Recently on these pages I wrote of how coaches and pastors are different animals. My concern was for shallow-thinking church members who want to trade pastors–always upgrading of course–in their endless search for the genius who can turn their church into winners. They’ve bought into the sports analogy for churches and have long since forgotten the blueprint the Lord Jesus Christ–the only Head Coach of this team–laid out.

There’s another aspect to this story. The people in the pews are vastly different from the fans in the stadium.

I grant that sometimes they’re the same people. Church members attend football games, too. They’ve even been known to wear their team’s jerseys to church. Pastors love to drop sports stories into their sermons. And of course, on high attendance day at church, a sports hero giving his testimony packs them in. Some of the biggest football fans in America are Christians.

So it’s easy to get the two entities confused and start thinking of the church the way we think of our team.

As I write this, the New Orleans Saints are preparing to play the Chicago Bears for the NFC championship tomorrow afternoon. The local paper is saturated with stories of fans–a word derived from fanatics–who have rooted for the Saints over 40 frustrating years and who are now giddy with excitement over this season and this playoff time, many of them die-hards who go into debt to buy expensive tickets in order to sit in frozen Soldier Field and cheer the team on. One family carried deceased Dad’s cremated ashes to the playoff game with Philadelphia last weekend. (There’s no indication they bought him a ticket.) The son said, “Our dad persevered through all those losing seasons, never giving up hope. We thought he would love to see this game.”

People are decorating their houses and cars and yards with Saints paraphernalia. I expect they’re doing the same up in Chicagoland.

It’s fun being a fan. When you’re winning.

A local sports commentator said the Saints hope to pull out ahead quickly with a couple of scores, then pressure Bears quarterback Rex Grossman to the point of rattling him. Once he starts making bad decisions–throwing interceptions, intentionally grounding the ball, that sort of thing–the Chicago fans will turn on him and begin booing their own team. From then on, the sports guy said, the Bears fans become the Saints’ biggest assets.

The thing about fans in the stadium is that they are not playing the game. They may be paying for it, but they’re not playing it. They are watching everything the players and coaches do and analyzing it. They are passing judgment on their own team, judgement that takes the forms of cheering or booing, applause or silence, buying items with the team logo or not, purchasing tickets to games or staying away in droves.

That’s the process. It’s how football fandom works in America.

It is not how church works.

Even if we were to grant that the guy behind the pulpit, the pastor, were functioning somewhat as a coach–and there are enough analogies between coaches and preachers to guarantee that the comparison will not go away–it’s crucial to bear in mind that the people in the pews are the real on-the-field-players.

In church, the members are the team.

Granted, a high percentage of them would be shocked to learn that. They think the pastor is the coach and the ministerial staff is the team and see themselves as the owners shelling out the big bucks to assemble this team. Tragically, they see their own role as cheering or booing, supporting or withdrawing support, maybe placing the occasional bumper sticker or yard sign which says, “We believe!” and speaking a good word about the coach and the team.

Ever hear of a church member refusing to contribute his offering because he does not support the pastor? That’s the fan-in-the-stadium syndrome.

Ever hear of church members gathering in the foyer after the service to critique the sermon? Fans-in-the-stadium.

Ever hear someone griping that “I pay my money and I have a right to expect more out of my pastor than I’m getting”? Fans-in-the-stadium.

Ever hear of a movement to get rid of the preacher and bring in someone who can turn this program around? Fans-in-the-stadium.

Checking the Master Blueprint for the Church–the Owner’s Manual if you will–one is struck by the way Jesus at no time indicated members are to be spectators assigned to watch the team and bask in its glory, not critics to sit in judgment on the team’s play, and in fact, not even supporters or encouragers or boosters.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ are the team members. Even if we borrow the sports analogy and concede that the pastor and staff members are the coach and his assistants, then let’s emphasize that they are player-coaches. They play the game too. They line up against the enemy and fight the same personal battles the rest of the members do. The commands to love and give, to pray and witness, to deny oneself and follow Christ, are given to each and every person who believes in Him, no matter what their assignment on the team.

“Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.” (I Corinthians 12:27) “In the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.” (Romans 12:5)

One team, many players, each one a crucial part if we are to be winners.

Here’s an assignment. The next time you watch your team, imagine how effective it would be if most of the members were up in the stands, drinking refreshments with the fans, ogling the cheerleaders, rooting and cheering, booing and yelling, having a big time.

Something would be disastrously wrong there.

The Lord has never dictated that your church should be large, that your membership should be in the hundreds or thousands, or that your offerings should be in the millions. What He has commanded is that everyone who makes up the congregation of your church–no matter its size–is to be a team member, that he or she should wear the uniform, attend the meetings, learn the plays, support one another, and fight the common foe.

The way I read the opening verses of Hebrews 12 the people in the stadium watching the Lord’s team at work are dead. They played the game, so to speak, gave their best during their lifetime and now they are in Heaven cheering on those of us still on the field.

There will be a time when you and I move from the playing field to the stadium. But not yet.

There is a big game coming up and the Head Coach has an assignment for you.

Suit up, Christian. Your team needs you.