College Football Recruiting and Filling the Church Pews

College football recruiting is an interesting game that includes the athlete selling himself to universities, and universities selling themselves to the athlete. It is a fascinating and often intigeral dance that takes place, especially when several schools are pursuing the same athlete. Immense amount of pressure is felt by all. Everybody wants the right fit. Everybody wants to rate high in recruiting.

The athletes are rated from 0 to 5 stars; 5 being the best of the best. All the major football universities try to get as many 5 and 4 star athletes as possible on their team. Occasionally a school will purse athletes that will fill a specific need required by the team.

Nevertheless, college football signing day is intense as it is entertaining. Often the most well know and talented athletes attend the schools with the best winning records. Thus it is a real battle in the trenches to obtain the person a school truly desires. So much plays into how the athlete makes his decision. They look at the winning records of the schools along with their football program traditions. They take into conideration whether they will get to play immediately, or if they will be redshirted for the first year.

Coaches play a huge role in recruiting as they put on their best behavior and salesmanship. They make in house visits and attend the athlete’s football games. The coaches spend a great deal of time building relationships with the players. Strong personal ties to each other are important to attract and keep the athlete from signing with another team.

The church could learn much from the college recruiting process. Rather than get out in the field and actively evangelize folks, we have a tendency to simply throw a Hail Mary and hope that somehow people will simply wander in our doors from off the street. We usually give no heed to reaching out to folks and developing relationships with perspective members.

The interesting part of this whole scenario is that we want to grow. We want to recruit 5 star members, but the fact is we fail miserably. We don’t invest the time or the energy in going out and attracting new membership. We complain about attendance and the budget, but what have we actually done to change things? Usually very little.

We tend to live into the old model, “build it and they will come.” That model no longer works for the mainstream churches. People want to know what the church has to offer their personal spiritual lives. People need to be actively recruited from the surrounding neighborhoods, work, or friends of parishioners. The harvest is plentiful, yet something prevents us from walking out into the fields.

We can learn a great deal from college football recruiting. We have to show people our successes and establish relationships with those who are unchurched or seekers. It is important that we be actively present in the community. We need to allow newcomers to participate in the life of the parish if we are to keep them actively engaged. There is no redshirting potential parishioners unless that is their decision. Unlike major college football where there is competition for positions, we make room for all people to participate in the life and ministry of the church. We operate on a level playing field.

The clock is slowly running down. Are we going to wait until the closing seconds of the 4^th quarter before we try anything new? Or are we going out into the world, presenting our best, and build relationships with our neighbors? It doesn’t matter about what star they may have by their name. The bottom line is that we are to proclaim Christ and make him known. We have been assigned by the “Great Head Coach” to go into the world and make believers of all nations.