RECCORD: IT'S NOT WINNING BUT HOW YOU RUN THE RACE By Dwayne Hastings Having run track in high school, Robert Reccord said he still recalls falling -- soaked with sweat and exhausted from the race -- into his waiting coach's arms at the finish line. "I can remember race after race when I would finish and he would be standing there with his arms out," recalled Reccord, pastor of First Baptist Church, Norfolk, Va. "I'd fall into his arms, sweaty, tired, and he'd just hold me." It wasn't important whether I won the race or not, said Reccord Feb. 28 [1996] at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, "My coach would always tell me: If you keep your eyes on the finish line, whether you win or not, you'll finish the race well." Likewise, Reccord said, the portrayal of the Christian life as a foot race in Hebrews 12 makes clear it is less a matter of who wins the race than how the race is run. The measure of our success should not be who is first across the finish line, but if we are living up to the standards that are revealed in God's Word, he continued. A lot of Christians are running the race just to win, Reccord suggested, "Their biggest concern is who they are outrunning and how they compare to everyone else." Recalling a film clip he had seen of a 100-yard dash during a Special Olympics meet, Reccord said one of the youngsters in the race stumbled and fell at the 75-yard mark. "All those kids stopped and went back and picked up their fallen mate and walked together across the finish line." Such behavior reflects Jesus' intent for his Church, insisted Reccord, who is chairman of the Implementation Task Force, the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee-appointed committee charged with the responsibility of planning for the expected restructure of the SBC according to the Program Structure Study Committee report approved by messengers to the 1995 convention in Atlanta. He said believers must be sensitive to where others are in the race so that when someone falls, the rest make sure they are there to help them get up to finish the race. "As I run my race, my job is not to finish ahead of you, and your job is not to finish the race ahead of me," Reccord said on Southeastern's Wake Forest, N.C., campus. "Our job is to make sure that everyone of us finishes the race together." Reccord said the Christian who becomes consumed with self or the position of the others in the race so as to promote their own self-gain is likely to fall to the track just as a careless runner would: "When you start to look at your own pace, you will invariably trip yourself up. Don't be worried about where everybody else is running, where they are is not your concern; your concern is running your race well." There are "spiritual Olympians" who already have run the race, Reccord said, explaining these are the giants of the faith, the "great cloud of witnesses" the writer refers to in Hebrews 12. They are those who already have run the race, he continued, noting they stand as models to exhort those still in the race. "When I finish the race I'm running now, there's going to be another coach waiting for me at the finish line," Reccord said. "I want to be able to fall into his arms and have him hold me; and I pray that I hear, 'You've run well, good and faithful servant.'"