Sharing the Gospel through Sport: A Conversation with Sean McNamara

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, before we get started on this episode of Thinking Christian, I just wanted to let you know that I was recording this episode on the road, and so the audio quality is going to be a little different than what you may be used to. But I just ask that you bear with it. Sean McNamara is going to be the guest, and we have a fantastic conversation about his ministry with FCA and about reaching athletes, and it is worth the effort. So hopefully the audio isn't too, too bad, but it is just a little off from what we usually put out on Thinking Christian. So bear with us, enjoy the episode, and we'll see you next time. Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, joined by Nate Gertano and Sean McNamara. And Nate and Sean have a relationship. So Nate's going to introduce Sean a bit, and then we'll start just having a good conversation about what Sean's doing and the ministries involved with. Nate, go for it. Yeah, I'm super excited to have my buddy Sean on. He has been a big part of my story, took a shot on me with skate ministry. I got to work with him at FCA back in the day until about 2008. He is the chief sports officer, but he has such a passion for sports and for sports ministry and for people. And so that ministry, that season of my life gave me a lot of amazing friendships, including Sean. So super grateful to have you on today, bro. Yeah, great to be here. Tell us a little bit, you know, FCA has been around a long time, but how did you get into FCA? How did that all start? Yeah, no, I love telling this story. And originally I was really into basketball. That was my favorite sport growing up, but I realized that I was at, I was a little bit limited in my height. And as much as I love that, I could see that maybe God didn't make me to be a basketball player. And so I went to a lacrosse practice and there were a lot of kids there that were more athletic than me. And they asked if somebody wanted to be the goalie. And I realized very quickly, you got a free stick and you got to be in the starting lineup if you were the goalie and nobody else volunteered. And that was the, that was the beginning. And that was like, it was actually before I was a Christian. So my most sincere prayers before I was a Christian would be, I would go onto the field before I'd go into the goal. I'd pray. So I would say I learned to pray before I really even understood who God was just in the nervousness of knowing that the whole game would be watching me when I was in the net. And so I loved, fell in love with lacrosse. And then at the time I was, I grew up in Rochester, New York, down the road, there's a school called Hobart that had won, I believe, 13 straight national championships. And I had two paper routes the morning and the afternoon. I saved up all my hard earned money so I could go to Hobart lacrosse camp. And I'll always remember the day when my mom asked me, You know, I know you're excited about going to camp, but did you register? And I didn't, did not think through that. And so I remember calling and finding out that the camp I'd saved up all year was sold out. And at the same time, there was my neighbor next door was a new Christian and was going down to work a fellowship of Christian athletes camp. And I didn't know what FCA was and camp started on a Monday. I found out the camp was sold out on a Friday and I couldn't go. And my neighbor came across and asked if I could go down to FCA camp. And he called the local FCA, an FCA staff guy named Dan Britton called and my mom called to ask questions about camp. And the next morning I was on my ride down to Gettysburg college as a camper. I loved lacrosse, loved being a goalie, didn't know what FCA was. And that was, it was where I sent myself to be a camper for the first time. And that was, that was where, that was my, where my faith journey began. And FCA has a theme. That year, the theme was the narrow road and that, you know, through Jesus, there's, you know, there's obviously there's a broad road that leads to death and sin, but there's a narrow road that leads to life in Jesus Christ. And on July 8th, 1992, there was a gentleman, Pat Kelly, who played for the Baltimore Orioles. He was an evangelist. He shared the gospel at FCA camp. And I still remember it like it was yesterday. I wasn't, as I told you, I wasn't extremely athletic, but he said, if you want to come forward, you can receive Christ into your life. And they shared the gospel there. And I tried to be the first guy up there. I ended up third. And, and I remember there were 600 campers and I remember I looked around and there was only like five kids that had came forward. And I remember thinking, now they said the theme was the narrow road and I don't like a lot of attention. I thought a few more people would want to respond to this invitation to accept Jesus at an FCA camp. And I remember they did one more song. And when I opened my eyes and I had tears in them at the end of that song, all the entire camp had come forward and, and I was just one of those 600 campers that accepted Christ at Gettysburg college at an FCA camp. And then my story with FCA just continued. A story for another day. I overpaid for a $50 tattoo. Somebody did on their of the FCA logo on their back porch, but for it being the person's second tattoo, I think he did a pretty good job. And then what we could, we could commit a whole episode to that day. But the, that I entered with FCA and kind of let it in college and then graduated college on a Sunday and Memorial day was Monday. Started FCA on a Tuesday and that was 25 years ago of just kind of being somebody whose life was transformed by the gospel and God just giving me different roles in the organization to serve and help create that opportunity for others. So. Yeah. