Bringing the Magic Back.

Well, I called it. Seriously.

I thought that the Magic would beat LeBron, I mean the Cavaliers, in the Eastern series. I knew that LeBron was great, maybe one of the greatest individual players ever, but this is basketball which is a team sport. They really should have lost 4 in a row, but LeBron's amazing 3 pointer at the end of game two was amazing. But a superstar is only as good as his team.

I believe that in ministry you have to be on a team to be successful. The one-man superstar shows of days gone by are out, and the Orlando Magic is in.

Now I know that teams need a standout player, both in B-ball and in a church setting, but those standouts must be surrounded and released as well, for the team to win games. For a church, the "role players" must be more than adequate in their talent, and they also must be given freedom to shoot, dribble and pass if you will, when they see the opportunity to help their team. For instance, I appreciate my Pastor letting my speak to the congregation once in awhile, and sometimes I think that I help the team in doing so.

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, is a great book which was recommended to me by my churchbud Patrick Kitley. I had previously read Gladwell's Tipping Point, and so I was looking forward to this read. Outliers is about success and how it is found, how it is fed and how it flourishes (nice alliteration, huh?). In it, Gladwell retells the story of some famous plane crashes from the 1970's to the year 2000, and how the rate of failure was dramatically changed by some small adjustments that made major impact in certain sectors of the world-wide industry. At one point in this chapter, Gladwell shares portions of an interview with an expert in air traffic safety and an interesting team-idea emerges. The expert explains that the idea of having two pilots (a senior pilot and a less experienced co-pilot) is done for the simple reason that it takes two to fly the plane. Now we now that one pilot can certainly fly today's airbuses, but the design of all cockpits is for two pilots. This is so that there is a double-checking of procedures and potential problems and the like. The second man, in the non-leading seat, isn't there incase the lead suddenly passes out. He is there to be doing all that the lead is doing, seeing all the data that he is seeing, and to hear all the commands that the lead is hearing. This is what helps to prevent crashes.

One statistic that is brought out is that more often, when there have been airline crashes, the more experienced pilot was in the lead chair. That's right: the MORE experienced pilot was in the LEAD seat. Less accidents occur when the younger pilot is in the lead chair. And the hypothesis (rooted in fact and studies) is that the older, more experienced airman is unafraid to speak up to the lead chair and to have him look at this or check out that. When the opposite is the case, the younger pilot 'over revers' the older pilot and though he may see some potential danger, he doesn't want to make the experienced pilot feel as though he is missing something.

Interesting. The team is needed in flying a jet full of people. So even though the LeBron James can fly the plane with amazing panache' all by himself, with a cabin load of people following you, nay, counting on you, the team-pilot approach is the better way. Let's bring the Magic back.