At Whittier Christian High School we hope our athletes our furthering the Kingdom of Heaven while competing. Considering the majority of our student athletes are believers, furthering the Kingdom of Heaven should be there #1 focus.
There are many ways to further the Kingdom of Heaven through athletics but lets concentrate on one area right now.
1 Thessalonians 5:9-11
“For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up as you are already doing.”
In the weight room at WCHS we strongly urge our athletes to ENCOURAGE one another. As we see above this is very biblical. Next time you read the New Testament, check out how encouraging the authors are in the beginning of the book (especially Paul).
I want to share why encouragement will make or break a team. During a tough football conditioning session I tell our athletes to "speak names". This simply means pick one or two teammates out and encourage, motivate, even yell there name in the middle of conditioning. This not only is great for the teammate being called out, but it also takes the focus of how tired the athlete doing the "yelling" is. This act of unselfishness hits the core of our faith. When we are beat, tired and drained we unselfishly ENCOURAGE and MOTIVATE our teammates. When teams become great at this they become more successful. Similiarly, when teams aren't good at encouraging and motivating each other they will not be successful. (I dont care how talented they are!)
The great thing about this is these athletes will face very similar scenarios in life as family members, as friends, and as Christians. When they practice this characteristic of being a great encourager they will be great at it when they are a husband/wife, father/mother, friend, co-worker, etc. All by "speaking someones name" in a conditioning drill on the athletic fields of WCHS we are expanding the Kingdom of God! Very exciting.
Thanks and stay tuned for more posts soon!
Coach Oberlander