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty. More families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, sanctuary metals makes it easy to get started. Text guide to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text guide to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. One thing I love about FCA and when I came on my involvement, Sean hired me actually James for sports specific and kind of I helped start skateboarding for everything that they were doing nationally at the time. But what I loved quickly and the first day, the first time I interacted with anyone besides Sean, which Judd healed connected me through Sean, which Judd's been on the show as well. But one thing I noticed really quickly and I loved about FCA and still love today is they really want to reach every person they can through any means possible, any sports, any avenue, any connection, any vehicle to, to just, you know, bridge those relationships and point people to Christ. And that, that's amazing. So I really love that. That's good. And you're stationed in Kansas city now, right, Sean? Yep. Yep. So our family moved out here. I've had a few different roles, moved out here in 2020. I was previously in Rochester, New York, where I grew up serving as a regional vice president for New York and new England. And then I was in Kansas city before that when I worked with Nate from 2007 to 10. So I had a few different roles and I love living in Kansas city. And, um, and so I serve at the, you know, serve at our, uh, support center that supports our like 3000 us staff and our international partners. And then I also, um, do some local ministry. Um, so we call our people on the front lines, area reps. So I always joke and tell people I'm, you know, chief sport officer by day. And I've, I, uh, I do area rep stuff nights and weekends cause uh, I think if you're going to be talking about ministry, it's important that you're still hands-on and experiencing it. And I also coach a third and fourth grade lacrosse team that, uh, named themselves the killer Chihuahuas. I coach uh the killer Wawas and uh a sophomore team. So I also coach in a club called Project Kansas City, which is a local

St. Louis, Kansas City. I mean, it's not that far. We're talking about, you know, four hours or so, five hours, something like that. Are you finding that it, obviously FCA does all sports, but, you know, your background in lacrosse, are you finding lacrosse is starting to take off a little bit more in the Heartland? A little bit. You know, a little bit. I mean, definitely soccer. There's definitely some sports that have a very strong presence. It's not like living in upstate New York where when you drive down the street and you just see lacrosse goals in your backyard. You don't see that. But what you do find is some people that, you know, one of the reasons I think lacrosse is a popular sport is because you can make practice more fun than a game if you know what you're doing as a coach. So I think some other sports, you have to get through practice to get the game day, but if you're a good coach, you can make your practices more fun than actually the games. And I think that popularity is why people stay with it. And so you kind of have, you might not, what you lack in numbers, you make up for in passion and people's commitment to it. So when we moved here, we felt very embraced by the Kansas City lacrosse scene and it was smaller than what we were used to. But, you know, when I moved here, there was not a lot of people that were offering goalie instruction. And so I had a few people reach out to me. And then four short years later, you know, we run like almost a year round training, you know, training almost every goalie in Kansas City. And I have a really good team of people that, that do an incredible job making that happen. So yeah, it's been fun, but it's definitely, there was a little bit of a, adjustment to, you know, the amount of people playing the game and kind of like, you know, we used to complain if you had like a, you know, an hour car ride for an away game. And, you know, we're in Kansas City, you know, on weekday nights, buzzing over to St. Louis for a game and coming back, you know, the amount of miles you travel and that it was a little bit. Oh yeah, definitely. Um, I remember you telling me some funny stories and you actually introduced me to one of my board members when I was at FCA, Billy from up, up in the area. I think he was in Maryland. I think he might've been in Salisbury or something. I forget exactly where, but he was a goalie. And I remember you saying like, yeah, the goalies are usually a little, there's a couple of things, a couple of screws loops upstairs with goalies because, but then James, you'd know, because you've seen the ball, you've held one and felt it. Like he told me the speed that these balls come at the goalies and a lot of them, you know, just wear the gloves and the, the helmet, like in a chest thing. But like as a skateboarder, I remember