The Zone.

It’s an extraordinary place.  In basketball, when you enter the Zone at the foul line, you easily sink your shots because the basket looks so wide.  When you enter the Zone on the golf course, every swing is effortless and every ball flies straight and true.  In baseball, when you enter the Zone in the batter’s box, you have no trouble getting a hit, because the baseball looks as big as a watermelon. 

I’m hoping that the Nationals will spend a lot of time in the Zone this year. 

According to college coaching legend Dean Smith, the Zone is “where time stands still and performance is exquisite.”  Think of Barry Bonds hitting his 700th home run.  Michael Jordan leading his team to six NBA championships.  Tiger Woods swinging so well that he once held all four pro Grand Slam titles simultaneously.  Lance Armstrong winning a record-setting sixth Tour de France.  All of these athletes have found this magical place of optimal performance, also known as the Sweet Spot, the Flow, or the Effortless Present.

We can enter this Zone in sports, and also in our spiritual lives.  In today’s passage from Acts, the members of the Jerusalem church have clearly found the Sweet Spot of Christian living.  “Awe came upon everyone,” says Luke, the author of Acts, “because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.”

Awe-inspiring wonders and signs.  That’s the Sweet Spot … and how sweet it is.

But just what exactly is this place, and how do we get there?  Richard Keefe, the director of sport psychology at Duke University, explores this phenomenon in a book called On the Sweet Spot: Stalking the Effortless Present (Simon and Schuster, 2003).  He describes the Zone as a state of mind and body in which action and reaction seem to happen automatically, a state that people can enter while hitting a ball, playing a musical instrument, or even typing on a word processor.  According to brain-imaging studies, professional piano players don’t actually think about hitting the keys on the piano.  They just do it.

Of course, no one can pick up a golf club for the first time and hit below par.  Perfect practice makes perfect performance, which is why professionals build routine and repetition into their highly disciplined daily lives.  “This is how the adage ‘practice makes perfect’ really works,” writes Keefe in his book.  “The more you do something, the more the brain changes to devote its energy to that function.”  The more you practice, the more you are training your brain neurons to fire in a way that creates flawless mechanical motion.

Visualization can help as well.  Simply imagining yourself doing something can light up the areas of the brain you’ll need to accomplish what you have in mind.  A pro golfer will mentally play a round, shot by shot, before stepping on to the first tee.  A major league pitcher will reflect on his strategy for each hitter, inning by inning, before he arrives at the ballpark.  By doing so, he warms up his brain before he warms up his arm, increasing the chance that he’ll enter the effortless present.  (Jon Scher, review of On the Sweet Spot: Stalking the Effortless Present, Duke Magazine, March-April 2004, 54)

The Zone is a place of automatic action, reached by practice and visualization.  It can take us beyond stress and self-doubt to an experience of truly optimal performance.  Best of all, it works as well here in the Christian community as it does on the basketball court.

According the Acts, the members of the Jerusalem church knew the value of the Nike motto, “Just do it.”  They committed themselves “to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” -- these four activities were the daily disciplines of the Christian community (2:42).  Church members were devoted to the “apostles’ teaching,” to the lessons being passed on by those who had observed the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  They were focused on “fellowship,” on a deep form of friendship that included passionate concern for the wellbeing of others.  They were regular participants in “the breaking of bread,” in the practice of sharing full meals – more than just the Communion – as a sign of their social and spiritual solidarity.  They were committed to the practice of prayer, to regular conversation with a good and gracious and life-giving God.

Teaching.  Fellowship.  Breaking of bread.  Prayers.  They just did it, and by doing it they entered the Zone, the Flow, the Effortless Present.  And once they were in the Zone, they experienced an optimal spiritual experience that most of us can only dream of.  The teaching of the apostles generated “many wonders and signs.”  The practice of fellowship inspired church members to “sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”  The prayers of the people went beyond Sabbath worship, with Luke telling us that “they spent much time in the temple,” day by day.  The enthusiasm of the church members spilled over into the breaking of the bread, for they “ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the good will of all the people.”  And the result, as you might have guessed, was that “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” (vv. 43-47).

The Jerusalem church was a growing church, and this shouldn’t surprise us.  After all, a church that is in the Zone is going to have a line that runs around the block.  It’s a sweet, sweet spot.          

There is absolutely no reason that we at Fairfax Presbyterian Church cannot enjoy this same kind of optimal performance.  All that is needed is practice and visualization, and a willingness to follow the example of the Jerusalem church in its discipline of teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers.  It seems to me that our focus on small-groups here at FPC is going to set the stage perfectly for this kind of optimal performance.  After all, it is in small groups that we can best enjoy good teaching, fellowship, food and prayers.

By the way, do you know what kind of car the first Christians drove around Jerusalem?  A Honda.  The King James Version tells us that they gathered daily in the temple “with one accord” (v. 46).

One accord!  That’s still a key to church vitality today.  Not that we have to go out and drive a Honda Accord, but that we have to be driven – driven by one accord, driven by agreement, harmony, and unity.  Unless we are united in our commitment to being mission-minded and small-group-centered, we are going to find ourselves shattered into frustrated fragments.  Without a shared vision, we cannot possibly know who we are as a people, and without a shared set of practices, we cannot possibly become the people God want us to be.

The signs posted in the narthex stand as a reminder of this identity.  We are a mission-minded church, one that looks first to the needs of others, and finds that it grows inwardly as it looks outwardly.  We do this through efforts ranging from our Christmas in April home repair project to youth summer mission projects in West Virginia.  And we are also a small-group-centered church, one that offers opportunities for spiritual growth in groups that range from women’s circles to Companions in Christ, youth mission trips to young adult dinners, Sanctuary Choir to Junior High Youth Group, and Family Seekers to the Writing Group.  Our goal is to make it possible for each of you to have a group, whether your interest is in Bible study or mission, music or youth activities, writing or family faith development.

It’s important that we be in harmony here.  In one accord.

This is not to say, however, that we don’t respect the value of each person’s personal relationship with God.  There is no substitute for this individual bond, and you should never feel forced into a group that doesn’t share your beliefs and perspectives.  But I’m convinced that while Christian faith is always personal, it should never be totally private.  Christianity is best experienced in groups that are actively practicing teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer.  My own Christian faith has been deepened by experiencing a week in Honduras with the Midlife Men on a Mission – working, eating, talking, joking, and praying together.

Remember: Perfect practice makes perfect performance.  This is as true in Christianity as it is in baseball.  This church is an outstanding place to practice your faith, along with others who share a commitment to being disciples of Jesus in the world today.

So let’s get into the Zone, the Flow, the Effortless Present.  We can begin by breaking bread together, sharing meals together, and – like the very first Christians – eating together “with glad and generous hearts” (v. 46).  Our unity can grow as we pray together, worship together, and look for opportunities to gather in small groups for mission projects and spiritual growth.  We simply cannot grow closer to God and to each other by staying home and working in isolation.  Practice makes perfect, and to practice well we have to practice together.

These are the activities that can lead us into the Zone.  They can help us to achieve optimal performance as a congregation, and become the kind of place that existed in the early church, where “the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” (v. 47).

That’s the sweetest spot of all.  Amen.