In the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, young Derek Redmond represented his native England in the semi–finals of the 400–meters race. The starter lifted his pistol and fired, sending the world’s best runners on one blazing circle of the track. In England his mother and pregnant sister watched on TV.
Redmond was a favorite to win the gold medal that day, but within a few steps he heard a pop, felt a stab in his leg and fell to the track with a torn hamstring. He said later he thought he’d been shot.  It wasn’t only pain, but frustration too, that hurt so much. Just before his first race at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Derek tore an Achilles tendon and had five operations. For four long years he rehabilitated his leg and against long odds qualified again to represent Great Britain in 1992. Now he had fallen once more. Despite all his work and preparation, he was felled by another major injury.
Lying on that Spanish track, the other racers disappear-ing into the distance, he symbolized the propensity humanity has to fall at a critical moment in life. It’s true
physically and spiritually. Most of us have fallen just when we needed to be strong. From Adam’s sin to this very day we’ve been trying to avoid falling, to avoid the spiritual equivalent of Derek Redmond’s tragedy.
When he fell to the track and the crowd gasped and his mother wept uncontrollably and his sister went into labor, one other person was involved. A man in the stands raced toward the track. He pushed aside a security guard and hurried to the young athlete, who had gotten up and limped painfully toward the finish line.
Gently Derek Redmond’s father put his arms around his weeping son, helping him hobble the rest of the way to the finish line. As the crowd’s roar grew and grew, the two circled the track, completing the race Derek had begun with such high hopes.
The runner from Great Britain didn’t win that day, but he did finish, and his courage and his
father’s help symbolize an important spiritual truth: no matter how often we fall, with the Father’s help we can finish the race and receive our eternal reward from God. He’ll say: “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joys of your Lord.”
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©.They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
Many churches offer Vacation Bible School as part of their Christian education plan. Some are making plans right now for their summer ministry. Child Evangelism Fellowship is strong on summer ministries too, with 5–Day Clubs, Fair ministries and cooperative ministries with churches that use CEF materials for their own Vacation Bible Schools.
“During VBS last week,” writes James Hewitt, “my wife had an experience with her primary class that she says she’ll never forget.
 “On Wednesday her class was interrupted when a new student was brought in. He was introduced to everyone as ‘Davey.’ The little boy had one hand missing, and since the class was well underway, she didn’t learn any of the details about the cause or his
state of adjustment. She was very nervous and afraid that one of the other children would comment on his handicap and embarrass him. There was no chance to caution them, so she proceeded as carefully as possible.
“As the class came to a close, she began to relax. She asked the class to join her in their usual closing ceremony. ‘Let’s make our churches,’ she said, lacing her fingers and folding her hands together. ‘Here is the church and here’s the steeple. Open the doors and see all the . . .’" The awful truth of her own actions struck her like a knockout punch. The very thing she had feared the children would do—draw embarrassed attention to Davey’s missing hand—she had done.
“As my wife stood there speechless, little Lucy, sitting next to the boy, reached over with her left hand and placed it up to his right hand. ‘Davey,’ she said, ‘let’s make the church together!’
Innocently, with no theological training beyond Vacation Bible School primary class level, Lucy spoke an eloquent, powerful truth: making the church together is much better than trying to make it alone. One–handed Davey could participate in ‘making the church’ because Lucy reached out to involve him in the process. That’s synergy at its most basic level.
The common thought, “I can do it better myself,” is a common mistake. Within the church, God has placed each one, just as he pleases (1 Corinthians 12), in order to “make the church.”
This applies in VBS, in Sunday School, in missions and everywhere else we look inside the family of God. It’s not whether we have two able hands, it’s whether we are willing to link our hand with another to become the church God had in mind when he created her.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©.They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
Perfectionists might be characterized by the idiom, “Never good enough.”
Slackers could be tagged with the phrase, “Anything’s good enough.” A case in point: when I was working for my Uncle Sam in the Army, we had a saying—“Good enough for government work.” The wry definition: measure it with a micrometer; mark it with a crayon; cut it with a hatchet.