hearing those stories and I was like, okay, I can really respect this, especially goalies. Like that's pretty crazy. Yeah, I think it's, um, I think it's, there's 916 lacrosse balls. If you do the math that could fit in a goal. So if you lined, if you lined a goal down, that's how many it takes. So, you know, as a goalie, the odds of the shot going in are higher than hockey or other sports where soccer, where the ball may go in once a game or not even go in. Um, so you have to be mentally tough and you have to be, you know, I always tell the goalies, you have to be willing to get hit by the ball, but you also don't have to run. So you get a little bit of a, there's a little bit of a trade off there. And I think if we all loved running or if we were really athletic, our coaches might not have recommended goalie to us. So there's definitely some trade-offs. So well, man, talk to us a little bit about, because, you know, my experience with FCA is I, I attended FCA meetings when I was in college, even though I wasn't an athlete, you know, they, they were, they were fine with me showing up. But then when I was up in Chicago, I worked on the leadership board for a guy who was, you know, doing more of a regional FCA. I think he would have been probably an area director. Um, and so I'm, I'm familiar enough with FCA, but I'm really only familiar with the huddles aspect. You know, maybe explain some of the huddles, but then also what else FCA does. No, that's great. And, and, you know, the, um, you know, the Genesis and the beginning of FCA was, you know, you had a basketball coach, Don McLennan, who saw that sports was an influence, you know, that, um, companies were beginning to use, uh, sports as a way to sell products. And, uh, you know, back in the fifties. So he was, he kind of caught the vision of, you know, what does it look like for coaches and athletes to share their testimony and to, you know, share their faith and use that platform in a positive way. So, um, we originally started with camps that we would refer to as a conference. And then, uh, over time, you know, we've started to, we, um, later on in our history, we started having huddles, which met on school campuses, which are student-led, student-initiated, uh, Bible studies and, um, and just places where discipleship happens. And, and, um, so that's kind of our traditional, you know, camps and campus are kind of our, you know, traditional ministry. Where I serve now is in our sport pillar, which kind of helps us look at our mission, which is to lead every coach and athlete in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and his church. And, um, you know, we have the word every in there twice, uh, you know, every coach and every athlete. So what, what we work on is really how, what is it, you know, what do our programs, what's our strategy look like with that? So, um, I kind of have some people that are helping expand what we do as a ministry report to me. So, um, we have what we'd call like our sports leaders that help us grow into groups of new sports. So Laura Matera is our action sports leader who Nate was good friends with, uh, her husband, Joe, who served many years with us and is, uh, since home with the Lord and the Lord has done a great job leading the action sports. And then we have a woman, Danita Pavoni, who leads our ministry in motorsports and she's based out of Minnesota and kind of helps us expand all the, you know, there's a, there's a list of about 30 different motorsports that she's helping us grow our models into. So coaches and athletes in these sport environments have access to it. And then we have a great staff guy, Paul Dennis, uh, who's over FCA outdoors, who just does an incredible job with, you know, archery, fishing, kind of all the outdoor things. Um, so I have those three on my team who I serve. Then we have a great gentleman, uh, Mike Blanc and Mike helps us make sure that our ministries are touching pro and elite, uh, coaches and athletes. So Mike is our like subject expert matter on that. And then I just, my previous zoom was with a gentleman named Steve Jones, who's incredible. He was a blind rugby coach in Wales for many years. And, um, Steve is, uh, over our all abilities ministry. So we want to take what we've been doing forever with coaches and athletes and make sure that we've created those opportunities for athletes that have physical or mental, uh, you know, limitations or, or obstacles to overcome. So, so I have those three, then Steve and Mike. And then I have kind of a couple of people over programs, uh, Derek Park, who helps us with our FCA leagues and Sean Smithson, who helps us with our FCA clubs. Um, so I kind of have a, kind of an interesting group of people that come together and what we call the sport pillar, but have, you know, kind of different types of roles within the organization that help us live out the mission that's so clear to us, making sure that the word every is, um, is an emphasis and that we're not just going where we've always been, but that we're seeing the code countless coaches and athletes in our community, um, in a bigger way. That's a little bit more than what, uh, we've had in the past where we've had incredible summer camps and then the goal to have as many of what we call campus huddles going out to the schools. Those are great. And God continues to grow and bless those. But we also, God's given us some new wineskins and new opportunities to make sure that anywhere coaches and athletes are coming together, regardless of, you know, who they are, where that is and, um, and how unique they might be within that, uh, community that, that we have the opportunity to empower people, to share the gospel, um, through their sport. So. And sometimes it starts with a donut. My daughter didn't really do sports, uh, the last couple of years at school because she was involved in so much other stuff, but she went to FCA every year. And then she got to talking to one

