Stoppage Time: Winding Down and Winding Up

Funny how we always seem to be surprised by how quickly time passes.  At some point you'd think if that's our reaction every time that we'd start to take steps to savor the many moments that make up the key parts of our lives.  I have not gotten even remotely close to figuring out how to do that.

It's been literally a month since my last update, so I figured that one was a bit overdue.  This past month was a pretty unique one when held up against my past years.  It all began with my knee surgery that I mentioned in my last post (not assuming that everyone read it).  I got an ACL reconstructive surgery on August 1st, and I also got my meniscus tear fixed, which was a delightful surprise after my surgery to hear that they had doubled up on the one surgery.  I spend a week and a half after that basically just resting my knee after that, but was slowly able to begin walking and moving around first with one crutch, then with none.  Recent progressions include being able to walk downstairs and having it be more easy to get in and out of vehicles.  I had a week off, then spent the next week working from home, helping to write the spiritual curriculum for a multi-sport program that we are running this fall and into the spring. 

This is my knee.

Over the past few weeks, I've been able to get back into most of what my role has been for most of the summer, which has been real nice.  We've been able to catch up after an extremely hectic beginning to the summer (which seems to be the case every year).

I do want to take a chance to bring up something that I found to be particularly impactful.  This summer I've learned that the expectations that people bring to a team or partnership shape just about everything.  I also learned that we often assume that everyone else's expectations are the same as our own, and so we often don't bother to clarify what everyone is actually expecting.  Especially with what we do, where we are partnering with different churches every week.  There are entirely unique and different cultures that surround each church, and we really don't have time to get to know it in depth.  In situations like that, where our goal is to partner with churches to help them best reach their communities, communicating expectations are a huge deal in knowing where everybody's starting point is.

As I was typing that, I realized that there was more than just one thing that I learned, so what the hey, I'm gonna talk about that too.  I was encouraged by the shortcomings that I saw all throughout the summer.  All through the many weeks of summer I got to meet and work with a huge amount of people who dedicate a huge amount of time to help advance God's kingdom.  It was remarkable to see both the incredible fruit that their investment produced, and at the same time I was able to see in my own efforts all the different ways that I fell short this summer.  I was so encouraged that there was fruit from my own broken and imperfect efforts, not because of my own shortcomings so much, but because it so fully shows the sovereignty and power of God in the daily and the mundane.

I also want to thank everyone who supported me in any way this summer.  Whether it was through prayer, finances, or just spending time talking about my summer.  I was encourage all throughout, and I couldn't have done it without all the support I received and was so blessed by.

As this is my last day, I thought I'd also take the opportunity to share about what I'm moving into next.  I'll be starting work at Northview Community Church, which is the church I've attended my whole life.  My role is going to be as the intern in the high school youth group, which I've been volunteering with for the last three years.  I'm not too sure what the day to day of that job will look like, I'm excited for the chance to serve my church in a new way.

Well this has been a wild summer.  Thanks for your literary endurance and engagement with what I've been up to.  Y'all'd've been great.  Good morning, good afternoon, and good night.

Levi "the Leviathan" Friesen

A Brief Update and Extended Theological Meandering

Ferry ride to Nanaimo

     Well this is one blog entry that has a lot of ground to cover, so I'll just get right into it.  First, as mentioned in other entries (I won't assume that you've read the others), my job involves mentoring and training for our coaching teams this summer, and as a part of that I got to travel to both Nanaimo and the Sunshine Coast to check in on a couple of camps that were going on.  The camp in Nanaimo is one that I have gone to for the last few years, and is always a lot of fun.  They have a large team of volunteers that faithfully serve at soccer camp every year, and the energy that they provide really boosts our team of coaches every year.  This was the first time I had ever gone to Sechelt, or the Sunshine Coast in general.  The ferry ride in was unreal, and the drive to the camp took me right along the coast, and driving along water is one of my favourite things in the world, so the travel to and from the camp was already a highlight.

