Where Humility Leads To Lots Of Home Runs – Christianity Today

Coach Dan Heefner had a establish a question to.

It was the first week of faculty at Dallas Baptist University (DBU), and the August sun was hot over the runt Christian campus nestled into the hills alongside a gleaming lake on the outskirts of Dallas. Heefner ducked into an air-conditioned meeting room shut to the baseball discipline and stood within the entrance. The room was filled with younger males.

for DBU’s size, these males create one in all the most productive teams at college baseball.

“Who’re you?” Heefner mentioned.

They are pupil athletes. Baseball avid gamers. They are wanting to lunge to the College World Assortment. But Heefner, head coach of the crew since 2008, thinks it’s important for them to worship they aren’t simply athletes.

“In case your identity is that you just’re a baseball participant,” he mentioned, “you’re going to need it: ‘I need to be drafted. I must play. I need to be an all-American.’ You will need it. That’s a heavy burden. It’s doubtless you’ll even be on top of the area, and that you just may smash like a flash.”

Then he started speaking about Paul within the Bible—“a high-pressure guy”—and how he was very a hit at what he did but had to search out himself, his genuine identity, in Christ.

“Christ died for our sins in step with the Scripture and rose on the third day,” Heefner mentioned, quoting 1 Corinthians 15 from memory. He saved going, rattling off all the passage.

Then he had had one other establish a question to.

“What are we looking out to carry out right here? What’s an important part?” Heefner asked the room.

“Be say,” mentioned one participant.

“Be a particular person built for others,” mentioned one other.

It’s the extra or less solution you learn by heart even as you play for Heefner. Alumni of the runt college’s baseball program repeat it continuously when asked to point to the success of the crew, what it supposed to them to play for Heefner, and how it fashioned them. They divulge being a “man built for others” is set humility, and humility is a pillar of this system.

DBU is, in lots of how, a humble college. About 2,400 students continue to exist DBU’s campus, which is runt ample that they can run from one extinguish to the assorted in exactly a pair of minutes.

However the baseball crew is one thing else. The DBU Patriots accept as true with made it to the Division I playoffs 13 out of the previous 17 seasons that Heefner has coached. In that time, the crew has a mighty .667 winning document. Basically the most easy other teams to accept as true with that extra or less success are elite packages at comparatively big universities. Louisiana Command University has an undergraduate enrollment of 33,000. Texas A&M has 61,000.

But this modest Christian college is a baseball powerhouse. It’s miles one in all the extinguish ten faculties producing main-league draft picks. Gamers approach into Heefner’s program wanting to lunge to the main leagues, and heaps accept as true with made it to the extinguish.

But he reminds them, time and again, that getting to the majors is never any longer if truth be told what right here’s all about.

“A immense verse for us as a program has been Psalms 115, which says, ‘Now to no longer us, O Lord, no longer to us, but to your name be the glory because of your love and faithfulness,’” Heefner told CT.

He recited the verse from memory, sitting in his place of industrial at DBU. The place of industrial may perchance properly be no longer that utterly different from diverse college coaches’ offices, with trophies from triumphs previous and photos of his household and aged avid gamers. However the shelves are moreover stout of theology books from Jerry Bridges, Tim Keller, and others.

“That [verse] brings up the subsequent establish a question to: What does that imply, to glorify God?” Heefner mentioned. He answered his beget establish a question to with one other verse off the extinguish of his head, Isaiah 43:7, announcing, “‘All americans who is understood as by my name, whom I created for my glory.’ He created us to glorify him.”

Glorifying God is reflecting God’s attributes, he explained.

“Also can mild we be striving to be gigantic on the discipline? Entirely! Attributable to we’re looking out to mimic him,” he concluded.

Heefner himself played for Elliot Johnson, who is within the teaching corridor of reputation, and realized a lot from him about teaching and being a Christian. Lately, Heffner is a mighty coach, seriously when he teaches hitting, alumni of this system mentioned. Other faculties accept as true with tried to recruit him a long way from DBU, but he has stayed because of he likes how openly he can integrate faith into the rhythm of the crew. It’s doubtless you’ll’t refer to him for added than a pair of minutes earlier than he’s weaving paragraphs of Scripture into dialog.

For Heefner, integrating faith into practising is necessary for a group of younger males to be contented taking part in baseball together. He if truth be told cares about avid gamers’ friendships. Heefner thinks avid gamers be all ears to 1 any other extra than they devise out to coaches, so those relationships are key.

The baseball avid gamers reside in townhouse dorms together. And most of them rob part in a voluntary program known as The Oaks—a spiritually centered group for the crew led by avid gamers and aged avid gamers.