I had a gentleman who runs Child Evangelism Fellowship on the show a while back, and one of the things that they were struggling with, maybe not struggling with, but had encountered, was these, what we could call maybe counter-ministries on campuses. Now, they worked mostly with elementary schools, some in junior highs, but they do the after-school clubs where kids could come in and learn the Bible, and it was very similar, sort of an all-access thing, and so they're working in these schools and campuses. And then they had a satanic club that would grow up alongside these and basically using the protections that, you know, the government provides to sort of jump in. Do you guys see that at all? I mean, it's interesting on campuses, you know, that you can have these other movements that see what you're doing and decide, we don't want to influence people for Christ. We want to keep people kind of in the other kingdom, so to speak. Do you have any of that going on? Is that a problem, or is that just sort of unique to the... Yeah, I mean, is that going on? Yes. Is it a problem? I don't know. It's also a little bit of an opportunity because if they get on campus before you do, you may have more access or rights to be on campus based on the school's receptivity to that. And we all know God's Word doesn't return void, you know, so we're not, you know, intimidated or concerned by that. So it is, it's interesting. It is always interesting. And I was in, you know, New York, New England for 10 years before I was in this role. And, you know, we used to joke and say, you know, the more people they let on campus, the harder, the more clubs they let on campus, the harder it is for them to deny us access. So we had a little bit of more, more of a Caleb and Joshua opportunistic outlook on just things unfolding versus like, you know, we know the ultimate victory is in Christ. It's secured on the cross and we know His Word doesn't return void. So it doesn't really intimidate you in a lot of ways. It just, it just could be that, you know, could be God's using that to open up a door for you that you want to be ready for as that happens, so. Yeah, I actually, I'm glad you said that, James, because I actually had that written down. I wanted to mention that because that did happen last year at my daughter's school. FCA was there and somebody got the news or whatever. And they were like, well, if FCA, if they're doing a Christian sports thing, we want to do a Satan club or whatever. And the school had to allow it. And so there was a few things going back and forth on social media with some of the parents and stuff. And I was there last year speaking and I knew some of the leadership and stuff, but I think it was like you said, Sean, an awesome opportunity to say, hey, now more than ever to the kids to kind of empower them. Like you can be light in the darkness. You know, you can have an opportunity now to, to shine even brighter because now, you know, because when I was a kid, I didn't have to deal with that at school. I remember going to some FCA huddles to get a donut or whatever. And it wasn't like, oh, do I go to the satanic club or to the FCA club? So things are definitely changing. Things are different. The world obviously gets further and further away from Jesus. That's why I'm so thankful for FCA and Sean, what you're doing. And that's awesome. But yeah, that definitely hit home with me, James. I don't even think I've shared that with you, but that happened last year at my daughter's school. That's crazy. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Well, Sean, talk a little bit more about the sports pillar because, I mean, you're training people, you're training athletes in all these different sports to do evangelism. What does that look like? Yeah, we engage, equip, empower is our game plan for discipleship. So, you know, our methodology is one where, you know, we want to empower people and disciple them. And so if God recreated them, does that, you know, what does that look like? So, and then we believe huddles is where that happens in the community, right? So God works in, you know, He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it. He works in and through us. Engage, equip, empower is our discipleship strategy. People come together in a huddle and then we just created new places that create huddles. So really the whole point of like the sports performance training that I do with the goalies on Tuesdays or the motocross ministry, you know, where we're handing out God's word track side. That's all to just create that huddle moment where we can share God's word, where we can find out where God's at work, join them, see whose lives He's working in and then have our staffs and volunteers work on, you know, be used by God to engage with others and, you know, to help equip them for the work that God has so we can empower them and send them off. So really the programs are really just the opportunity