Most of us are somewhere between those two unacceptable levels of performance. Perfectionists drive everyone around them crazy, often damaging relationships and leaving wreckage in their wake. Slackers too have a dilatory effect on people with whom they interface, since the others are usually left to pick up the pieces and try to set things right.
But there’s a flip side to the damaging effects of perfectionism. There are times when anything less than perfect is simply unacceptable. Charles Swindoll reports that in some avenues of human endeavor, even 99.9 percent perfect is disastrous.
With a 99.9 percent perfection rate, the IRS would lose two million documents per year (and maybe they do)! Every day 12 newborn babies would be given to the wrong parents. And don’t forget pacemakers—every day 291 pacemakers would be improperly planted in the beating chests of trusting Americans; 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions would be written; and 114,500 pairs of shoes would be improperly matched and shipped.
Perfectionists drive you crazy? In some life situations, im–perfectionists are a much greater
danger.  Between my junior and senior years of high school, I worked for a print shop which also produced a weekly “shopper.” It was my job to create copy for things like business cards, instruction booklets and invoice forms. But I also helped with the shopper, typing classified ads and making copy for display ads. I still remember my boss growing frustrated when I took so long to get some insignificant job perfect. He told me, “You have to learn when to sweat the details—when it has to be perfect, and when it doesn’t.”
I’ve never forgotten that lesson. It’s true wisdom when a person matures to the point that we can understand when it’s “good enough” and when it has to be perfect.
Burying worthless junk, for archaeologists to uncover in the 25th century? Just make it good enough. Storing poisonous garden chemicals so no one gets hurt? No painstaking detail is insignificant.
Teaching our children and grandchildren about what’s really important in life? Only great effort and patient repetition is good enough. Mismatched shoes are one thing. An eternal soul is quite another. Only perfect care is sufficient.
When it comes to the life of a child, it's never "Good Enough" to measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a crayon and cut it with a hatchet.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©.They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
 From the crucible of war come many stories of friendship. Under the stress of battle many have learned—and taught—lessons of unselfishness and self–sacrifice. And not always in the name of patriotism. Sometimes it’s plain, unadulterated friendship—brotherly love / adelphos— at the core of courage and heroism.
Two soldiers became inseparable friends, though they hadn’t known each other prior to combat. They helped and protected each other across 200 miles of European battlefields. But one day, the two were separated, and one was stranded in no–man’s–land, wounded, unable to make it back to the shared foxhole, crying for help.
The enemy crisscrossed the open land with a withering blanket of machine gun fire. It was sheer suicide to go to the suffering soldier. But his friend was determined to try.
Before he could get all the way out of the foxhole, his sergeant shouted at him to put his head down; under no circumstances was he allowed to try a rescue. “It’s too late. You can’t do him any good, and you’ll only get yourself killed!”
But in wartime, there are sometimes higher orders than a sergeant’s—or even a general’s. As soon as the noncom turned his back, the frantic friend leapt from the foxhole and rushed toward his wounded buddy. Minutes later he returned, mortally wounded, himself, carrying his now–dead friend.
The sergeant was furious, but deeply moved by the heroic act of friendship. “What a waste,” he blurted. “He’s dead, and you soon will be. It just wasn’t worth it!”
With his final breaths, the hero replied, “Oh, yes it was, Sarge. When I got to him, all he could say was, ‘I knew you’d come!’”
True friendship is about more than self interest; more even, than survival. It’s about keeping a trust, being faithful, whatever the cost.
“There is no greater love than this,” the Bible says, “that a man would lay down his life for his friend.” And one line in The Battle Hymn of the Republic is disputed, but both wordings speak eloquent volumes: One version says, “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” The second version says, “ . . . let us live to make men free.”
Live or die, a real friend is such a treasure that no cost is too high to help a friend.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©.They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
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