Tuesday, July 14, 2015
On the back wall of our locker room is our Team Verse-Philippians 1:27. " Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you will stand firm in One Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel."
Heard a great sermon on this verse on Sunday from Pastor Kyle Ray of Kentwood Community Church. Here are some key points that I think will help us link this verse to our season. Paul was writing to a diverse group of Christians. "People will know that you are a Christian by how you behave in the time of trouble or crisis."
- No matter what we stand firm.
- No matter what we stand together
- No matter what we stand for Christ
Go back to Visioneering, one of the 4 things that "weaves into the fabric of our daily experience" is Direction. "Maybe the most practical advantage to vision is it sets a direction for our lives. It serves as a road map. In this way, vision simplifies decision making. Anything that moves us toward the realization of our vision gets a green light. Everything else is approached with caution."
Philippians 1:27 is my vision for this program. It gives us direction. It makes decisions easy. I think there are a lot of ways that this verse should really challenge us this season. We have a lot of new players from all over the world. We have good leadership. We have a solid core returning. We have a lot to prove under difficult circumstances. What will we be like on the field in training and games? What will we be like off the field in classrooms or around campus? The last couple of seasons, I think the program has struggled to buy in to this vision of the program. Some guys might done good in certain areas but as a program, we have not stood firm on our core values. As a team we have not stood together during the tough times and even in the good times. As a team, can we honestly say that we all stand for Christ? This is not to point fingers or blame anyone specifically but it is to challenge each and every one of us-coaches included, in each of these areas to help give our vision direction. At the end of this season, what will people outside of our locker room know about us?
Nuts and Bolts
- Tuesday night SCOR training: We are training from 6-8 pm at Meadow Ridge Elementary in Rockford, 8100 Courtland Dr. NE, Rockford, MI 49341
- Scarves are in now and will start mailing them out this week.
- SWOL: Send me your physicals if you are still having problems. I think most of you have signed up already.
- Tuesday Night Training: This Tuesday, we will be going to SCOR training first and heading back to CU afterwards
Here is this week's post from Sophomore Kevin Nimmo.
Hey boys, Preseason camp is coming up quick and I am beyond excited to get back to school playing with all of you. I have been thinking a lot about this next season in the past few weeks, and I’m honestly so pumped for the chance to come back and prove people wrong. We’ll be looked at as an under dog after we under achieved last season, but we made big strides this spring season and I have no doubts that we’ll make some noise in the WHAC this year.
When thinking about our team for this next season, 1 Corinthians 12:12 came to mind. It reads:
“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.”
In this verse, Paul is talking to the church in Corinth about how the body of Christ (the church) is one body made up of many different parts. I think our team should be looked at the same way. We are one team with a lot of different people, each with different roles. The body needs all of its parts to function properly. It is very important for us to have everyone on the team focused on the team goal and mission because we cannot be the best team we can be with only some of the parts working together. With just under a month until pre-season camp, we have to be sure that everyone is on the same page. One of our foundational principals is Support the Mission of the Team. In my experience playing soccer, at any level, whether it was club or high school, I’ve seen that it only takes one or two players who want to ignore the mission of the team and do their own thing to completely bring the team down. That is why it is so important to make sure that we are all focused on supporting the mission and goals we have as a team.
So with the summer quickly coming to an end, there are a couple easy ways to be supporting the mission of the team. 1. Is to keep up with the workouts and keep working on becoming as fit as you can be before August 8th. We all know that it is a huge team goal to come into camp fit to be ready for the season that starts quickly after we get there. And 2. Another team goal is raising money for the team. Keep working on selling the scarves as much as you can and work on trying to make it out to some of the soccer camps we will be running in the upcoming weeks.
Hope you all are having a great summer, keep working hard!
Here is part of your workout that was left out.
