Unless you have been on Mars or under a rock the last 4 months, you have seen too much of the Tiger Woods saga. He has filled the sports and tabloid headlines for months. It’s the story that just won’t go away. The thing that has really struck me listening to commentators in the sports world is the number of people who have just said. “I don’t care about his private life, I just want to see the best golfer in the world back out on the course.” It seems like there is this overwhelming sentiment that really Tiger may be a bad guy but what he needs to do is get back to playing golf. I am not here to debate if he took enough time off from the game or if he was sincere in his apologies. I am interested in the fact that in our culture the possibility of greatness clearly overwhelms character. It explains why celebrities get “do over” after “do over”. It’s why a star player could get in trouble at a bar and an average guy struggling to make the same team would be immediately cut. We just have this idea that greatness overcomes almost anything in our culture. (The other issue is money but that is a discussion for another day.)

            As ministers and leaders we can also get caught up in this idea of greatness just like the secular world. We can think that we are really gifted thus leading to ideas like “people are coming, we are growing, and it’s all because of me!” This may lead us to cut corners, make compromises, or even depend on our own abilities more than trust Christ. The problem is that these small shortcuts compound and lead to scandalous headlines and horrific situations. It’s the pastor that says “I can make this one compromise and it ends up in a heinous affair.” For us it is often more of a slow fade but even for Tiger I am sure that at first he took small steps that eventually led him down a path to destruction. Character always counts no matter if we are paying attention to it or not. Someone’s greatness cannot be detached from who they are as a person. God is looking at all of us not just our talents and gifts, not even if we are the best in the world at something. The difference may not be seen today, or even tomorrow but for sure in eternity being men and women of character counts. It would do our culture a bit of good to just draw the line sometimes and say even if you are the best in the world, character matters.