"Selfless Basketball Chapel Talk

Below is the text of a recent pregame chapel talk I delivered to a men’s college basketball team. The theme was “Selflessness.”

Think about all that is celebrated in College Basketball:

• Championships

• Winning 

• Scoring

• Thunderous dunks

• Long three point shots

• Last second scores (Marcus)

• Steals

That's the stuff of good basketball. 

Let's be sure to celebrate selfless play, like we have been playing:

• Taking a charge.

• Deflecting a pass.

• Recovering loose balls.

• Help side defense.

• Tipping the ball to a teammate to rebound.

• Closing out on a shooter.

• Diving out of bounds to save the ball to a teammate.

• Making the extra pass to get a better shot.

That's the stuff of exceptional basketball. 

"This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our brothers, and not just be out for ourselves. 

My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love." 1 John 3:16- & 18 MSG

1. Christ Jesus sacrificed for us - that is how we experience real love.

2. We should sacrifice for those we love.

3. Live sacrificially, for others.

4. That's more than love talk, that's the real thing. Let's practice it.

This is the stuff of exceptional men.

Today –

• Compete sacrificially for your brothers.
• Compete selflessly, not for yourself.
• Don't just talk about love, practice real love.

This is the stuff of exceptional Saluki Basketball players.

That is worthy of our greatest celebration.

FCA Character Coach Training of Trainers in Iowa.

On Wednesday February 12 I met with eighteen FCA colleagues from across the state of Iowa for training of trainers and mentors of FCA Character Coaches. We met together from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm in a church conference room with good tables, chairs, and an excellent large screen television for presentations. The host church and our FCA teammates were great hosts with coffee, snacks, lunch and more.

We walked our teammates through how to use the Orientation presentation, how to present the 3 hour training material, and the supporting documents. They were hungry to learn, asked good questions, and our discussion oriented presentations made lots of room for processing and application to their local settings.

This is the second such training session with FCA teammates in the Midwest Region. We met with Nebraska teammates in December. I look forward to more of this process, training trainers and mentors, and to their training and mentoring of FCA Character Coaches.

Sports Chaplaincy Training in Philippines.

During the days of 30 January through 6 February I was in the Philippine Islands for sports chaplaincy training with our FCA Philippines colleagues and friends. FCA National Director, Pastor Gary Visitacion and I have been trying to plan this trip for over two years and it finally came together. We had great sessions of training in both Imus, and in Manila.

In Imus, we delivered the training in one day across six hours with about 16 trainees. In Manila we had the luxury of two days and that allowed us to go at a more leisurely pace, and to include lots of small group discussions for processing and application to local settings. The Manila training included men and women from all across the nation, several having flown in.

During the training we also had an opportunity to talk with our FCA Philippines colleagues about the ongoing process of training, placing, and mentoring sports chaplains in their nation. We believe we left them with a good plan. Chaplains Hans Pe is taking the lead for developing sports chaplaincy as an important part of FCA Philippines growth.

As the week wrapped up, we were excited to see the transition underway for Pastor Gary Visitacion in his move to leading the South Pacific region for FCA, and Coach Jojo Villa becoming the FCA National Director for the Philippines.

In addition to the training, I was given the opportunity to accompany Coach Jojo to the University of Makati and to speak with a few of their sports teams. The next day, I accompanied Chaplain Hans Pe to observe his ministry with professional basketball clubs in Manila. I was privileged to do a brief post-game talk with one club. These opportunities were enormously valuable to me.