This post may seem to come out of left field.

Well, technically it comes from the pitcher’s mound, the reflections of Dirk Hayhurst, a seasoned minor league baseball player, and the author of The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran.

He recently wrote an article for The Bleacher Report cracking a window on the world of professional baseball.

There is swearing in professional baseball, not to mention fighting, drinking, drugs, cheating, affairs, pornography, gambling, abuse, lying, stealing and just about everything else that would make your mother weep if she found out you were doing it.

Naked.

For some players, professional baseball is the worst thing to ever happen to them.

And as much as I enjoyed this as a baseball fan, I wondered about what being thrust into church leadership, into church office, into the pulpit, can do to some of us. Perhaps this is why the Apostle Paul says that an elder is not to be a recent convert.