Ferry on the way to Sechelt

     The church we are partnering with on the Sunshine Coast is in a cool position, as they have a couple members of their church who are at a place where their next step in sports ministry could be to go through the training we provide for our own coaches.  This is our vision at AIA for what the next step could be for a lot of our current church partners.  This would allow them both to accept more kids as registrants for their camps, as well as equipping them to better do their own sports ministry; both individually and as a church.  Our training for new coaches deals a lot with the fundamentals of coaching; how to set up a station, drill or game, how to look for opportune moments to coach, understanding some of the key points of techniques and tactics.  But what is a little different between what we do and what other soccer camps and even other sports ministries is that we interact with the culture that surrounds sport.

     Christians all throughout history wrestle how much to accommodate or reject the culture that they are surrounded by.  It's pretty common knowledge to hear that the newest hot button issue within the church has to do with how to interact and engage with a current cultural value or trend.  This is something that the church has done since its very inception; the first culture that Christians were forced to consider how to approach was that of the Roman Empire, ripe with idolatry and oppression.  Sports were part of that culture, largely gladiator and Olympic style games.  Those games functioned as an extension of the rest of the Roman Empire, revolving around the emphasis of Emperor worship and idolatry.  Our default position on sports in our world today is quite different.  First century Christians knew exactly what the messages were that were in the sports culture of their day; today we act, and sometimes explicitly say, that sports are separate from the 'real world' (interesting how we say the same thing about high school eh?).  Along with this devaluing of what is happens within sports, we live in a culture that elevates performance (successes and failures) above nearly everything else.  Think about that combination of messages that athletes of all ages are receiving, and then think about all of the other lies that kids are told in youth sports; the other team is the enemy, if you lose the game you're a loser, you are only valuable to your team if you can score, help score, or keep the other team from scoring.  These are things that effect everyone who has every been part of any competitive sport, and especially team sports (individual sports have their own set of issues within them).  

     Anyhow, the next week I got to do a week of coaching at my own church.  This was the 7th time that I have been involved at my own church's soccer camp, so some of the kids in my group (the oldest group at camp) have been in my group since they were some of the younger kids there. I got a chance to support our team at what is a bit of a wild camp, and to implement some of the things that I had been trying to help them build into their own coaching into my own coaching.  The week was a hot one, and there were a lot of kids who had no interest in soccer.  Others were so invested in soccer that anything we did that was not a classic soccer game was not good enough for them.  A camp that is half kids from the church and half kids who are sponsored by the church through the Food Bank is going to have such a dynamic.  So it was a challenge for sure.  In spite of all of that, I got to have some cool chances to speak some truth into kids lives who either were good soccer players or were not at all interested in soccer ever being a part of their lives.  My favourite part of the week was challenging some of the older kids who I know grew up in our church to think about how they play and compete.  They had been a camp for a number of summers by this point, so to challenge them to take what we teach a step further was a lot of fun and was pretty rewarding for me.  

The Tanks

     Then the weekend after was a wild one for me.  My own soccer team had a tournament, and we did pretty well; won a game, tied a game, lost a couple.  I played most of all of those games, and even had a chance to play some striker/forward in the last game (for those of you who don't know, my typical spot is center back, meaning I am usually the closest player to my own goalkeeper).  I ended up being a better attacker than I thought I'd be.  I also played against my younger sister for the first time ever, which was a lot of fun (her team won, which I partially blame on the 8 a.m. kickoff time).  To wrap it all up, I got a phone call from the office of my orthopedic surgeon telling me that I have my ACL surgery after two years of playing with partially torn ACL and requiring a substantial knee brace.  My surgery is next week, so if you're inclined to pray, that is a massive request looming, as I have never done any surgery before, and the recovery is a lengthy one.

This was a hefty update, but I must lead a terribly busy life.

Or I like to type too much.

Thanks for your time, message me if you ever wanna chat about what I do in person

Levi "the Leviathan" Friesen

Kicking It Up A Notch

As the title of this particular post suggests, summer camps have kicked off, and our two teams in BC are kicking it with two churches this week.  I'm kicking myself because my role this summer has me going to each teams first camp that kicks off their summer, and it has reminded me how much I did enjoy coaching alongside churches in order to redeem the culture surrounding soccer and sport, as well as providing a little extra kick as the churches seek to reach out into their communities.

