I'm so glad you are here. If you heard my book advertisement on jamthehype.com or wadeoradio.com - or if you just stumbled this way - thanks for stopping by. So ... A little about me. I grew up in a hoops-loving, hip-hop fanatic in a small city in Virginia. My life has been transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now I'm trying to figure out what it looks like to live, do marriage, parent, work and engage culture in the light of the gospel.
The wife, kids and I helping to run a Young Life camp in the Bahamas
I lead Young Life at my old high school, Robert E. Lee in Staunton, Va, and I am a freelance writer and author of the book You're Grounded.
I like to blog about how the gospel impacts culture issues. This blog is meant to be interactive. I write a little something, but it's only supposed to be a jump-off point for conversations. I would love to hear your thoughts even as I share mine.
Wow, 2013 is almost over. I can look back over the past year and agree with Tale of Two Cities author Charles Dickens that is was indeed "the best of times and the worst of times." On the bright side, I had my first book You're Grounded released in July, and I started this blog in the fall.
If you're new to the blog - or you just have seen a post here or there - here are the top five I would encourage you to read from 2013.
1. Is Kanye West a Christian? Yeezus showed up on the Kris Jenner Show talking about a WWJD bracelet and Christianity. You can read my take here.
2. Why I'm Not Looking at The Front Door. A blog on why my wife Emily (read her blog here) and I stick it out through the ups and down of marriage. You can read it here.
3. The Interracial Cheerios family and church. There was a huge uproar when Cheerios used an interracial family to advertise its cereal. If this fictitious family was to ask me about finding a church as a interracial family, here's what I'd tell them. You can read that blog here.
4. Hope for the Hurting. This year, really from start to bottom, has probably been the most pain-filled and difficult year of my life for any number of reasons. This story about an amazing tree always encourages me that our pain isn't wasted. You can read that blog here.
5. How Nike's Blake Griffin Commercial reminds me of the gospel. I love this commercial from the music sample to the layout. The theme of the commercial is also amazing consistently with the main story of the Bible. Read how right here.
There's plenty more on the blog, such as my thoughts on what 2Pac, the movie Friday and the show Preachers of L.A. have to do with one another and a great guest blog from my wife on forgiveness. I also threw in a few things I learned from going through the publishing process. One blog that just barely missed the cut was a blog I had about what if rap star Ja Rule was to walk into your church?
I hope you enjoy it, and I would love your feedback on anything you read.
Happy New Year's!
Chris Lassiter is a Christ-follower, a husband to Emily, and a father of five wild and crazy kids. He has written for The News Leader, VIBE, Rapzilla.com, Young Life Relationships and many other publications. His first book was published by Moody Publishing in July. (Read about it here.) The Cross Promotion Blog gets updated twice a week. Please consider joining this site by subscribing by email or following the link at the bottom that reads "Join This Site."
First, Nike gave us Michael Jordan and Mars Blackmon. Then it was Penny Hardaway and Lil' Penny. Now, Nike introduces us to Blake Griffin and "Dr." Daryl Drain.
A former NBA Slam Dunk champion - made popular by those amazing dunking abilities - Griffin proves to be a great sports personality as well.
In the commercial, Griffin is hoping to participate in a pick-up basketball game, but the athletes are one player short of a pick-up game.
Insert Dr. Drain.
He's a young baller more obsessed with his swag than his game. He shares a comical exchange with Griffin.
Drain: (going third person on 'em) "Daryl Drain will go for a run." Blake: "Daryl Drain, huh? Can you shoot?" Drain:(looking supremely self-confident) "Can a butterfly sing?"
As the video progresses, Drain proves to the worst kind of pick-up teammate; the guy who doesn't know he's terrible. In basketball language, Drain is a scrub. Fortunately, the high-flying Los Angeles Clippers forward is there to clean up all of Drain's mess with a plethora of his signature ally-oop dunks.
What a picture of the gospel.
Dr. Drain represents us. Spiritually speaking, we're a lot like Dr. Drain. We have about as much chance of achieving a righteousness that's pleasing to God on our own as Daryl does in sinking one of those 3-point attempts. With his eyes closed. From his knees. Using a medicine ball. Aiming at a moving moving rim. You get the point.
Spiritually, we're scrubs.
But there's good news. Even for scrubs.
Jesus was both willing an able to make up where we lacked.
We need that spiritual ally-oop! Drain's awful shooting performance never hurts the team, because Griffin is able to take his shots and redeem them. That's just what Christ did for us. Jesus never sinned. To borrow a sports analogy, he batted a thousand. Spiritually speaking, he never missed. Scholars refers to Jesus' perfect life as the active obedience of Christ.
Here's where the ally-oop comes in. At the cross, He exchanges us his perfect stat line for our crummy spiritual stat line.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21
We get to play for the winning team. The commercial concludes with Blake and Drain celebrating victory with a couple of cold drinks from a mobile vending truck. Drain did nothing to contribute to the win except for to get picked up by the winning team.
And Team Jesus was winning way before I got on the squad. It's just as Jonathan Edwards said.
"You contribute nothing to your salvation except for the sin that made it necessary."
Question: What is your biggest life lesson that you've seen illustrated through sports?
Chris Lassiter is a husband, father of five and Young Life leader at his former high school, Robert E. Lee in Staunton, Va. He has written for The News Leader, VIBE, Rapzilla.com, HipHopDX.com and Young Life relationships. He is the author of You're Grounded, which you can read about here.
