…he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. (Luke 6:48, ESV)
My friend Wally Armstrong, in his book Playing the Game, discusses the 60–60 Principle. He says, “There is a 60–60 principle. Sixty percent of the shots are taken from within 60 yards of the hole. Despite this fact, most people do not practice the short game. The discipline to practice the short game takes commitment.”
I’m sure we’ve all heard this in some form over the course of our golf life, but the fact is, Wally is absolutely correct if you want to shoot lower scores.
Whenever someone asks me for help with their golf, the first question I ask is whether they want to score better or hit the ball better. If you just want to hit the ball better, we can work on swing mechanics.
If you want to score better, we are going to work on chipping, pitching, and putting because that’s how you lower your score.
I’m not telling you anything new here, but if you want to compete at a high level or just against your buddies, golf is a game that requires constant attention to fundamentals and the little things that help you shoot lower scores.
Once again, the parallels between golf and our faith journey surface here. We can apply Wally’s 60–60 principle to our faith, Bible study, and evangelism.
I want to spend 60 percent of my time studying 60 foundational passages that guide my walk with Jesus, underpin my knowledge of God’s word, and help me share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe it is important to continue expanding our knowledge and understanding of ALL of God’s word, but those top 60 passages are the short game of evangelism.
If all of us make a list of what we feel are those 60 foundational passages, we might not all have the same ones, but there would be a lot of overlap.
Psalm 23, Matthew 28:19-20, Psalm 51:10-13, 2 Chronicles 15:7, Matthew 22:37-39, and just about anything in John 13-17 would be at the top of my list. What does your list look like? Have you thought about it much? What if we all started with these verses:
L Matthew 22:37-39
I Matthew 6:33
N Acts 2:42
K Matthew 25:40
S 2 Corinthians 5:20
I hope you will join me in increasing our efforts on the short game, and let’s all commit to compiling a list of the 60 foundational verses we will study to make our gospel short game world-class!
Prayer: Lord, give us the discipline to work on our short games for both golf and the Kingdom. Amen.