CHARGER NATION GAME #6
Charger Nation,
Tonight we travel to North Atlanta to play Wesleyan. I like to call it Wesleyan University because the campus is nicer than most college campuses. Their head coach is Franklin Pridgen and he is a good man and a great coach. He has a great staff of coaches and their boys are always extremely well coached. There are many tough teams in our region but when we look at the schedule at the beginning of the year, our boys know in order to win a region championship they are going to have to beat Wesleyan. It should be a great game tonight.
Our mission of ELCA football is to use the game of football as a tool to build men for Jesus Christ. The one thing this world needs is Godly Christian men who will lead their families and their community. A nation that lacks such men is a nation that will be falling apart. Hopefully ELCA Football is assisting you as parents in building a Godly man.
I realize that many of our boys at this stage in their life could care less about a relationship with Jesus Christ. I don’t demand a professing belief in Jesus Christ out of them nor do I expect it. But everything we demand from them all week long has a much bigger purpose than winning football games. When and if they come to faith in Jesus Christ, our goal is to have laid a solid foundation for them. But you do not have to profess your faith in Jesus Christ to me to start on our football team. If I was a college coach a young would not have to be a Christian for me to recruit him. He would just have to be really good and have good charcter. At ELCA, we just try and build a model within our football program that shows what a Godly man looks like. We can’t make people believe. These principles and character traits of godliness are what we expect and demand.
I think football is the perfect game to teach these values. I love football because it is hard. It is challenging. If you are going to be good at it, the weekly grind for player and coach is challenging. Unless you have done it, no one will ever understand the grind of hitting each other in 100 degree heat for 3 hours day after day. And even when you put in the hard work you still don’t know if you will win or lose. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Sometimes a player plays well and sometimes he plays poorly. Sometimes a player has a good practice and sometimes a bad practice. Whether it be a positive or negative situation, a young man must learn to keep moving forward with diligence. He must get up everyday and work hard. If he does not he will not be successful in life.
To build a man for Jesus Christ is a war. This world is telling them to act like fools. The world is telling them to become the exact opposite of what you and are telling them to become. We must continue to fight the war daily with them and demand excellence. We get so discouraged when we don’t see any fruit from our labor with our boys. We want to give up and quit worrying about it. Mom and dad: Never give up!
Last night after the JV game I was aggravated with our boys. We won but I did not like the way we played. Yes, I realize the defense didn’t give up any yards but this is a team game. Offensively, I thought we played sloppy and we weren’t physical. Sometimes that happens. I got into the boys and challenged them a little bit after the game. I didn’t sing their praises and tell them how great they are. As I was driving home I thought to myself maybe I was a little hard on them. But they needed me to be hard on them. They need me to challenge them. They need people to demand excellence from them. They need to understand there is a very high standard of excellence we demand. We are not going to sing your praises when you don’t meet these demands. We are going to challenge you and get all over you. They need to respond with great attitudes and great work ethic. They need to take ownership of their work ethic and attitudes.
I believe this is the line where we quit making boys men. A Godly man will take ownership of his actions. A Godly man will analyze his actions and seek to grow every single day in areas he is deficient. A Godly man will take a challenge and meet and exceed expectations. A Godly man takes the challenge that I gave last night and is eager to get to work. Yes, a few young men may have had crushed spirits last night, but as they wake up this morning it is a new day! It is a day to get better and improve. It is a day to fix and correct my mistakes from yesterday and get better today. Life is full of failure and disappointment. We must be developing men who wake up eager to improve upon mistakes from yesterday. If you are satisfied with where you are today there is no way you will become what you desire tomorrow!
I’m hard on them and I do not want to see them feel sorry for themselves. When I feel sorry for myself there is only one person that is hurt and that is me. No one else cares about why I feel sorry for myself. As husband and father, me feeling sorry for myself and wallowing in self-pity just doesn’t affect me but hurts my family as well. I must pick myself up and get to work! It is a new day! Win the Day!
