Skip to main content

The ripple effect

FCA Hockey has started ‘the ripple effect’ on social media that you can learn from here https://www.nscacademy.org/the-ripple-effect/
A ripple can be caused when you drop a rock in water. An uncountable amount of ripples follow the rock from the surface of the water to the bottom where the rock stops, yet the impact is still felt. We can use this example when implying our faith in God and what Jesus has sacrificed for everyone. His ripple has been a mighty wave for thousands of years. The ripple we're talking about from the article started with me in Allen, Texas when I witnessed the ripples a player named Gary Steffes spread for the glory of God. I then followed the kneeling prayer at center ice in home rinks, and on the blue line in away rinks. I’ve been doing that now for over 6 years now and have many players joining me over the years. My siblings for one have done this, and in youth hockey in TX and New England have many teammates, coaches, parents, refs, zam drivers, you name it have approached us asking why we kneel and if we were praying. I had an encounter with a kid my 1st year of juniors named Michael Willams that now goes to liberty university and was encouraged for ‘not being the only one’. My junior career for the most time has been alone and I was fine with that, but I wanted to do more. Over the 1st 2 seasons I had some guys pray with me but not at every game bases, yet in the locker they always ask me honest questions. Can you do this, can you do that, are you better than us, why don't you go party, the list goes on and started a ripple of preaching the gospel to my teammate. Also be a reliable teammate to take care of them if anything bad happens and even pray for them. I’ve learned that God's works are so big, I may not be getting instant gratification, but I receive way more than that. Even opponents, I tried to spread my faith. When guys chirp me I always tell them, “You need Jesus”, “Nice hit/ shot”, “God bless you” simply and 99% of them stopped which was funny. I also said sorry A LOT and was the nice guy that picked up gear on both sides. Yet with that, I still wanna play a hard, passionate, honest game. I am always willing to get into scrums to protect my teammates, drop the gloves if it comes down to it, maybe just a hit or a bump to let them know I’m serious. Now saying this, I needed to stay disciplined and have people keep me in check when a loose swear gets out, hurting a teammate, my sinful nature wanting to come out on a daily basis. My faith grew so much more heading to Utah the following 2 seasons. The 1st year I had my goalie praying with me as well as a in town rival team with one of my old teammates, Zak Albers. We played youth and high school hockey together in Texas and prayed together in every game, even in a divisional championship game which was a tough prayer, yet fulfilling and full of God's spirit. I had so many more conversations about my faith there mainly because of Utah being a morman based state, even living with a morman family which was hard but I learned so much through that experience. The second season, the rival team got a handful of Northstar Christian Academy players that grew our circle and showed our community unity and love for God. The amazing part in all of this is we all kneel for the same God, Jesus Christ our savior. The impact goes past the game but into families watching us and a kid like me searching for something that was right in front of my face. I pray that I can father the ‘ripple’ for God and his son that paid the price for all of our sins dying on a cross and rising from the grave. Do you feel the ripple?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A year without Hockey

My season and junior hockey career ended by falling short to the playoffs with the CT Chiefs on February 28th, 2020. I was injured (but still playing), touring multiple college campuses, texting and emailing with college coaches to get them to come see if what I had to offer was good for their program.  Energy, Speed, relentlessness, passion and loyalty. Injured or not, I was driven to get on a college team and take the next step in my life. Then as I was a phone call away from commiting to a college, that's when the world literally started shutting down. 14 days to flatten the curve.  The hockey world, while I was at a rink watching pro sports, shut down right before my own eyes. People preluding to wearing masks even before the mandatory mask mandates and breaking news that weekend of a national shutdown across the U.S. I was heartbroken, stressed and feared what would happen next for everyone in everyday life and hockey.  The only thing that kept me sane an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Team FCA

Hello guys! To those of you who don't know, I'm in Alexandria, Minnesota this summer interning with FCA Hockey. To the people who donated, thank you so much for supporting me in this journey this summer! To the people who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll fill you in coming up and tap here to donate.    So I've come into Minnesota May 20th to meet my billet family, and the guys who are interning along side with me. We set up our rooms and chat about our hockey and faith experiences and connected real quick.     This week, we started most of the days with an ice session that was great! We as a group then sat down and talked about our duty's here, learning the facilities and worked on our testimonies. As Thursday came around, our first camp, Team FCA started. I was the coach on Gold team. We went over the message of the summer in Matthew 28:18-21.      Then Jesus came to them and said,"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Team FCA Camp

      This week we welcomed all the interns to Alexandria as well as campers on thursday afternoon for Team FCA and Jr. FCA. My team was with FCA Jr. Black as we went 2-1 this weekend and had 11 total campers accepted Jesus in their lives. We prepared, trained and tried our best to further the kingdom of God and making disciples.      The impact I felt was amazing and had very interactive conversations, devo talks and hockey talks with many of my team, the other FCA Jr. team and older kids that I've known since I started this 3 years ago. It was cold most of the weekend, but we got a lot accomplished and introducing a worship team with Travis, Allie and Addison. Also for the 1st time we had a junior/ youth hockey panel talking about the hockey culture and how to combat it with our faith and make it better. We watched the chosen, a tv series free to watch, about the disciples of the bible and their story within following Jesus. Games, workouts, yog...
Post a Comment
Read more