Kyle Dresback

Friends,

Looking back, I’m not quite sure how we got involved in club soccer so early. We started with plain old coed “blob soccer,” then I vaguely recall some tryouts, asking about cost and time commitment, weighing options…then I looked up and our schedule was booked with weeknight practices and weekend tournaments. The onslaught of our 8-year-old’s all-consuming soccer career happened in two ways, to borrow from Hemingway: “gradually and then suddenly.”

As is well known, youth sports is often fueled by a frantic inertia—to get in the pipeline early (“We have to keep up!”), to ratchet up the training (speed coaches, skills coaches, weight training, performance psychology), and ultimately to stay ahead of the competition. It’s easy to slip into the mindset that if you’re not winning you’re losing and someone out there will take your place!

A similar logic has infiltrated the world of education. Students load up on AP classes, aim for perfect grades, and research colleges at 13, boosting their resumes with the requisite extracurricular activities. After all, everyone else is out to beat you.

Of course, we adults are bombarded as well with the political dial turned up to eleven right now. There are winners and losers. The persistent tribal urge to degrade and humiliate our opponents for the sake of “winning” is mind-numbing at best, and often simply dehumanizing.

Is there a better way? One that accounts for what is tragically lost in our constant striving to win?

The Church isn’t called to humiliate its opponents, or to crank out “successful” kids, or to maximize profits by stoking fears of a zero-sum game. It sounds funny, but maybe the Church isn’t being called to “win” at all, but rather to learn to lose well:

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Jesus shows a better way—one that leads to the flourishing of a Christ-shaped, cruciform life, attentive in love to God and neighbor. As a disciple (and a parent!), I’m thankful for a better way.

In Christ,

—Kyle