Why the Buffalo Bills were right to fire Sean McDermott

Sean McDermott is—or was—one of my favorite NFL coaches. When he led the Buffalo Bills back to the playoffs in 2017 after the longest drought in all of American professional sports, he told the postgame press conference, “Opening up, really, I just want to praise God, number one. It was a heck of a year. He continues to bless us.”

Since he achieved this in his first year as the Bills’ head coach, a reporter asked him whether he could have imagined such success so soon. He replied, “You know what? I’m a firm believer in faith, and I know God brought me here for a reason. He brought this group of men together for a reason, so that’s what I fall back on in times like this.”

Over the years, he led his team to ninety-eight wins (against only fifty losses) in the regular season and eight playoff appearances. The Bills won five AFC East titles and went to two AFC Championship games. By contrast, my Dallas Cowboys have not been to an NFC Championship game in thirty years, the longest drought by far in the NFC.

This morning, the Bills organization shocked the sports world by announcing that it has fired McDermott. Despite all his success, he was unable to lead his team to a Super Bowl win, which is what NFL teams are supposed to play for. 

Team officials apparently concluded that he would be unable to lead them to the ultimate prize. I have no idea whether they were right or wrong, of course, but I do know that if this was their belief, they were right to act on it.

All teams—and all people—should be so focused on what matters most, and Christians most of all.

Churches and car dealerships

The famed author Calvin Miller taught me that “everything starts on the right and moves to the left.” He meant that movements begin with a vision and passion. But over time, if they are successful, they begin to build programs and institutions to fulfill and perpetuate their purpose. As time goes on, these institutions often take on a life of their own and become an end instead of a means.

A pastor begins a church because he wants to reach lost people in the community. Evangelism is essential, since his church otherwise will have no members. But as the congregation grows, its members want the church to provide programs that meet its needs—a nursery, children’s ministry, youth program, adult activities, and so on. 

These can still be missional, of course, if they are designed while keeping lost people and evangelism in mind. But so often, the church eventually comes to measure success not by how many people it wins to Christ but by how many Christians attend and appreciate its programs.

Imagine a car dealership that measured success by the number of salespeople it employed and how popular its vehicles were with its employees, rather than by the number of vehicles it sold. Since Christians are the “salespeople” of the gospel (Acts 1:8) and churches are intended to equip them in their calling (Ephesians 4:11–12), the analogy holds.

I could point you to any number of universities and healthcare systems launched for an explicitly Christian purpose that, over the generations, have devolved into secular institutions, some with a religion department or chaplains, but nonetheless secular in their measures of success.

I once heard an address by the president of a very “successful” university founded by a then-evangelical denomination for kingdom purposes. He told the crowd, “At our school, you can be as religious as you want to be.” I cannot imagine that the founders would have appreciated the mission drift that his words described.

How the church “changes the world”

It takes courage to stay on purpose. The Bills have been more successful than most franchises over the years; I presume that their attendance and financial results have been very positive. If they won a Super Bowl, they would make more money as a franchise, of course. 

But firing such an effective coach as a means to this end is a significant risk. The next coach could be even less successful, imperiling the financial bottom line and metrics of the organization.

Nonetheless, the team’s leaders deemed this a risk worth taking. In their mind, winning a Super Bowl is why they exist. Everything and everyone else is expendable as a means to this end.

What if churches and ministries adopted the same mindset? What if we measured everything we do by the degree to which it is winning people to Jesus and equipping Christians to lead people to him?

John Wesley wisely noted, “The church changes the world not by making converts but by making disciples.” This is because disciples make converts, who make disciples, who make converts. And changed people change the world.

A health crisis in church

Staying on purpose requires urgency as well. It will always be easy to put off hard decisions, to “kick the can” and to perpetuate the routine. But Jesus said of himself, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18).

The apostles similarly said of Jesus, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). If a person does not trust in Christ as Lord, their name is not in the “book of life.” And if they are not in this book, they will be separated from God for all eternity (Revelation 20:15).

We must trust in Christ to go to heaven when we die. And everyone we know is one day closer to death than ever before.

This fact was highlighted for me Sunday morning when an elderly man in our congregation experienced a health emergency. The service stopped immediately. Trained ushers rushed to him, calling 911 and providing what aid they could. Paramedics arrived shortly and took him on a stretcher out of the sanctuary and to a local hospital.

If a health crisis can strike in a worship service, is any place safe from mortality?

If today becomes your day, will your Lord find you living your life on purpose and ready?

If not, why not?