I tell the varsity boys every Monday morning film session that if they are coming in their expecting me to sing their praises they are wrong. Now I do say good job to them but I’m more concerned about pointing out the little things they did wrong that will make them even better. I watch film on Friday nights to see where I messed up as a play caller and coach. I don’t watch it to see the good things. I already remember the good things. It is the same for the players. I don’t care how much we won the game by, the film shows this area of your game is not any good. I demand they give better effort at practice in these areas and hopefully play better Friday night.
I try and love on them all the time, but I’m not going to lower my expectations for them so they may feel better about themselves. I’m not interested in how they feel but getting them to perform at a high level. Our performance is where we find joy, not in someone telling me things that are not true about myself (your good, your great, you are so awesome…) If they need to hate me for a little bit I am fine with that. I’m not here for them to love me as their buddy. My whole objective is to get the most out of them. I see the future for them and I’m trying to make them into the man I see in the future. I want their future selves to love me, not their current selves.
During that film session on Monday mornings or at any other point during the week when I get on them, I am challenging them to be men. I am testing them. How are they going to respond to my criticism and correction? Are they going to sulk and feel sorry for themselves? Are they going to come home and whine and complain to mom and dad about how unfair I am or how mean I am? Or are they going to be men and answer my challenge with a great attitude and desire to go to work?
This man making process is something I go through everyday when I open my Bible. If you are a Christian, the Lord has called you to being a son of God (or daughter). The Almighty God of the Universe isn’t going to call us and just let us remain in the darkness. It is a false reality to say God loves you just as you are. People who want to keep on sinning say stuff like that. It is a false gospel. God saves you just as you are but after he saves you he is going to grow you into his image. When God calls you, He know is going to grow you and equip you. This growing process and equipping process is challenging. It is called sanctification. We call it FASTER!
When a young man comes and decides to play football for me I tell him the standards. We are going to do all of these things and we are going to demand excellence from you. We are going to love you more than anyone but because of that love and desire for you to be great, we are going to allow you to be soft. We will be all over you when you show weakness (there is a good weakness and a bad type of weakness and I am referring to bad type.) When a young man commits to me I feel like it is my duty to demand excellence from him so that when he is a senior he is all that he could have become when he was under my instruction. Some will quit cause they can’t handle the standard. I can’t lower the standard for the 1 or 2 that can’t handle it when I have 60-70 wanting the challenge.
God is no different. When I sit down and read the Bible I do not sit there and read how great I am. Yes, God loves me, but he also convicts me daily through his word of my sinful actions and my sinful state. He shows me that I have all of these imperfections because I was enslaved to darkness. As God has called me into the light he has a lot of work to do on me. God is not interested in partially excellent behavior and a partially excellent heart. He is going to constantly challenge us and grow us into fully excellent men and women. He loves me and because he loves me he is going to challenge me consistently.
When we read God’s word, there isn’t much in their telling us how great we are. We read about God, in his mercy and grace, sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins because we are so wretched and enslaved to sin we cannot save ourselves. He had to send the Righteous One to save the unrighteous. By the blood of Christ and his work, if we believe, we become sons of God. And as sons, the Bible teaches us about our indwelling sin and challenges us to crucify our sin by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. This sharpening process never stops. But because of it we will grow more and more like Christ. And when we grow more and more like Christ we can accomplish more and more for God’s Kingdom.
As God loves me and challenges me daily to become more and more like Christ, I will challenge your sons in the same way. The beautiful thing about God is he loves us perfectly yet can still demand excellence from us. We have complete peace and joy in Christ yet know there is much work to be done our lives as we grow as Christians. We are satisfied in Christ yet unsatisfied in who we are and it works perfectly. I can’t do it like Christ but I hope to challenge your boys the same way. I hope they know I love them but I also want them to respond to our challenges of excellence. And the end goal is they become men who are faithful husbands, loving and present fathers, and men who will impact the community for Jesus Christ.
I’m excited for tonight! Our boys are ready! Beat Wesleyan!
“The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.”
Proverbs 21:31
Wholly for Christ,
Coach Gess
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