies of ministry and life more emotionally than intellectually appealing. This is not to say such people don’t thoughtfully think through these philosophies. And it’s not to say that these same people don’t carefully consider what the Bible has to say about the celebrity’s orthodoxy and orthopraxy. But, for some, the fandom isn’t driven by a careful study of doctrine as much as it is driven by the fan’s mood about culture, politics, family, and life in a world gone mad.
Pastor Kevin DeYoung, in his recent article, “On Culture War, Doug Wilson, and the Moscow Mood,” I think rightly discerns why some (certainly not all) of the fans of a particular celebrity Christian leader, are drawn by a mood to follow him.
“I’m convinced the appeal of Moscow [Idaho] is visceral more than intellectual. That’s not meant to be a knock on the smart people in Moscow or attracted to Moscow. It is to say, however, that people are not mainly moving to Idaho because they now understand Revelation 20 in a different way, or because they did a deep word study on ta ethne [“the nations”] in the Great Commission, or even because of a well-thought-out political philosophy of Christian Nationalism. Those things matter to Wilson and his followers, but I believe postmillennialism and Christian Nationalism are lagging indicators, not leading indicators. That is, people come to those particular intellectual convictions because they were first attracted to the cultural aesthetic and the political posture that Wilson so skillfully embodies. In short, people are moving to Moscow—whether literally or spiritually—because of a mood. It’s a mood that says, ‘We are not giving up, and we are not giving in. We can do better than negotiate the terms of our surrender. The infidels have taken over our Christian laws, our Christian heritage, and our Christian lands, and we are coming to take them back.'”
Whatever the reasons, whatever the arbitrary, self-determined standards for fandom, American Evangelical Christians are as passionate about their favorite theologians and pulpiteers as the Cheeseheads are about the Packers. And here’s the inconvenient truth. Roberto Clemente never knew that Tony Miano, from 111 Bessemer Avenue, Lyndora Township, PA, ever existed. Likewise, but for few exceptions, the guys in the green room at a Christian’s favorite conference (Shepherds, Ligonier, G3, Founders, FLF, etc.) doesn’t know he exists either. And likely never will.
This is why your pastor matters.
Why Your Pastor Matters
I’ve been a Christian, now, for 35 years. During that time, I’ve attended some of the biggest and best (and worst) conferences American Evangelicalism has to offer. I’ve helped to produce and have spoken at much smaller conferences where I’ve shared the green room with some Christian celebrities. And I’ve shaken the hands of many other unintentional fan-collectors. Here’s what I can say about every one of them.
They don’t know I exist.
Oh, I could drop a few names of men in this category who know my name and would even recognize me on the street. But beyond that, they don’t know I exist.
My pastor(s)? Well, that’s an entirely different story. My pastor not only knows I exist. He knows me. He knows me as well, and in some ways better, than anyone else on the planet (except for my wife).
My church family is closer than most and maybe not as close as some. I see my pastors at least four times a week. By and large, they are available to me seven days a week. At any given moment I can shoot them a text. I won’t receive an automated response. A secretary isn’t going to email me with a few suggested appointment dates and times, two months out. I’m going to receive a return text from my pastor(s).
I can pick up the phone at any time and call any one of my three pastors.
Oh, and get this. I’ve eaten meals at their dining room tables.
I’ve hugged my pastors, cried with them, laughed with them, exchanged terse words with them, sought their forgiveness and have had them seek mine, been exhorted and rebuked by them, gone fishing with them, played kickball with them, preached the gospel on the streets with them, and even traveled to faraway conferences with them to sit under the teaching of the green room guys.
Oh, yeah. Multiple times a week I also sit under their teaching during our church’s corporate times of worship.
When Life Hits the Fan
Life with my pastors isn’t all bubble gum and rainbows. Life in a family is messy; hard.
However, when life hits the fan and I need help, support, advice, and any other form of pastoral care I don’t pick up the phone and call John MacArthur, Voddie Bauchum, Steve Lawson, or Paul Washer (and the list goes on). For one, I don’t have their numbers. For another, they wouldn’t take my call. Why? They don’t even know I exist.
