Many Fellowship of Christian Athletes staffers can tell you all about the routine they go through as chaplain of a professional, college or high school team. The players file in before a game. The chaplain delivers an upbeat message. The players file out. Down deep, the chaplain hopes that the Holy Spirit will move.
Kevin Harvey, South Jersey Area Director for FCA, knows all about this “peppy” side of the ministry as chaplain to the Philadelphia 76ers. He also knows what God can do. Eric Snow was beyond pep talks. In April 2003, the Sixers guard was coming to chapel for substance. He kept asking probing questions about the Bible. Eventually, it came to his conversion to Christianity.
“He waited until everybody kind of left the chapel area in the locker room, and then he looked me in the eye and said, ‘Kevin, last night I prayed to accept Jesus Christ into my life,’” Harvey says. “I saw such a remarkable difference in him from that point on. So you just never know what’s in a person’s heart if they’re not really vocalizing how they’re walking out their faith on a daily basis.
“I don’t take any credit for his coming to Christ. I had very little to do with it. But when you get those little moments alone with a player, it’s a profound thing when they have prayed to receive Christ.”
Harvey now sees 13 of the 15 players on the Philadelphia roster coming to chapel. Veterans like Allen Iverson and Aaron McKie are attending for the first time in their careers.
“I don’t believe this has happened on any team in the 20-plus years of NBA chapel,” Harvey says. “It’s very humbling. I just feel like I’m the beneficiary of a lot of God’s grace.”
FCA chaplains, staff and volunteer, understand what it takes to move beyond the “ordinary” in their ministry. Their hearts must remain focused on investing in the program, they said. Often this requires personal sacrifice. For instance, chaplains understand that their ministry is not only to the athletes and coaches who attend pre-game chapels, but also to the entire team.
“Here is the irreducible minimum for an effective chaplain’s ministry: Be a servant to your team,” says Todd Lamphere, a volunteer FCA chaplain who works with the Florida FCA staff as the chaplain at Lyman High School in Longwood.
“Meet their needs, whatever they are. When you meet the needs of the team, coaches and players, without hidden agendas, then you have earned the right to be heard. Then you are a chaplain. Other than that, you are nothing more than another guy vying for the attention of the coaches and players, often being tolerated at best, and at worst, making no significant contribution into their spiritual lives.”
Encouraging and challenging
If a chaplain is upbeat and positive, he or she is on safe ground. Every coach wants the players to feel upbeat and positive. However, a good chaplain also will find a way to speak teaching words that rise to the level of biblical encouragement.
“I’m there to encourage, to minister, to befriend, and maybe be the only person in their life who isn’t grabbing at them for who they are,” Harvey says.
James Mitchell, an FCA staff member in Knoxville, Tenn., whose chaplain duties include University of Tennessee football and men’s and women’s basketball, said that the foundation of being an encourager is simply to build relationships.
“Not everyone is ready for a Bible study,” Mitchell says. “Not everyone is open yet. We may not see the fruit of building relationships, but we can be an example as far as being a family man, being a godly man trying to live a righteous life.”
Michael Allen, an FCA volunteer who serves as chaplain for the Apopka (Fla.) High School football team, agrees that an attitude of encouragement is essential.
“The key ways to grow and gain respect and ownership are to be there at practices, be personal with the coaches and show continued love and deep interest in the players,” Allen says.
Ron Backes, FCA Area Representative and former chaplain to the Minnesota Vikings, said he tried to encourage players to persevere through the rigors of life in the National Football League.
“The game’s tough on them emotionally, and they need encouragement,” Backes says. “They get down. They don’t play well. It’s a lot of pressure.”
Once encouragement is established, the chaplain has earned the right to challenge his or her athletes. Harvey, who has served the 76ers as chaplain since 2001, chooses to build his messages around such topics as biblical marriage, mentoring and parenting.
“I think about how to relate to their athletic mentality, which is very competitive at the highest level, and relating that to the cause of Christ,” he says. “So I’ll talk to them about what it means to be a godly man, godly leadership, being a godly husband, and practical things like what dynamics need to be taking place in the home. As Christ loved the church, we’re supposed to be laying down our lives for our wives.
“We talk about being a mentor, being a friend. A lot of the professional athletes have this warrior mentality, and I think that goes hand-in-hand with the way a disciple of Jesus needs to be praying through obstacles.” Fleceia Comeaux, South Area Representative for Houston FCA, who is in her fifth season as chaplain for the Houston Comets of the WNBA, said that God likes to use her to deliver a hard message.
“It’s probably been the toughest assignment I’ve ever encountered spiritually,” Comeaux says. “A lot of the WNBA players have been raised in the church, but if you’re away from your support system for a long period of time, you’re susceptible to many things. I try to encourage them about the truth of what the Bible says, that God has a plan for them. Chapel can become a little hellfire and brimstone. I do, at times, have to be very confrontational and not shy away from what the Word says.”
Chaplains in the field
In order to report on how FCA is impacting college and high school teams around the country, as well as minor-league and professional teams, here is a partial list of FCA staff who serve in a chaplain role. It offers a glimpse at the scope of the work of FCA chaplain ministry.
While there are a good number of FCA staff who serve as chaplains to the pros, many more serve as chaplains in the college and high school ranks. Harvey said it would be exciting to see FCA staff or volunteers praying about serving as chaplain of a major professional sports team.
“There’s no doubt that there are a lot of ministries that are specifically trying to be around pro sports teams to get into a chaplain position,” he says. “I think my motivation (in wanting to be a chaplain) was pure. I’m hopefully just about winning people to Christ and encouraging them in their relationship with Him, and I hope it stays that way.” FCA is further developing their chaplain program by including chaplains on more of the major college campuses in America, ministering to the athletes and coaches in the major sports programs.
“It’s a unique time in college athletics,” Mitchell says. “God has given us a platform for exposure, to show our guys how to give a testimony and learn how to teach the Word, to be a part of their lives and create godly men who one day will be godly husbands and fathers.
“This is not a job. When this becomes a job, it’s time to do something else. God has put us in a unique position to minister in all kinds of ways.”
But even the pro chaplains like Harvey and Backes will be the first to tell their fellow FCA chaplains that they are still learning. Backes, for example, freely admits that he is still learning how to minister to people.
“I went to a University of Minnesota FCA meeting, and a couple of youth pastors from a local church were speaking,” Backes says. “They taught me a lot. I’ve been in ministry for over five years and a light bulb kind of went on. They looked at Luke 4 and Isaiah 61, and it says that Jesus came to set the captives free and heal the brokenhearted. I said, ‘OK, that’s what Jesus’ job description is, and that’s our job description—to love.’”
*Parts of this article were contributed by Lee Warren and Terry Hill.
