It's All About The Trophy

On the first day of camp we were split up into four teams: yellow, blue, green, and red. I was made one of the leaders of the Red Team. Throughout the week teams would compete against each other for three different trophies. The first was the Bible Quiz trophy. Teams would answer Bible trivia questions for points and then the top two teams played off in the championship on the final night. The Yellow Team won the Bible Quiz trophy.

The second was the Spirit Trophy. This trophy rewarded not only team spirit, but also characteristics like working together, encouraging each other, how well they served and cleaned during their kitchen duty, and positive attitudes.

But by far the most coveted trophy was the Sports Trophy. Each team put together teams to compete in soccer, volleyball, and netball. There were also individual events like high jump, long jump, a 100 meter race, 200 meter race, and a 400 meter relay. Whoever collected the most points over all those events won the trophy.

Now everybody comes to camp to have fun, but honestly not everyone is on an even playing field when it comes to athletic ability. Especially during the teenage years, some people are just more athletic than others. But in my mind, that shouldn’t stop you from having fun. So as we put together our teams the most athletic guys wanted to play soccer, the most athletic girls wanted to play netball, and so my volleyball team was kind of a conglomeration of people who wanted to participate for the fun of it and not because they were the most athletic people on the team.

As we were playing our volleyball games, and losing, the other athletic Red Team members kept coming up to me saying, “Put me in, coach.” But I kept saying, “You played soccer or netball. Let’s give these other people a chance.” They were all getting super upset at me because we had done really well in the individual events and had a chance to win. Plus all the other teams were letting their athletic players play in all three sports.

By the end of the sports I was so frustrated that all anybody cared about was winning. What we reward teaches kids what we value, what we think is important. Were we really trying to teach these youth that their value is in their athletic ability?! I began to realize that my frustration arose from a clash in worldviews. The world values people for their athletic ability, or their external appearance, or their ability to entertain. But Jesus valued the outcasts and the people others considered worthless. He understood that everyone has intrinsic value because they are made in the image of God. Because I follow Jesus, I value different things than the world values. I would much rather let everyone participate and have a good time than win some silly camp trophy. In fact, I told my team I would rather forfeit every game than become all about winning at any cost. I'm far more concerned about their character, how they treat opponents, encouraging and building each other up no matter how well they perform, working hard, having fun and giving it their best shot.

In the end, we got last place in the sports competition. The Green Team won that trophy. But somebody happened to notice that our team let everybody participate, even the weak ones, even if it meant losing. And apparently that made an impression, because it won us the Spirit Trophy, which was the only one I really cared about anyway.