to create a huddle where we see God's word go forth and to see it's just a place where those mobilized volunteers and the people that God's raised up can share their faith and have an impact. So it's a very simple model. And we have a picture called influence, which just shows a huddle at a camp in the fifties with a group of athletes sitting together discussing a Bible and then a little kid standing on the outside looking at it. And that one word influence has been used to kind of describe, you know, what God's done through FCA in the world of sports. In a lot of ways, we've just have tried to make sure that there isn't coaches and athletes that don't have the opportunity to sit in that huddle like it was originally created at those first FCA camps. So we continue to have the huddles on campus, continue to create huddles at our camps, but now we're seeing athletes and coaches gather in new places and we need to make sure that we've adapted the huddles and the programs that we do for people with all abilities or pro or lead or whatever your niche is within sports to make sure that those opportunities are accessible to them and that they can have an impact on, you know, their community of coaches and athletes they're a part of. No different than when Nate was our skateboard and director from 2007 to 10, you know, that we wanted them, the athletes that he is serving and the skaters to be able to have that huddle moment where life transformation can happen. It all starts with God raising up people like Nate and others to be mobilized in their community. So yeah, definitely. Very cool. It was really cool. We were actually just in Nashville and I had to call Sean because last time I was at Michael W. Smith has a place called Rocket Town and it's like a concert venue, coffee shop, like computer lab, and there's a huge skate park and they moved to a new building and I hadn't been there in several years. So me and my son were there skating when we were there just a couple of weeks ago and I ran into the kid that is leading the skate park ministry there. And I was just talking with him and I was telling him that last time I was there, we did a big outreach and kind of a competition job was there with us. And so I got to connect into Laura, who we mentioned earlier. It's just cool because there's a couple of things in New Jersey that are still happening through FCA with skateboarding that I was a part of. I just love, I love that because when I, when I first met you, Sean, I felt like I was at this young stage of my ministry career where I was even trying to convince people in my church of the need to reach out to skateboarding and skateboarders in Kansas city. And I think it made people nervous. Uh, you know, skateboarders sometimes get a bad rap. I don't know if it's like goalies and lacrosse or whatever, but, uh, but, uh, man, I just, I'll never forget and I'll always appreciate the heart of FCA and, and, uh, you know, seeing that as the same as everybody else. So, uh, yeah, I love that, man. Uh, but it's cool to know that that ministry is still taking place and it's continuing to grow. Laura updates every once in a while. They're always doing, uh, skate camps, but that was probably the pinnacle of my, uh, skate ministry career was doing surf camps in the morning and skate camps in the evening or vice versa. It was like I was on cloud

Oh yeah, I think of like four sports, whatever. You know, when you mentioned like motocross, and I mean Nate and I have been doing this for a while, so I hear a lot about skateboarding. You have these, what we might just phrase as alternative sports, right? Or, you know, they, they are different from, it would seem to me like your traditional basketball, football, you know, and, and I would see, it would seem to me that they'd attract different personalities. Have you had to adapt your materials, the way you approach things? Like, how does that work? I mean, obviously everybody's human, and so, you know, there's basics, right? But still, there is, there, there almost have to be differences where you'd have to contextualize a little bit, yeah? Oh, 100%. And we, um, well, that's one of the things our staff are brilliant at is they contextualize some of our resources. So, you know, if there was a devotional that talked about, you know, uh, a quarterback knowing the play of the coach, you know, our, um, you know, our fishing, our outdoors guy might talk about, you know, um, you know, his father, you know, showing him the part of the lake that he should fish in and knowing, you know, knowing, you know, the father's, you know, going to our heavenly father for knowledge or whatever. So it is pretty cool to see, you know, how they contextualize things into, into a language that makes the most sense for their people. And, and so that's, you know, we, we explain the gospel through the four and then we have like a, you know, we have what we call the core, which is like our, our fundamentals to our discipleship. So we hold on to those, you know, pretty tight and then have our staff um work on contextualizing other things. So if you go into YouVersion, you can see, like, we have tons of FCA reading plans. We have an FCA outdoors reading plan. We have an FCA reading plan for coaches and athletes of all abilities that specifically talks about some of the obstacles you have to overcome if you're a blind athlete or you're a wheelchair athlete. Um, so it has been cool and if