When Nine Became One

In 1936, nine working-class young men from the University of Washington traveled to Berlin to compete in the Olympic eight-oar rowing finals. They were loggers' sons and shipyard workers' kids, nobodies from the Pacific Northwest going up against the best crews in the world — including Adolf Hitler's heavily favored German team.

Their secret was something rowers call "swing." Swing happens when all eight oarsmen row in such complete synchrony that the boat seems to lift out of the water and fly. It cannot be manufactured by one gifted athlete. It requires every rower to surrender individual ambition to the rhythm of the whole. As their coach Al Ulbrickson understood, the moment any single rower tried to outperform the others, swing vanished and the boat slowed.

Down by a full boat length entering the final 300 meters, those nine young men found their swing one last time. They surged together — not as individuals trying harder, but as one body moving in unified purpose — and crossed the finish line with Olympic gold.

Paul could have been describing that boat when he wrote, "The body does not consist of one member but of many... If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together" (1 Corinthians 12:14, 26).

The church finds its swing the same way — not when one person shines brightest, but when every member pulls together in rhythm with the Holy Spirit.