While the men I mentioned above are all fine pastors and/or teachers, they’re not mine. They’re not my pastors. They don’t care about me–not because they wouldn’t care about me if they knew me. They can’t care about me because they don’t know I exist.
In all of this, I am not suggesting you go from being a fan of pulpiteers who don’t know you to a fan of your pastor who does know you. Becoming a fan of your pastor won’t be good for him and it won’t be good for you. Your expectations of your pastor may soar too high, which might make the disappointments seem more egregious than they are.
Don’t be your pastor’s fan. Instead, joyfully be your pastor’s friend, subordinate, servant, backup, caregiver, defender and (only when necessary and appropriate) respectful critic, and his sheep. Be a sheep to the shepherd God has placed in your life.
A pastor who is a true shepherd smells like the sheep, lives with the sheep, feeds the sheep, defends the sheep, and if need be, dies for the sheep. And don’t flatter yourself, Christian. Sheep stink.
Oh; and remember this. The grass isn’t greener in the green room.
Just in Case You’re Thinking of Moving to Oz
You may not recognize the name Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919), but you most certainly recognize his most famous work. He was a well-known children’s author. One of his books, which was part of a larger series, was made into a movie. You know it as “The Wizard of Oz.”
In a nutshell, “The Wizard of Oz” is the story of girl named Dorothy and her dog Toto who are transported by a tornado to the magical land of Oz. To get home, Dorothy and her three strange, new friends must gain an audience with the Wizard of Oz who alone can send her back home and grant her friends their wishes.
Of course (spoiler alert for those who live on another planet), everything works out in the end, even after a major hiccup. The wizard didn’t turn out to be who everyone thought he was. The wizard confesses that he is nothing but a “humbug” from Omaha who got stuck in Oz, as the result of a eventful balloon ride.
Now, what does Oz have to do with Roberto Clemente, fandom, and your pastor? Settle down. The metaphors and this article are drawing to a close.
There’s no place like home.
Maybe after reading all of this you’re still thinking of packing up and voluntarily moving to Oz (no tornados or balloon rides, just a U-haul). Maybe you think the grass will actually be greener in the church of your favorite celebrity evangelical leader.
Look, it can happen. For some it has happened. You’re in a church, a fine church–a Bible believing, gospel preaching, imperfect church. However, over time, you discover your philosophical and theological views have changed–charismatic to non-charismatic, presbyterian to baptist, panmil (it will all pan out in the end) to premil, amil, or postmil, open communion to closed communion, etc. And, because of a firm, what you believe to be a biblically-rooted theological new and growing difference with your present church, you decide to move on to either the church of or a church doctrinally and philosophically in line with one of your favorite guys in the green room.
The parting will be and should be difficult. It should only come after difference are determined to be truly irreconcilable and the parting should be upon mutual agreement. After all, you’re leaving family. But such parting should also be amicable, loving, kind, and peaceful. There should be affirmation that even if you’re no longer in the same church, you’re still one in Christ with those you are leaving. No division in the church is created and the thought of splitting the church hasn’t even entered your mind.
If this is reality, then go. Don’t stay and try to make your church something it’s not–something no one else wants it to be. Go. Have the courage and strength of your convictions, count the cost, and don’t make someone else pay it. Go.
However…
Make sure you’re not a kid from Lyndora thinking that if you move to Pittsburgh Roberto Clemente will not only know your name, but he will actually ask you to start next to him in center field. Make sure–and if you are not seeking and heeding the counsel of your pastor(s) about this, you are a fool–make sure you’re not just an evanjellyfan who wants to be closer to his hero.
You better be sure your reasons are theological and not emotional, doctrinal and not relational, biblical and not philosophical, demonstrably convictional and not merely theoretical. This means you’re basing your changing theology and the change in scenery on what the Word of God says and not what your Clemente says about it. It means that if your church family asks for the eschatological, or pneumatological, or ecclesiological, or whatever-logical reason for the changing hope that is in you, then you have to be ready to give an answer based on what the Word of God says. You better be able to quote Paul and not Roberto on the subject(s).
If you can’t do this, then you’re just a fan–the fan of a man, the fan of a theological or philosophical position, the fan of the hope of finding a place like Oz, even though there’s no place like home. Don’t be that guy.
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