Tom Poole, a senior and a slugger, mentioned those had been the issues that drew him from Calgary, Canada, to play for DBU. He started off at a college that was no longer spiritual but then transferred to DBU.

The Christian discipleship side was unique and “what I needed,” Poole mentioned in an interview. Last season he was the crew’s designated hitter and was very energetic in The Oaks’ explore group, the build he has chanced on deep friendships alongside with his teammates.

“I’m in a position to’t catch ample of it,” Poole mentioned. “The baseball game is wintry, but being with every person else is advance cooler.”

Portion of what Heefner is providing his avid gamers is a vision of biblical masculinity that pushes them to be their most productive—and reside humble.

Heefner mentioned there was a time when he was scared humility wasn’t a if truth be told helpful virtue in baseball. He mentioned to himself, “We’ll stink if we have a bunch of humble baseball avid gamers.” But then he was convicted that the Bible talks about humility consistently and he couldn’t decide and decide what components he cherished.

Humility, in his survey, is extreme to being a crew. The advance Heefner talks about biblical humility to his avid gamers is being “others centered.” It’s doubtless you’ll even be humble and strive to be gigantic. It’s doubtless you’ll even be humble and be piece of a huge baseball crew.

“If we develop an environment the build you may perchance reach your stout doubtless, after which at the identical time you’re entirely supplied out to being a huge teammate, it’s an impossible discipline to uncover up to each and on daily foundation,” he mentioned.

Baseball folks may perchance divulge Heefner’s a grasp of participant construction. But Heefner calls it discipleship. For him, discipleship wants to be avid gamers’ top priority, then their college education is subsequent. Successful baseball video games comes third.

Successful’s mild important, even supposing. The crew attracts aesthetic avid gamers because of Heefner’s proven document of constructing them greater. Nate Frieling, who was a coach under Heefner and is now senior associate athletic director at DBU, sees an evangelistic good judgment to this.

“If he … doesn’t benefit them catch greater at baseball, they’re no longer going to care what he has to convey about his faith or the Bible,” Frieling mentioned.

Gamers in most cases obtain relief in Heefner’s Christian message. The stress to thrill their coaches, their of us, their teammates, and doubtless immense-league scouts is constant. But he tells them to “honor, glorify, and please God” after which “believe him with the implications.”

It’s no longer the bizarre advance faculties recruit top avid gamers. Here’s seriously unbiased appropriate now that NCAA principles enable avid gamers to switch to utterly different faculties with out penalty. Since athletes can moreover extinguish money from their personal producers, identified as their name, characterize, and likeness (NIL), and since NIL collectives accept as true with fashioned spherical immense packages to recruit and pay avid gamers, bigger faculties blueprint bigger funding, promising bigger payouts to doubtless avid gamers.

That’s a scenario for runt Christian faculties. What they accept as true with to offer, as an quite diverse, is deeper relationships and spiritual discipleship. That’s continuously been the special ingredient at DBU. While DBU’s baseball program has a hot reputation, Heefner makes particular in recruiting that Christian discipleship is a immense piece of what the crew does.

He’ll benefit avid gamers catch greater at baseball. But he’s moreover going to point out them the Bible’s approach to the establish a question to “Who’re you?”

It worked for Matt Duce. He was a catcher on the crew from 2015 to 2018. He was drafted by two main-league teams and played within the minors for the St. Louis Cardinals.

He mentioned he noticed that many first-spherical draft picks didn’t accept as true with gigantic relationships with their coaches or teammates. They continuously had the mentality that they wished to switch on fleet, switch up to the subsequent stage. That wasn’t unbiased appropriate at DBU. Duce had 9 groomsmen in his marriage ceremony: One amongst them was his brother, and the assorted eight had been DBU baseball avid gamers.

“After I purchased right here at 18, I saw a coach that had rather unparalleled memorized the Gospel of Matthew, and he was unbelievable coach,” mentioned Duce, now the athletics director at DBU. “And it simply clicked. It was what I had been taking a admire for all these years.”

Alumni of the baseball program recite the identical Bible verses Heefner does, admire Psalm 115:1 (“no longer to us, Lord”) and Isaiah 43:7 (“created for my glory”).

Duce quoted John 15:5, the build Jesus tells his disciples to abide in him.

“We may perchance simply mild all simply be having an abiding relationship with Christ,” he mentioned. “After which, because of that relationship, you may perchance lunge hit a ton of house runs and carry out so for a increased glory.”

He laughed and added, “It’s fun to be aesthetic.”

DBU will play the first game of the season against North Dakota Command on February 14. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.