you've, if you're ever looking for some good YouVersion plans, our team's done a good job of kind of, you know, pumping those reading plans with contextualized content that brings people back to God's word in a way that's relevant and makes sense to them. So, Yeah, very cool. That's awesome. You know, you, when you got involved with FCA, you mentioned, you know, you went to this camp, right? Like a lacrosse camp, I'm assuming. And do you, does FCA still have those? I mean, if parents out there are thinking, wow, this, this might actually be good for my kid to go and, and do a camp with FCA. Yeah, talk a little bit about those, maybe. Yeah, we can, those continue to grow. Uh sometimes we have like a camp exclusively in one sport and then other times we have, um what we call multi-sport camp where you have a lot of camps going on in one location. I'm actually um later this week flying to Orlando, catching up with some friends and I'm encouraged to sit in a meeting to learn a little bit about uh they're moving one of our bigger camps to Liberty University. So they have the opportunity to expand that into more sports. So, um, so yes, we have everything from, you know, an eight year old skate camp um that, that's going to have 15 to 20 kids in somebody's backyard to camps that people get in an airplane to come to that have hundreds of kids in different sports. We kind of have um that and everything in between, which is pretty cool. So if you go on our website, those will start coming live like around February and we'll, we'll run primarily from, you know, late mid-May to uh to late July. So. Very cool. You had mentioned, Go ahead, Nate. No, go ahead, Nate. You had mentioned Jimmy Martin, you had mentioned fishing guy. Were you talking about Jimmy Martin, Sean? Uh no, uh I'm not familiar with Jimmy Martin, but um we have more than one fishing guy. Sure. We're all fishing from Fishers of Men, but we have a great guy, Paul Dennis, who. Okay, yeah, I know of Paul Dennis too, but the reason why I ask you is my buddy, Mitch Benjamin, who runs Meet Mitch here in town. He's a big barbecue guy. Uh, been in the American Royal champion with sauce for years, but taught me a lot about barbecue, but I've kind of seen his faith grow over the last few years. He's been going on missions trips with FCA and he's going to Chile in February with Jimmy Martin. And uh he's been to Alaska. He's been to, I think, uh Dominican Republic, uh, a couple of places. He was just telling me that the other night and I was like, oh my gosh, I used to work at FCA. I was like, I actually have my old boss coming on the show. So I'm trying to get him to come on the show too. Maybe he can come and talk about the mission trip in February afterwards. I was just curious. That was the same guy. When I am at the new beautiful Kansas City airport, as soon as I get a delay, I immediately go to meet Mitch and get the barbecue turkey sandwich. That's the best. My favorite barbecue in Kansas City for sure. Yep. And James is awesome. How did the mission, how did the missions trip work? My wife went on one when she was in college for athletes in action. She was a volleyball player. And so they rolled over to Poland and they'd, you know, they had a team and they'd go and they'd play different teams and then they'd share their faith afterwards. That, you know, is that part of it or is it more traditional mission trips that are just sort of sponsored through FCA? How does that, how does that work? It's, it's a mix of, of all of that, but we also have a very big focus on like what God's doing in those local areas. So we're, as we think outside of the U.S., we're careful to not just take a group of people from the U.S., drop them down into a cool location and do, you know, projects. We want, we want to be as athletically, you know, as we do it, we want to stay to our mission and try to have programs that are for coaches and athletes and try to be, um, not just um using sports to reach the whole town, but also making sure we're not missing out on the coaches and athletes in those areas. And then we have international sports partners, so when we do those trips, we try to sync up with those local areas to try to figure out, you know, not just how to like create a spark, but how to get, keep their fire burning and throw a log on what God's doing. So it's not just an experience for people from the U.S. and, and we're actually, we've actually been talking at the leadership level about how missions have changed in the world and it's really about every country going to every country versus the United States sending people because um, you know, it's fascinating the amount of missionaries who are now coming to the United States to have an impact because our country's changed so much from what we originally hoped it would be. So, um, yeah, so we have a, we have a mix of it all, but we try to keep it coach and athlete oriented, and then we also try to partner with uh what we'd call international sports partner or people locally to make sure we're coming alongside what God's doing there versus just kind of like dropping in and doing a service project, which is nothing wrong with that. We just want to make sure we're good stewards of what God's called us to do and stay as focused as we believe he wants us to be. So. Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. Very cool. Well I know we're, we're kind of getting toward time, um, and so I always like to kind of ask a final question. You can meander on this as much as you want, Sean, but it's a big question, I think. You know, the podcast is Thinking Christian, and so the question is, what do you think the church really does need to be thinking about that we're not thinking about right now to be and make disciples for Jesus Christ? It's a great question. I could like the word, I could meander on that, you know, for a long time. You know, I think people have a lot of questions in today's world and that um there isn't always the best forum for them to ask those questions. And um so I think that the ability for the church to be a place that somebody wants to walk into when they feel like they're farther from God than they have been, you know, um I think that, I think that's the key. Um and I think, um, yeah, I think that's important. And I also think that um, you know, the beauty of the world today is like, you know, it's often said, like, you know, you have to respect people and you have to hear people out and you have to be open minded. So I think I often have to ask God, am I being as bold as I should be, um you know, with the opportunities he's given to me? I have to challenge myself in that regard because there is such a desire in our culture for people to be able to speak openly about what their opinion is. And I want to make sure as a Christian that even if something that the Bible teaches might be offensive to somebody, I don't see them

This is just the way life is, you know, we get used to that. But I think you're right on. I think there's a way that the church needs to be open for people to be curious. And we have to learn to tolerate some level of questioning that maybe we're even a little uncomfortable with, but without surrendering our convictions and without surrendering our boldness, as you put it, you know, it's like, we've got to figure out how to keep reverberating between those two poles, right? And that's a difficult thing to do, but I think it's a really important thought process to work through. And sports is a beautiful analogy because I remember, you know, I played goalie for many years, and then there was a moment when my college was done and I was not going to play again. So then you have to begin to teach what you've always done and you have to put it in words and you have to verbalize it, do it in a way that you know, communication is all about the recipient. You have to communicate in a way that resonates with people. But now that I'm 25 years into coaching lacrosse goalies, you know, the way I learn the most now is when I explain something and everyone's standing there and one person's bold enough to raise their hand and ask a question. That's when all the good stuff comes out of me because there's stuff that I know that I forget to teach. And there's things that I could explain better that their question shows me how I can become a better teacher. And when you don't create the environment for somebody to raise their hand, then that really takes away not just the opportunity to answer that question, but the benefit of the people that aren't raising their hand and the benefit of the teacher who's going to grow by understanding that they're not answering all the things that are going through the heads of the people that are, you know, that are watching them attentively, right? Like there's, and I think we can lose sight of that as Christians that even people who agree with us the least may be watching us very, very closely and God may use our actions to create an interest or a seed in them that we may never even realize at any point in our life, you know? So, but I do love, I feel like, you know, we sometimes joke like if you were new to FCA, you would get sports analogy burnout. Like you would have chronic sports analogy fatigue within like two weeks if all of a sudden you can make a point. Yeah, right, Nate. Yeah, because skateboarding didn't really fit. It was a triangle trying to go into a square back then. And so I was extremely overwhelmed, but I was super grateful for Sean and Noah and all my friends that I made there quickly. So that's awesome. Well, I certainly appreciate you. Appreciate your heart. I love FCA and what they do. We'll put in the notes, FCA.org if anyone is interested this upcoming spring, summer, if there's events happening in your area, you can get on the website and see when camps are coming up, any other events or things like that. But I would definitely say to check them out, see if they're at your school and if they're not, see about helping your kids start one. Really, we need that now more than ever, I think in our campuses. So thank you, Sean, for being here and thanks for all you guys do. We really appreciate it. Appreciate you guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, thanks a lot, Sean. This was great. And we'll catch you all in the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care, everybody. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Our world can feel chaotic and uncertain, but we don't have to live enslaved to fear. Christ has promised me and you his peace and throughout scripture has provided powerful tools and practical steps to help us experience greater freedom. I'm Jennifer Slattery, lead host of the Faith Over Fear podcast, inviting you to join me and my team as together we learn how to starve our fears and feed our faith. Subscribe at lifeaudio.com or wherever you access podcast content.