“At 2:00am my phone rang. I thought it was one of my athletes. But, the voice on the other line was a store manager asking me to pick up my passed-out athlete from her store in South Beach. I grabbed my keys and went to get her.” This is one of the many stories I, Anthony, hear during our weekly coach’s Bible Study.
There are times when our coaches play multiple roles. While their primary role is a coach, they often find themselves playing the role of a parent-figure or mentor. This particular coach found himself coming to the rescue of his athlete and sharing with our coach’s small group in an effort to find support in balancing between helping and disciplining his athletes. There’s a fear of how administration may respond. And, there’s the possible rejection of losing one’s job if athletes (or the team) do not perform to the expected standard.
Our coach’s small group has just completed the series by Louie Giglio called, Goliath Must Fall. In this series, we’ve been studying the many giants we face in our lives and how they must fall in light of the victory that we have in Jesus. These giants include fear, rejection, comfort, anger, and addiction.
While we may often envision ourselves as little David taking down the giant Goliath with just a sling and a stone, the truth is that we are not David. Jesus is. He is the one who takes down the giant on our behalf and we celebrate as our warrior-hero does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Fear, rejection, comfort, anger, and addiction are very real giants in my life, and in the lives of these coaches. Yet, it is such a refreshing breath of fresh air when we discover community with one another as we follow Jesus and see these giants fall in our lives.
Prayer Requests
Pray that these coaches in our weekly small group would grow in their faith and leadership capacity.
Pray for enlightened hearts during our Gals’ Group on Monday nights.
Brittany is in her last MBA class for her degree program and Anthony just started another seminary course. Pray for perseverance.
We plan to rent a 15-passenger van to shuttle UM students to Christ Journey Church for Easter services this Sunday. Pray that more will come to know Christ through this Easter outreach.
Updates
Our new home is in the midst of renovations. Thank you for each family that joined us for our Vision Build event. You can see our progress towards our renovation support goal. We plan to move in May 1st.
We will be traveling to Xenia, OH for Springboard 2018, our biannual Athletes in Action staff conference.
As we celebrate the resurrection of our Savior this weekend, we delight in the reminder of the joy that motivated Jesus. “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2) May you experience the power of the resurrection in a new way this Easter!
With Love, Anthony, Brittany, Micah, & Kyla The Gonzalez Family
