Breaking The Huddle

15th Annual Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year - Evangelism Most Christians are stuck in the huddle. Even though we believe in outreach, most communities tend to focus on our own needs. That turns us into insular groups without many relationships with outsiders. So evangelism is occasional and conversions are rare. How do we change? In their groundbreaking book I Once Was Lost, Don Everts and Doug Schaupp identified five thresholds that individuals cross when they shift from being skeptics to followers. Now they and Val Gordon show how huddled communities can become witnessing communities and then conversion communities, where evangelistic growth becomes the new normal. The authors have studied the growth of congregations, what enhances and limits them, and have gathered best practices for transformation. Our churches and fellowships can become places where evangelism is not done by a just few people, but where the whole community itself becomes a winsome, thriving witness to those around it. Break out of the huddle. Find out how.

No sport rivals football for building character. In the scorching heat of two-a-days and the fierce combat of the gridiron, true leaders are born. Just ask Bill Curry, whose credentials for exploring the relationship between football and leadership include two Super Bowl rings and the distinction of having snapped footballs to Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas. In Ten Men You Meet in the Huddle, Curry shares the wit, wisdom, and tough love of teammates and coaches who turned him from a next-to-last NFL draft pick into a two-time Pro Bowler. Learning from such giants as Vince Lombardi and Don Shula, Ray Nitschke and Bubba Smith, Bobby Dodd and even the indomitable George Plimpton, Curry led a football life of nonstop exploration packed with adventure and surprise. Blessed with irresistible characters, rich personal history, and a strong, simple, down-to-earth voice, Ten Men You Meet in the Huddle proves that football is much more than a game. It’s a metaphor for life. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Wall Street Journal Bestseller CNN news anchor Brooke Baldwin explores the phenomenon of “huddling,” when women lean on one another—in politics, Hollywood, activism, the arts, sports, and everyday friendships—to provide each other support, empowerment, inspiration, and the strength to solve problems or enact meaningful change. Whether they are facing adversity (like workplace inequity or a global pandemic) or organizing to make the world a better place, women are a highly potent resource for one another. Through a mix of journalism and personal narrative, Baldwin takes readers beyond the big headline-making huddles from recent years (such as the Women’s March, #MeToo, Times Up, and the record number of women running for public office) and embeds herself in groups of women of all ages, races, religions and socio-economic backgrounds who are banding together in America. HUDDLE explores several stories including: The benefits of all-girls learning environments, such as Karlie Kloss’s Kode with Klossy and Reese Witherspoon’s Filmmaker Lab for Girls in which young women are given the freedom to make mistakes, and find their confidence. The tactics employed by huddles of women who work in male-dominated industries including a group of US veterans/Democratic Congresswomen, a huddle of African-American judges in Harris County, Texas, and an all-female writers room in Hollywood. The wisdom of huddling from trusted pioneers such as Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, and Madeleine Albright as well as contemporary trailblazers like Stacey Abrams and Ava DuVernay. How professionals such as Chef Dominique Crenn and sports agent Lindsay Colas use their success to amplify other women in their fields. The ways huddles of women are dedicated to making seismic change, including a look at Indigenous women saving the planet, the women who founded Black Lives Matter, the mothers fighting for sensible gun laws, America’s favorite female athletes (Megan Rapinoe, Hilary Knight, and Sue Bird to name a few) agitating for equal pay, and female teachers rallying to improve their working conditions. The bond between women who practice self-care and trauma healing together, including the women who courageously survived sexual abuse, and the women who heal together in The Class and GirlTrek. The ways women are becoming more intentional about the life-saving power of friendship, including the bonds between military wives, new moms, and nurses getting through the time of Covid. Throughout her examination of this fascinating huddle phenomenon, Baldwin learns about the periods of huddle ‘droughts” in America, as well as the ways that Black women have been huddling for centuries. She also uncovers how huddling can be the “secret sauce” that makes many things possible for women: success in the workplace, effective grassroots change, confidence in girlhood, and a better physical and mental health profile in adulthood. Along the way, Baldwin takes readers through her own personal journey of growing up in the South and climbing the ladder of a male-dominated industry. Like so many women in her field, she encountered many sharp elbows on her career path, but became an early believer in adding more seats to the table and huddling with other women for strength and solidarity. In the process of writing HUDDLE, Baldwin learns that this seemingly new phenomenon is actually something women have been doing for generations—a quiet, collective power she learns to unlock in her transformation from journalist to champion for women.

As coach of the powerhouse Jenks (OK) High School Trojans, Allan Trimble has amassed an amazing number of victories, state championship titles, and national rankings. And he's done it with a carefully planned and executed game plan that promotes the positive development of athletes and teams. Trimble shares the specifics of his system in Coaching Football Successfully. This meaty coaching manual covers it all: sideline communication, teaching fundamentals, practice drills, scouting and game planning, and postgame analysis and adjustments. Whatever your offensive and defensive schemes may be, you'll find the concepts applicable to your own program. Loaded with detailed diagrams of plays and advice for handling off-the-field challenges, this book is of great benefit to both head coaches and assistants. Coaching Football Successfully is more than a worthwhile addition to your library; it's a proven game plan to building a championship-caliber football team.

1967. Two rival football teams. Two legendary coaches. Two talented quarterbacks. Together they broke the color line, revolutionized college sports, and transformed the NFL. Freedman’s dramatic account, highly praised as a contributing part of the movement and a riveting sports story, is now available in paperback. In September 1967, after three years of landmark civil rights laws and three months of devastating urban riots, the football season began at Louisiana’s Grambling College and Florida A&M. The teams were led by two extraordinary coaches, Eddie Robinson and Jake Gaither, and they featured the best quarterbacks ever at each school, James Harris and Ken Riley. Breaking the Line brings to life the historic saga of the battle for the 1967 black college championship, culminating in a riveting, excruciatingly close contest. Samuel G. Freedman traces the rise of these four leaders and their teammates as they storm through the season. Together they helped compel the segre­gated colleges of the South to integrate their teams and redefined who could play quarterback in the NFL, who could be a head coach, and who could run a franchise as general manager. In Breaking the Line, Freedman brilliantly tells this suspenseful story of character and talent as he takes us from locker room to state capitol, from embattled campus to packed stadium. He captures a pivotal time in American sport and society, filling a missing and crucial chapter in the movement for civil rights.

Harris and Waters share anecdotes about their experiences as Dallas Cowboys during the teams heyday, when they appeared in 5 Superbowls.

Most Christians are stuck in the huddle, focusing on our own needs and limiting our relationships with outsiders. Don Everts, Doug Schaupp and Val Gordon explain how our churches can become conversion communities, where evangelistic growth becomes the new normal and the whole community itself becomes a winsome, thriving witness to those around it.