The Heiden Effect

With the Super Bowl coming this weekend and the following "sports drought" that many sports lovers believe comes in February, I have been thinking about the Winter Olympics. I love watching those who work so hard to perfect their craft. And this brings to mind a story about a famous Olympic athlete and the impact he had on those who competed against him.

During the 1980 Winter Olympics, the great American speed skater Eric Heiden took all five gold medals in his event. This was nothing new, though. Eric Heiden had won every amateur race he had ever entered. He was simply the fastest skater alive. Sports writers knew it; coaches knew it; most tellingly, Heiden's competitors knew it.

You might think that such knowledge would demoralize those who skated against Heiden. After all, what was the point of entering a race you knew you had no chance of winning? Ironically, just the opposite proved to be true. Instead of falling away, skaters clamored to compete with Heiden. Even though they knew they couldn't beat him, they sensed that skating against him would bring out the best in them. When Heiden won the 500-meter race, for example, second-place honors went to Evgeni Kulikov of the USSR, who turned in his personal best time ever for that distance.

And so it continued in every race. The silver and bronze medalists actually achieved greater personal times than ever before, in part because they were doing their best to catch Eric Heiden. This phenomenon became known as the "Heiden effect," which now is defined as achieving new personal victories by striving to equal a competitor one knows he or she can never surpass.

We have a little bit of the Heiden effect going on around church. It's not exactly a competition, but it is a challenge that confronts every Christian—a challenge presented by Jesus, who invites us to run the race of faith. True, we can never equal Jesus. But simply being in his presence makes us better people. The effect he has on us is profound.

Our Church Council has been discussing our future as a church, discussing new ministries, new visions, and have set some exciting goals for the year.

Some of these goals will challenge us to grow in new ways. But as long as we keep Jesus in the process, we will achieve great things. In fact, he keeps us moving and reaching out to be the church he wants us to be.

The good part about this race is not that we're running against Jesus but with him. He's out there in front, calling us to keep up and modeling the way to run the race that is our life. At the same time, he stands with us, coaching us, cheering us on, holding us up when we feel weak and ready to collapse.

I don't know how he does it, how he challenges and also supports us. Then again, he's Jesus, and we don't have to know how he does what he does. All we need to do is run with him, and we will achieve a lot of personal "bests."

Faithfully,

Pastor Roy

P.S. Click the picture or link below to read the full edition of The Beacon. 

Downloads