Well if you stuck with me through that incredibly delightful opening paragraph, I question your sanity, but appreciate your dedication.  I got the opportunity to go to both our camp in Tsawwassen and one of our camps in Richmond this week, and observe how each of our teams were doing in their first few days.  This is one of my favourite parts of the job this summer, because I have coached at many of the camps that I will be visiting, so there are lots of opportunities during my time observing our own coaching teams to reconnect with church volunteers and those who coordinate the church's side of our partnerships. 

Me coaching with Tsawwassen circa. 2016

Tsawwassen Alliance Church is such a camp, as I have served at their camp twice before, so it was a good experience to go back and be able to be a little more intentional about hearing their vision for soccer camp, and how it fits into the rest of their efforts to reach out to the community this summer.  It was also fun to spend time with their volunteers and build into them intentionally, as many of them have been serving at their church's soccer camp for many summers now.

Richmond Baptist Church is running our other camp this week, and while I haven't spent time at their camps before this summer, they sent a couple of their interns to our own coaches training this summer to learn about and be trained in sports ministry for their work this summer.  So in addition to observing our own team or coaches, I got to talk with those who joined us, and to see how the training we run for our own staff helped equip them for their own work this summer; both in sports ministry and in other areas.

If you are looking for ways to pray for me, it would be great if you could focus on wisdom.  When I am looking to help our coaches and give feedback, I tend to over-analyze and offer feedback to the point where I overwhelm, so wisdom in giving the most helpful and applicable feedback is a big need of mine.  The other thing that I could really use prayer for is using my time well.  The title I hold this summer has a number of roles within it, and so to be able to plan and execute a wide variety of projects requires me to steward my time well.

Well you made it to the end.  I know you probably skimmed most of this after realizing how difficult that first paragraph was to read, but I still appreciate the time it takes.  Hope you are enjoying your summer as much as I am.

In Christ,
Levi "The Leviathan" Friesen

AIA Summer #4: Can You Field the Love Tonight?

CAN YOU FIELD THE LOVE TONIGHT? 

     In an effort to join the 21st century, I have taken the liberty of throwing in some pictures to flesh out my semi seasonal musings.
  

     My summer is going to look a little different than previous ones for a number of reasons.  Firstly, I got married between the end of my winter semester and the start of my internship with AIA this year, so I got started a little behind the rest of the summer camps team.  Second, my role this year is more of a mentorship role for both new and returning coaches, which means I get more of a supervisor-style role over the other interns without really having any extra authority or pay.  So basically a dream come true.  The third and maybe most obvious difference between this summer and last is that I'm awaiting a date for a reconstructive ACL surgery.  It's been two years since I hurt my knee, and I decided that playing at partial strength with a substantial brace was no longer the best option for me.  All I know thus far is that my surgery is happening at the end of August, likely within the last two weeks.  

     We just went through a week of training with our coaches for the summer.  The focus of this year was how to run camps and coach soccer in such a way where the values of God's Kingdom are clearly implemented and communicated.  This covers everything from the way we set up stations to the questions we ask when we are debriefing a station with our players.  This all starts with the belief we have at AIA that God's Kingdom is something that ought to pervade all aspects of our lives.  

     In my own life I have too often seen myself, often subconsciously, sometimes explicitly, justify things that I've done in a sport context that I would never even consider doing off of the soccer field.  Church leagues are notorious for having dirty and overly competitive players who have little respect for the officials, opponents and even their own teammates.  There is an overarching problem with the way that the church interacts with the culture surrounding sport.  So this is what we have spent time structuring our Church Partnerships around.  The training that we use to equip our coaches interacts heavily with their own attitude towards and within sport, and then look to explore how we can coach in a way that brings life and truth.  I got the chance to lead sessions on our spiritual curriculum for the summer, as well as a commissioning activity for our teams.  

     Camps are fast approaching, and the first week is the first week of July.  There is a lot of administrative work that has yet to be done, so if you are looking to include me in your prayers, my main requests would be focus and wisdom in prioritizing.  Also pray for wise amounts of rest and a continual and conscious reliance on the Holy Spirit for the ability to better worship God through what I'm doing this summer.