My new title is…coach.  Yeah, it is a little weird.  I know you are probably thinking what kind of team plays baseball during this part of the year.  Well, that”s the even funnier part.  It’s not a baseball team, its an indoor soccer team.  Yes, I did play soccer for 3 years in high school.  Anyways, I am so JACKED about this team and I will tell you why.  About a month ago I was at an indoor soccer game for one of my students and it was awesome!  Guys were getting checked into the wall.  Players were taking rips on goalies from like 3 yards away.  It is an extremely intense game.  So later that week I was approached by one of our students with the idea of starting an indoor soccer team with guys from our youth group.  Naturally I started thinking if it would fit, the logistics, the cost, etc..  It all came together.  Keith, one of my all-star leaders decided he would pay the 800 and some bucks it cost to register the team and it was on!  There was only one catch.  There was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I was going to coach an indoor soccer team just for the sake of coaching an indoor soccer team.  So we started to talk about it as a chance for sports ministry and that is what we did!  4 of my guys (actually 3 guys and 1 girl) found 7 guys to come and play with us who don’t attend our youth group and most don’t attend church at all.  So every Saturday night for the next 10 weeks I will be coaching, but I will be coaching with a purpose.  My students have a chance to meet them on their turf (ha!) just like John the Baptist did in Matthew 3.  It says in The Message that his message was simple and austere (uncompromising) just like his desert surroundings.  Folks, that is what we have to do if we are going to see lives changed.  We have to meet people WHERE THEY ARE!!    I saw it happen all the way through college on the Southern Wesleyan University Baseball team.  We met people where they were and lives were changed (and are still being changed)!   That is what I love about my church.  We are meeting people where they are.  If they are hurting, we are comforting them.  If they are lost, we are loving on them.  If they are addicted, we are celebrating recoveries.  If they are homeless, we are giving them a chance to get on their feet.  If they are nominal Christians, we are doing all we can to light a fire under their rear ends! Whoooooooooo!  This is going to be an awesome year!!!!

Check in tomorrow to see what I learned in our first game…of course it was about life and not about soccer.