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.