Daryl Strickland

Do you know what is better than a strong leader? A strong leader with soldout followers. I think what you are getting ready to read is one of the most effective things you could do for your pastor or team leader.

God has opened my eyes as to how many opportunities the church has missed because of lack of support of their leaders or worse: undercurrent that works against the house . I have viewed this first-hand in every area of leadership that I have ever been in.

We see all through scripture how God gives a person a vision and the ability to lead and then He sends people to support that vision. The more people that cheer on their leader, lift load off of their leader and support their leader’s vision, the greater the impact the leader and the church has.

A beautiful example of this is geese flying in the V formation. The lead goose is working his tail feathers off leading the way and his leadership reduces turbulence for all the others. Research shows us that because of this setup, geese can fly 71% further in this formation than alone (that’s crazy). But the best part is what the other geese do, they honk like crazy affirming the lead bird’s efforts and this encourages him to keep it up!

I am going to say this as clearly as I can. If you can’t support your leader 100%, get off the team now (99% doesn’t cut it when souls are on the line). Lack of support will cause one of the following things to happen: 1) No Growth In Your Ministry, 2) Slow Growth In Your Ministry, 3) Leader Burn Out In Your Ministry. The above mentioned things all effect your church’s ability to reach people that are destined for hell.

If you find yourself in this spot, resign today. It doesn’t mean you are a bad person, but maybe you’re in the wrong ministry. Or perhaps you have some issues that you need to deal with personally. Either way, don’t slow down growth because of selfishness; lives are on the line and this is serious business.

If you’re in the V formation and you’re honking loud to cheer your leader on, keep it up!! Continue to lighten their load by helping out with anything you can! Continue to encourage and cheer them on! Focus on your leaders’ strengths instead of their weaknesses. Don’t bring them problems, bring them solutions. If you do this, watch out, your church will be positioned to reach it’s potential!

Today was full of highlights here are a few:

1. This morning we kicked off a new series at Church called Broadcast and it was good.
2. Jeff brought IT on describing the validity of the Bible.
3. Drew and the band rocked Broadcast by Steve Fee.
4. The Dream Team was killer again.
5. Dale Jr. finished 2nd in the race.
6. The day was capped off with a 5 star celebration for the football team that I helped coach at which we got our championship rings (check out the pics). This deal rocked. The mayor was there, our local tv sportscaster, Bob Bonner sat at my table, the food was great, there was an awesome highlight video that got all the juices flowing (big shocker, I cried) and we left with all kinds of goodies to remind us of how special this season was. If you are new to my blog, we went undefeated and won the 4A State Championship. I had to put a picture of a plaque of our rings because the flash wouldn’t let me get a pic tonight. I will put one tomorrow.

(1st pic - oline w/coaches, 2nd pic - ring, 3rd pic - coaches)

We won!!! 28-0 over the Western Champion (Mt. Tabor) and the Vikings are Perfect! We finished the season 15-0, State Champs, First Championship for our school ever, First for our city since 1952 and words can’t explain the emotions of the journey. This last weekend was awesome!

I will write more later because I am on vacation this week with the family but here are some pics for you to enjoy.

Uncommon Sense has become Hoggard Football and Lifepoint Weekend Updates (I know shutup!) over the last few months but starting next week, I will resume a little thinking time and hopefully resume some normalcy with my blog. I appreciate your patience as I have pressed pause in this arena. You will however have to deal with a few more post as the Vikings go for their first ever State Championship! Here is a few pics from the NewStar this week.

That was the chant Friday night as we won Hoggard’s first ever Eastern State Championship in football. So next Saturday we are headed to the SHIP (State Championship) in Winston Salem at Wake Forest University. Earning the trip was not easy. Southern Durham came to play and they had a very fast defense that made scoring a little tougher than the Vikings are used to. Our defense was amazing and held the visiting Spartan’s at bay for all but one series late in the game. Final score was Hoggard 21 - Southern Durham 6.

