Character Coach / Sports Chaplain Blog

On occasion, if we persevere, we receive a thank you or an “attaboy” from an unexpected source. If we serve faithfully, not forcefully, and serve in an intensely relational way, we are in position for such wonderful surprises. One such occasion rose for me earlier this week. For the past three years, I have been serving the university baseball team in my community. My service mostly consists of going two hours prior to game time to speak casually with those who care to chat. I station myself right by the dugout at the edge of the seats as I have yet to be invited onto the field for batting practice. While there I always get a few moments to talk with the head coach, often with a couple of the assistants, and regularly with a number of the players. I send eighteen of the players text message prayers and sometimes scriptures on game days. I meet them for game day chapels three hours and fifteen minutes prior to game time, in the dugout, on home Sundays. For those chapels I bring a d...

One of our most highly valued colleagues and friends is Stuart Weir of Verité Sport in the United Kingdom. Stuart has carved out a tremendously unique and effective ministry in the world of Athletics and elsewhere around the world.  Below, please find his April 2015 ministry update. His model is unique as he serves as a journalist as well as a personal mentor and sports chaplain to sportspeople, but his influence is much wider than one might gather at first glance. Through his writing, website, and wide distribution of written materials in several languages, he has a global impact.  Please give Stuart’s ministry update a thorough read and I pray it challenges you to widen and deepen your circle of influence as it has challenged me. Update - April 2015 Athletics Ministry in athletics continues to be one of my priorities. Already this year I have been to 4 indoor events. The season started at Glasgow, which in the past has proved to be an excellent event f...

The ministry we have with coaches cannot be overemphasized in its importance. To influence the influential, to coach coaches, to nurture a multigenerational approach to our ministries is very wise and most effective. The Apostle Paul wrote of this dynamic, in his second letter to Timothy, at chapter 2 and verse 2. There we read, “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” When we invest our lives in coaches, we not only have an impact upon their individual lives, but also their families, their teams, their colleagues, and even their communities. Below are some simple, but effective ways of making connections with coaches that can be transformational to their hearts. I hope you will try some or all of these. Attend their events. Go to their clinics. Attend their training events. Invest your time in their practices, games, matches, tournaments, etc… Be where the coaches are, rather than e...

Since around 2000, I have been working to retool my brain from a well-entrenched modern mindset to be flexible enough to communicate more clearly with postmodern thinkers. I am convinced that most everyone I know, forty years of age and younger, thinks with a 100% postmodern mindset. They do so without even a thought of how differently their elders perceive the world and make decisions. The great and widening divide between these two ways of thinking is played out in the media as cultural issues are loudly discussed and argued from two widely different perspectives. Neither is really listening to the other and neither is being persuasive with the other. Our world needs interpreters. I aim to be one. I will soon be fifty-nine years of age and began rewiring my brain about fifteen years ago. Leonard Sweet’s book, SoulTsunami, was of tremendous help in this process as were two of his other works, AquaChurch and A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Café. (SoulTsunami: 10 Life Rings for You and...