Anytime you push yourself to step into a new environment, there’s a mixture of courage, trust, and determination which is necessary. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve found myself intimidated by the opportunity to connect with student athletes at UC.
The Higher Ground Conference & Retreat center, which hosts the Bearcat training camp for football each summer, happens to be affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene. With my role as a campus minister for the Church of the Nazarene (and the CCO) at UC, that connection has provided me the opportunity to spend some time with athletes and coaches.
At no point during my high school or college career would I have been considered an athlete.
(I did pitch and play short stop for a few years in Little League).
Although “athletic,” my preferred crowd during those years was more interested in the arts and/or academic pursuits. I probably would’ve enjoyed spending a little more time with student athletes back then, there just weren’t many opportunities for our paths to cross.
So over the past week or so I’ve been asking myself a few questions, like…Why would I pursue mentoring/discipling relationships with these guys? Am I qualified to connect with student athletes? Will I be able to relate to a 300-pound offensive lineman who lives in a whole different world? What do I think the Gospel looks like in the life of a division one college athlete?
The most paralyzing question and fear, however, that confronted me each time I tried to make room in my schedule was perhaps a more basic and common one. What are people going to think? Will the athletes accept me? Will the coaches kick me out? Will people wonder about my motives…my agenda? The fear of being perceived negatively or not liked or just unaccepted is perhaps one of the most primal social fears one could experience. Apparently a 39-year old veteran pastor dude is just as susceptible to this fear as a 13-year old junior high student walking into a new cafeteria at school for the first time.
After making three trips to the football camp, I connected with about 10 of the players and a couple of coaches. Honestly, that feels like a “win” in my book. It doesn’t sound like much, but if I can bump into a half-dozen or so players on campus come mid-September who I know by name and who actually recognize and remember my face…that’s a great start to reaching into this world of student athletes. These athletes are indeed college students. And I’m at UC to transform college students to transform the world.




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