Ya Gotta Believe!... Really

You didn't think that I could avoid mention of baseball at this stage in the season... especially given the nail-biting position of my beloved Mets.

After sitting comfortably in first place in the National League east division since May, the Mets have lost 10 of their last 14 games and have blown a 7 game lead finding themselves in a tie for 1st place with the Philadelphia Philies with three games left to play and are on the verge of one of the biggest chokes in baseball history.

But, hey, as a lifelong Mets fan, I know this is New York Mets baseball. Unlike the Devil's team in the Bronx who steamroll to championship after championship, the Miracle Mets tend to make winning much harder than it needs to be.

In 1969 (I don't remember this, by the way), the Chicago Cubs were the best team in the National League and choked in the second half of the season to send the Mets to the World Series as heavy underdogs. After losing the first game, most sports writers had them written off. For the first time, it became clear, writing off the Mets is not always the best idea.

In 1986 the Mets were in first place from day one of the season, but the World Series presented a challenge. Down by a run in game six, the pitch count ran full to Mookie Wilson, a player not known to hit well in the clutch, the Mets proved again that writing them off would be a mistake. When a wild pitch tied the game, a routine bloop hit by Wilson through the legs of Bill Buckner of the Red Sox (who actually became something of a hero to me), the Mets scratched out one of the most unlikely wins in baseball and went on to win the World Series.

I'm not predicting a Mets World Championship. I kind of did that last year. What I'm saying is that people should be careful before writing the Mets off despite this monumental collapse.

Why am I talking about this kind of stuff in a blog about church planting in Queens. Like Baseball in Queens, church planting is not a steamroller. Instead it's often a nail-biting struggle, but don't write us off. The church is a winning team despite any struggles we have faced in the past and any struggles we will face in the future.