Greater Potential, Promise, & Purpose
We make the game winning shot, and the crowd goes wild. We get the scholarship to play at a dream university, and our community sees us as a success. We win a championship, and we gain more followers. It feels good to be seen and noticed, even celebrated. But this can and will never be the source of true happiness. Remembering our greater purpose for competing puts the attention on Jesus. He was the ultimate example of the Light of the world, yet His humility and identity were rooted in God. Jesus didn’t do anything without proper connection to His Father. He knew His ultimate purpose was to bring God glory.
Ryan is a student at Mission University (MU) (formerly Baptist Bible College), and he has recently discovered his ultimate purpose for this life. Ryan, like many other student-athletes, was looking for a place to play college baseball upon graduating from high school. He was just looking for an opportunity and he felt that the best opportunity was for him to attend Mission University in Springfield. Even though MU is a small private Christian University, Ryan didn’t consider that a significant factor in his decision because he had never had much experience with Church or even Jesus. Throughout his first two years of being away from home he looked to so many worldly things to fulfill him, each time being left empty. In December of 2023, one of Ryan’s teammates shared that there is more to life than baseball, success, or even status among friends. Jesus can provide us with the ultimate fulfillment through a relationship with Him.
Ryan wasn’t ready to accept the gift of salvation just yet, but he did accept an invite to attend an Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) baseball mission trip to the Dominican Republic with this teammate later that month. During this trip, Ryan was involved in playing games against Dominican teams, leading youth camps/clinics, and partnering with Dominican Republic FCA staff in daily ministry. Through this experience, he was able to fully understand the grace of Jesus Christ and decided it was time to fully surrender his life to Him. Upon his return home, Ryan was baptized at a local church and has since been involved in starting an FCA team Bible study with his teammates. As of January 2024, more than 15 teammates have been attending this Bible study hearing about the life-transforming message of the Gospel from Ryan and other teammates.
There’s a greater purpose to what we’re doing at FCA, and our mission goes beyond sports. While athletic competition is the vehicle for our message, we’re laser-focused on sharing Jesus and discipling coaches and athletes. Many have experienced FCA in high school or college, when it was growing leaps and bounds as a campus ministry. But today, we’re seeing FCA expand into even more sport environments, both locally and around the world. FCA now has a greater reach, and our message is going further than ever before.