Why a 10k?
If you saw the announcement about the virtual 10k we’re hosting this fall, the thought may have crossed your mind, “Why would a worship school be promoting an athletic event?? Aren’t most of your students and alumni more the artist-types? Does a worship leader even need to care about being able to walk or run 6.2 miles?”
Fair questions. But there are a couple reasons why an event like this actually makes a ton of sense for 10KFAM. Let me explain.
First of all, there’s the name. We’re 10KFAM – it’s literally right in the logo. If we’re going to host a fundraising event for a good cause, we might as well make it catchy, right?
But that’s actually the tiniest piece of the reason we want to encourage our alumni, students, and supporters to participate in something like this.
At 10KFAM, we’re all about becoming.
Growing.
Learning.
Invitation and challenge.
The Worship School is an 18-month discipleship process. It’s not easy or quick because growth that lasts never is. Oftentimes, students come out of Worship School incredibly different than they came in, in all the best ways. They can hardly believe the growth they’ve seen in themselves that’s been championed and named by their coach, huddle, and church community along the way.
We talk a lot about spiritual disciplines early on – the things we can choose to do today that will help us to one day be able to do something we can’t do today (a loose translation of Dallas Willard’s definition). The idea being that if you really struggle with patience, for instance…you’re probably not going to wake up one day and just be able to choose to be patient in every part of your life all of a sudden by sheer willpower simply because you know it’s the right thing to do. But there ARE things you can intentionally choose to do that will gradually increase your tolerance and patience over time so that one day, you’ll find that impatience is no longer a primary marker of your life.
Maybe you’re starting to see where I’m going with this…
If not:
storytime.
Five years ago, a group of friends from our community decided to train for a sprint triathlon. Some people in the group worked out regularly going into this, but most didn’t. I don’t remember exactly what we were thinking other than 1) hoping to get back in shape as post-children 30-somethings, and 2) being really inspired by one woman in the group who is an IronMan Triathlete (which is way more next level than I realized when saying yes to this plan).
But by and large this was NOT a group of athletes.
Really can’t stress that enough.
But guess what? We all committed to it, trained, and we all finished the sprint tri! We were SO proud of ourselves, we threw a big party in our own honor! Why not?
The biggest thing I learned in that training process?
Don’t ever, ever look ahead to what’s going to be asked of you in 4 weeks, or 8 weeks, or 12 weeks down the line in your training.
Because you won’t be able to do it. You’ll probably chicken out.
Good news? You don’t have to. That’s not what’s required of you today.
But if you choose to faithfully do the thing that IS asked of you that day, and then do that again the next day…you’re going to wake up in 4 weeks and totally shock yourself by what your body is capable of doing! This is spiritual disciplines 101 playing right out in front of your very eyes. Submitting yourself to a kind of training process like this teaches you that you CAN grow and improve, and likely much quicker than you thought possible.
Now I’m not advocating that everyone needs to go out and train to run a 10k all at once. Health looks different from person to person. But wherever you are on that journey, there is SOME goal you can establish and reach in a matter of weeks, and I truly believe learning that lesson physically will have impacts on your spiritual, mental, and emotional health as well. You’ll be more convinced than ever that you can challenge yourself in other areas of life, and that pushing through comfort zones (responsibly) is how growth happens.
There are things the Lord may be preparing you for in your future that are going to require your decision to start growing today. Things you can’t imagine, and that you may not even be capable of yet.
So we’re inviting you to challenge yourself. With us.
(To make it extra easy – here’s the link to the Race Page!)
See what’s possible when you commit to a path of growth.
And yes – it IS a fundraiser too!
We’re really hoping to bolster our scholarship fund to be able to help more leaders get into Worship School because they’re hungry to enter into an intentional season of growth and coaching. Every bit of the proceeds will go towards these students who are current or future leaders in the church, who want to be prepared well for what they’re called to do.
We believe that the growth process is beautiful, holy, and powerful. We’d love to do that in partnership with you, encourage you in it, and be able to help others afford the full 18-month development process that is the 10KFAM Worship School.
