Help us to encourage one another. We do not want our team to become hardened to each other but rather we want to be soft and open to each other so You can use us best. Remind us daily to appreciate the strengths You have placed on this team. Begin with me. Legendary basketball coach John Wooden coined the phrase “Competitive Greatness.” But as a competitive athlete, I sometimes get it mixed up with “Being Great.” Competitive greatness is not being the best, but being the best you can be. There can only be one best, but everyone can achieve being the best they can be.

Thank you for the strengths represented on this team. Today, I especially thank You for [allow team members to give thanks for specific strengths represented on the team.] Following Jesus often feels the same way. Some next steps — like salvationor marriage — are like the big play that makes it to the highlight reel on SportsCenter. But other next steps feel more like first downs—not sexy but still moving us closer to the goal of becoming more like Jesus. Two Practical Lessons a Christian Can Learn From Football 1. Small choices now can lead to highlight moments later. Looking to start you season on the right foot? Searching for a way to coach your athletes in the faith?Sportsfaith would like to provide you with devotionals that can help as you begin a new year, new season, or new chapter in your life! When the church began and a man named Paul traveled around to help churches get started, he worked with a variety of people to share the message of Jesus. Paul describes one person, Titus, not just as another person on the team, but as someone he could trust: “As for Titus, he is my partner and co-worker among you; as for our brothers, they are representatives of the churches and an honor to Christ” ( 2 Corinthians 8:23). Retired professional footballer Linvoy Primus, who played for Portsmouth, Reading and Charlton Athletic, saw a change in his career after he converted to Christianity.“Playing football was my dream, but at 27 or 28 I realised it wasn’t giving me everything I hoped it would give me,” he said.

This eye on eternity becomes important, then, no matter what we’re doing—playing football or watching it, or driving the kids to practice. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24). This is the real game. This is the real goal. The following attachments are devotionals created by Sportsfaith writer Shawn Leibegott to help coaches teach athletes not only about Christ but about important characteristics all athletes should develop. American football is the most popular sport in the United States, with over 1 million high school athletes and over 67,000 college students participating in the sport at any one time, with a small percentage going professional. Whatever your thoughts about football, there’s no denying that with the sport’s qualities of teamwork, work ethic, and leadership, among others, football can teach its participants important life lessons that resonate both on and off the field.Football is also a team game that demands individual practice. Every player has a specific role that, when executed properly, leads to team achievement. And that proper execution is the result of extreme training. Behind every move of every player is hours of work — of drills and sweat and pain — that ultimately targets one thing: team wins. Seriously. Make no mistake about it. Integral to football is real, tangible moments when personal comfort yields to a greater cause. The team wins because the team members sacrifice. They wear out their bodies for something bigger than their pain. The More Perfect Display

does care about our lives, and in his infinite wisdom he may cause one outcome or another. As a paraphrase of Proverbs reads, “We toss the coin, but it is the Lord who controls its decision” (Proverbs 16:33 LB). Yet, even beyond the coin toss, a football victory isn’t necessarily an indication that one team lived better or prayed harder. Then for fans, on Friday, June 30, BYU will have a “BIG Countdown” at the Student Athlete Building at 11:30 p.m. to ring in BYU’s new life as a member of the Big 12. This Saturday, from 3-6 p.m., BYU is holding “the BIG Party” to celebrate BYU officially being in the Big 12 Conference. He said the book stemmed from his own efforts to set up a church team in Merseyside.“A lot of the boys were being ridiculed for playing for a church club and many left because they couldn’t cope with those comments,” he added.“So, I wrote Thank God for Football to tell the boys in the club, ‘look, you’re not freaks, you’re part of a rich tradition’. PROVO, Utah – BYU athletics has been waiting for this moment for decades. That moment is moving into the Big 12 Conference. On Monday, BYU is hosting a golf scramble for local media members at Cedar Hills Golf Course. There will be teams from KSL Sports, KSL TV, and Cougar Sports Saturday participating in the 18-hole event that will also feature some opportunities for interviews with players and coaches.Paul also explains that believers are called to a personal and passionate commitment to their shared gospel mission. The believer’s life represents their unique and strategic ministry opportunity to serve and grow by making much of Jesus in every circumstance. No one else can do your job of glorifying Jesus with your life. Sanctification depends on humble faith that embraces the actual life that God has given us. After all, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). For if anything is clear in Scripture, it is that in sanctification is a community project and there is never any room for pride.

The church and football complement each other really well,” he told the briefing, saying that he regularly discussed the sport with parishioners of all ages. He still plays and even captains the Archbishop of Canterbury’s football team, which in the coming weeks will compete against teams from The Times, the Vatican and the Swiss Guards.We shouldn’t see these as three unrelated illustrations, but as one total, connected picture of what it means to be a good soldier of Christ Jesus. In a similar way, Doug Wilson notes that all the “overwhelmingly positive” metaphors of sports and war in the Bible point to the same characteristics of “discipline, sacrifice, hard work, focus, intensity, and so on” (“Empire, Sports, and War,” 292). All you have is you. Nothing more; nothing less. Take what God has generously given you and be the best you by unleashing those gifts and talents right where God has placed you. Do it right now…and watch Him do an amazing work through you! Sure, the long pass to the end zone is exciting. But in between the big plays are a lot of short ones, and those short plays are often decided by a matter of inches.