2016 ELCA FOOTBALL

Charger Nation,

ELCA 2016 Football is here.  We get started tonight in our scrimmage against Mt. Zion High School.  I know our boys are excited to finally get to play and hit against another team.  The coaches are excited to see where we stand at this point.  We have worked hard and prepared hard up to this point, and now the journey begins!

I love the game of football.  However, I think I love the game of football more for what it can teach a young man more than the actual game itself.  Football is a microcosm of life.  In life, for people who desire success, the objective is to grow and get better each day.  There are times of prosperity in life and there are times of adversity.  You will have your good days and you will certainly have your bad days.   We all can look back on our lives and we can see areas of failure and areas of success.  Where we are today stems from how we responded and handled those periods of success and periods of failure.  Each day of our life and how we handled what happened that day has led to where we are at this point. 

A football season is the same way.  At this point, eight padded practices into the season, this football team is in its toddler stage.   Each day is a learning experience for them and for the coaches.  We are slowly figuring out who we are: Who are our leaders? What is our identity (what do we do well offensively, defensively, and on special teams)? How do we handle success?  How do we respond to adversity?  Everyday serves as a learning experience and everyday is an opportunity for improvement.   My goal as a coach is that we see continual growth and maturation throughout the entire football season.  I want us to get better each day and grow from what we learned yesterday.  I want this football team to learn to value each day: What I do today impacts my tomorrow!  The teams that remain at the end are the teams that get better each day.  It is not the team that starts off the fastest, but it is the team that steadily improves each day that will remain in the end.  This is the goal.

Not only is football a microcosm of life, it also helps me see more clearly the sanctification process as a believer of Jesus Christ.  Sanctification is a daily growth in Jesus Christ.  It is the process of becoming more and more like Christ daily.   Christ is the ultimate standard: He is King, He is God, He is our Savior, and He is Perfect.  Pursuing Christ is chasing Excellence.  The Bible commands that we are to grow and become like Jesus.  When we accepted Christ our eyes were opened to the sinfulness and wretchedness that enslaved our souls, minds, and bodies.  We saw the pride and evil that existed in us as Jesus revealed the ugliness of it all.  In the same moment He revealed to us the solution: Jesus Christ, God and King, came down to earth as a man and died on the cross for our sins.  He freed us from the punishment of sin, empowered us to overcome sins rule in our life, and gave us access to the God of the universe—all by the Blood he shed on the cross.  So when we accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, we came to him full of sin and we surrendered this life to Christ.  Accepting Christ is full surrender of myself.  When we surrendered all, the sanctification process began.  God takes a sinful person and begins to do a good work in that person transforming him or her into the image of Christ. 

As I coach this team each day, I’m always hoping that this day everything will be perfect.  I quickly find out it is not.  I get so frustrated.  Tuesday and Wednesday I went home just full of anxiety and stress because practice was not flawless.  I quickly remind myself: “IT IS A PROCESS!  Day by day!  Fix the mistakes of yesterday and improve each day.   Be patient.  Work Hard!  Win the Day!”  The sinful side of my competitive gets a hold of me and I go crazy---but I hear God saying “RELAX! Calm down. I am the One that is in control, not you!  Be Still.  Day by Day.” 

This is a reality as we grow in Christ as well.  God doesn’t snap his fingers and we are perfect beings.  I wish.  Our struggle with sin will never go away.  In fact, no man will be perfect on this earth this side of heaven—there was only One who was perfect.  But what God’s plan for us is that each day we grow in Christ.  That we abide more and more in him so that he rules our life, not our flesh or this world.  God tells us to set our eyes on heaven, where Christ is seated, and to take our eyes off of this world.  This sanctification process for believers is a daily process.  So it is in our quest to become the best football team that we can become.  I learn from my mistakes yesterday and press forward with great hope in what God will do with me in the future. 

So you can see, football is much bigger than football!  I love to win and my desire to win.  I am a very competitive person.  I want our team to be the best.  But this is not why I coach this game.  This game is a tool.  I believe with all my heart that the things we are teaching your sons through the game of football is going to help them become men of Jesus Christ.  The #1 goal of ELCA Football is not to win a state championship or to get your son a football scholarship.  The #1 goal of ELCA football is to make your son a man of Jesus Christ.   A state championship, a scholarship, etc., these are all secondary: They will not be the reason we exist—they will not be our idols!   You might think: “Coach that doesn’t make sense?” Here is what the world does not understand:  When you place the things of this world as more important that Christ, they own you.  You have created gods in your life that are not supposed to be there.  The idols we create for ourselves will never satisfy.  If we place our hope and trust in the idols we have created will live a life of misery and chaos.  Even when you get your idols you will find that they are empty.  We have two state championships and all I want is another one—they never satisfy.  Therefore, we will invest in those things that are eternal and provide everlasting happiness:  Your son is growing up and will be a husband one day.  He will be a daddy one day.  He will be a man who has influence in the community one day.  When we coach them this is what we see.  May God use this program to build men for His glory: Men who will grow up to be faithful husbands, loving fathers, and men who impact the community for God’s glory!  Want the world to change?  Then let’s commit to making men like that!

Put your hope in Christ and allow him to lead the way.  Trust his process and his plan.  When you put Christ first everything will fall into place exactly how God intended it to be.  Believe me, I feel like I’m talking to myself way more than I’m talking to you! 

Beat Mt. Zion!

“The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.”

                                                                                    -Proverbs 21:31

Win the Day!

Wholly for Christ,

Coach Gess