It was interesting to notice how the United States gold medalists behaved after the Olympics. Michael Phelps came home with his 8 gold medals and got a $1.5 million advance to write a book. The beach volleyball team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh did a short media tour and went back to playing professionally. The women’s basketball team didn’t even have time to do media… they went right back out onto the court to finish the WNBA season. The men’s basketball team is getting ready to train in preparation for the upcoming NBA season. Gymnast Shawn Johnson did the media tour and then went back home for school.
It’s interesting that in the field of “amateur” play in the Olympics that the athletes were competing for themselves and their countries. It wasn’t until they got back home that the book deals, the TV appearances, and the Wheaties box endorsements started to roll in. In Beijing, they were somewhat insulated, allowed to train, to focus on their competitions, and to compete. In the U.S., Madison Avenue was giddy and driving the Brinks trucks to meet them at the airport.
It’s an extreme blessing to be able to fuse your personal interests and hobbies with your professional career. For years as a technical writer, I was blessed to do that, and it did nothing but strengthen those writing talents. To quote from the article:
In today’s way of thinking, receiving payment moves you into a “higher” category—that of a professional. The reasoning is that if someone is willing to pay for your service, you must be really good. An amateur, therefore, is considered to have less skill or talent.
However, the argument is that if the money wasn’t there, would you still pursue that skill or interest? If you knew that you could never get paid or receive glory from swimming or golfing or writing or bowling or cooking, would you continue to do it? That “love of the game” is what really qualifies you as an amateur. I’m not saying that professionals don’t have that same kind of love either, but if you didn’t love what you were doing, you wouldn’t continue to pursue that “amateur” status.
When you consider today’s church, there are more amateurs and laypeople among Christians than there are paid ministers and clergy. So, when we consider ourselves “amateur Christians”, we also need to realize that following Jesus requires a special kind of love for others in the pursuit of Christlikeness. We may not be paid to preach the word of God, but we can still evangelize the people in our lives. We may not be paid to visit the sick and the elderly, but we can still try to bring them joy and blessing. We may not be paid to lead the worship team or the choir, but we can instill in our children the love of praising God in song. We may not be paid to oversee the preschool or come up with the children’s Sunday School curriculum, but we can teach our children about Jesus and the sacrifice He made for us to earn forgiveness for our sins for us. We do all these things because the word of God tells us to do them and because it is our responsibility as stewards of what God has given us to make sure they get done.