So this is the final week of practice and this is for all the marbles. Our opponent is a very good Mt. Tabor team that just happens to be from Winston Salem. They are 12-3 and have smashed all of their playoff oppenents. They look good on film but so has all of the teams that we have played so far. I can’t wait! More later.

There are only four teams left in the state in our division and tonight it goes to two. The winner of our game tonight is the Eastern State Champion and will play for the State Championship next Saturday at Wake Forest University.

Our opponent is Southern Durham which is the No. 2 seeded team in our bracket. They have won seven straight games and 10 out of 11. From our film studies, their strength is a fast defense that doesn’t miss tackles. They also have a strong running game.

Hoggard has not lost a home game since 2005  and it’s only  road loss was last season in this game a 31-29 defeat to eventual state champs Greenville Rose.

The place will be packed, the air electric. Thank you God for the opportunity to be apart of the community this way!

It’s game day, I must go find a toilet.

Sorry, that I didn’t hype this one up during the week. We played a really talented Durham Hillside team last night in the Eastern Semifinals and we came out victoriously. The final score was 29-14 and puts us in the Eastern Finals and one game away from the state championship game.

The best part about this game is that our short comings and misfortune from last week, helped us tremendously this week. Just like last week, we had some misfortune early (bad snap on field goal attempt, lost our starting QB, fumbled deep in our on territory) and with all that, the team kept their head up, kept digging and before you knew it, we were back on top. Just like in life, if we look at obsticles as opportunities and learn from mistakes, we will succeed.

Having said that, we had to overcome some new obsticles that I am sure we will address on Monday.

If you live in Wilmington, you should come out to the game next week. It is not often that you get to host one of these games. We will be playing Southern Durham which is the #2 seed in the east.

The Dream Season Continues!!!

If you read my blog at all, you know that I am helping coach a local high school football team and we are deep into a really neat season. If you have read any of the scores, you know that we have handled most of our opponents with ease this year. A quick glance at last Friday’s score and you may think the same thing (we won 52-23). But we found ourselves in unfamilar territory on Friday. We turned the ball over three times in the first have, endured some sketch officiating and found ourselves with the first halftime deficit of the year 10-20.

You would think that the halftime speech would have been a tremendous amount of shouting and ranting about poor play but it was very different than that. Don’t get me wrong, there is a time for getting in their face, but good leaders/coaches always know what is right and Coach knew these kids were just a little rattled and needed to be calmed down. He told them we were fine, walked them through what the next few series should look like and assured them, we would be up on the scoreboard, if they followed that plan. Guess what, they did it and we were up. We out score Pine Forest 42-3 in the second half and we play Durham Hillside the day after Thanksgiving.

Hillside looks to be the toughest opponent we have faced all year. They are 10-2, they’re BIG, FAST and Strong. We will see if the story continues. I still think that it is our year.

We learned a little more about our character and our resolve last week. Hopefully that will help us this week.

Hoggard that is, won the first round playoff game against Hoke County. The final score was 31-8. Hoke had a pretty nice tailback that has signed with NC State but the vikings held their own.

Next up is round two of the state playoffs and Pine Forest is our opponent. They won their first round game 41-17 and have a couple of pretty solid backs as well.

Practice was good today. The guys seem more intense this week (Maybe it’s because they got ripped up pretty good in game film).

I’m still believing that we have a chance at going all the way. We will see.

Hang in there if your a uncommon sense reader, I am caught up in a story book football season and I’ll get back to some meaty post soon!!!

Last night was fun! We played our biggest rival in front of a huge crowd for the conference championship and a #1 seed in the playofffs (I know that’s a run on sentence but I don’t care). For the second time this week our defense blanked the opposing team and we are now 10-0 and have six consecutive conference championships!

New Hanover played us tough but the final score was 21-0. We will find out today at 2pm who we will play next week. If my understanding is correct, all of our playoff games would be at home (except for the championship game, which is at Wake Forest University). Thanks to all the Lifepointer’s that were at the game, you pulled us through (and I thought we might need you after the game).

Dream Season Continues!