FCA At The Naval Academy

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It's a real honor to be here, it's my first time to Massachusetts, so I'm glad to be here at Bethlehem Bible Church.
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I love your pastor, he's been a great friend to me, his brother as well, and I'm just thankful for an opportunity just to talk to you about our ministry at the
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United States Naval Academy. Let me just show you some, I've got a lot of slides because I think people like pictures and stories.
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This is my family, and my wife Sally will be married 20 years in June, and we're thinking about signing another five year contract, so it's been, things are going pretty well.
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And these are my three sons, in the green hat, that's Jonathan, he's 12, he's in 6th grade, and then
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Matthew in the Orioles hat, he is 10 and is in 5th grade, and then Andre is 7, obviously we adopted him just before he turned 2 years old.
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A lot of wrestling and football in our house, I'm very grateful and looking forward to seeing them tonight when
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I go home. Yeah, as Mike said, we both graduated from the
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Master's Seminary, but he graduated way before me, he was like one of the founders of the seminary I think.
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But thankful the Lord brought us together, and I really appreciate Mike, Mike did come to Indiana when
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I was a pastor there, I was a pastor at the Bible Church of Brownsburg on the west side of Indianapolis for 12 years, and Mike came in and did a man camp for me, and we had a great time together.
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But I appreciate this church, appreciate No Compromise Radio, we recorded a couple shows last night, and so that was a good time as well.
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So my title, I am the Campus Director for Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the
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Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. FCA was begun in 1954, so it's 61 years old now, and they've had the same purpose for 61 years, and for that I'm grateful, and that is to present to athletes and coaches and all who they influence the challenge and adventure of receiving
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Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, serving Him in their relationships and in the fellowship of the church.
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And so, and the vision of FCA is to see the world impacted for Jesus Christ through the influence of coaches and athletes.
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And so what I'm trying to do at the Naval Academy is work with coaches and athletes, giving them the gospel that they might be saved, that they might grow in their relationship with the
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Lord, and serve Him and make Him known to others. Here is my office, it's pretty nice.
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I'll show you like, this is where, I'm trying to think here if I can see it, this place right here is where I hang out most of the time.
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It's called Dahlgren Hall, and there's a little cafe in there called Dry Dock, and that's kind of my mobile office.
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I hang out there and meet with young men for discipleship and Bible study, and it's a great place to go to work.
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Just a beautiful piece of land. The Naval Academy was established in 1845. I saw yesterday going in, the
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Holy Cross was established in 1843. So a couple of very old schools, but this is a great piece of land.
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Annapolis is a great city, but definitely in need of the gospel. So this is, one thing that is a part of FCA is called a huddle meeting.
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And this was one of our first huddle meetings. I came, I moved to Annapolis, it's really funny,
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I moved from Indianapolis. I'm a Colts fan, please forgive me. Moved from Indianapolis to Annapolis in July of 2014.
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So from one capital city to another. And so we started
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FCA, they had kind of had FCA at the academy before, but not really. A guy who was claiming to do
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FCA, but really was not gospel ministry. And so we established that, and this was one of our first meetings in September of 2014.
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The guy in the purple shirt right in the middle, his name is Billy Hurley. If you're a fan of golf, he's a
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PGA golfer who went to the academy, graduated in 2004. He's now a professional golfer, and lives in Annapolis.
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And we've become friends, and he's become a really good friend to Navy FCA. Has come to three or four meetings, just loved,
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I mean, the Lord really worked in his life when he was a student there. And so he's really giving back, and giving back to the community, and we're really grateful.
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So the kids were excited to be with him that night, and get to know him a little bit.
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He is a strong believer in the Lord, so I'm thankful for his influence. After that, we went over to the soccer game.
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The soccer team was playing that night, and the guys were just thrilled. He's kind of like a celebrity to them, because someone who went to the academy, endured what they are enduring, and now is a professional athlete.
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The guy in the red shirt, his name is Jackson Morgan. He is our president of FCA at Navy.
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He's a senior. He'll graduate in May, and be commissioned as a Marine pilot. So he's got at least 10 more years committed to serving our country.
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And I remember meeting him at an FCA meeting, and then talking to him after a soccer game.
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They had just won, and I'm congratulating him, and he says to me,
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Kirby, do you ever study Romans? I mean, it was just really odd, right after a game. And I knew this kid was special, and we started meeting one -on -one, working through the book of Romans together.
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He's from Cleveland, Ohio, and so was a part of Parkside Church with Alistair Begg. So very well -taught, and just a great friend.
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And it's really odd, because some of my really good friends are 20 years old, 21 years old, but I spend my time, my days, with these young men and women, and it's just a real honor.
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Last year we had an FCA Super Bowl party. There's Billy Hurley again on the right. The guy in the middle, his name is
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Derek Vogel. He's a senior captain of the soccer team. He just got his ship selection the other night, so he'll be graduating in May and then heading to San Diego, where he'll be on a ship there.
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He is from Long Beach, California, and went to Michael Horton's church for a while, and so very well -taught.
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We meet weekly. We've been studying Calvin together. He's a real intellectual, loves the
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Lord, and again, just some great young men that you get an opportunity to meet. One reason that a lot of the soccer guys are involved in our ministry is because of their head coach.
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This is Dave Brandt. He spoke at our huddle last year. Coach Brandt used to coach soccer at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, a
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Christian school. He won six national championships. It's Division III, and six national championships in 12 years, and then the
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Naval Academy wooed him to come be their head coach. When I went out to interview for this position in March of 2014,
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I was asking around, who should I meet? Are there any coaches that I should meet while I'm there?
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A couple of people said, you need to meet Dave Brandt, the soccer coach, because he is a solid believer, loves the
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Lord. We went over to meet him, and I walked into his office in the soccer complex, and he shut the door.
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This is what he said to me. He goes, people don't know what to do with me around here, because I'm a radical
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Christian. I said, you and I are going to be best friends. He is a very intense guy, a very intense coach, but he has become a good friend.
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I traveled with the soccer team this spring, as they played ... I guess it was in the fall, early fall, they played a game at Virginia.
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Just getting to know his guys has been a real joy. There are women at the
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Naval Academy as well, so regardless of what you think about women in the military, everybody has an opinion on that, but they are there.
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We want to minister to them as well, as they are there. There are about 4 ,000 students that attend the
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Academy. That is called the Brigade of Midshipmen, and about 1 ,000 of those, or 25%, are women.
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Of those 1 ,000, about 40 % of those are athletes. We've been having a lot of women athletes coming to FCA, and I'm thankful for that.
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The girl in the middle, in the gray shirt, her name is Elizabeth Horner, and she came to the
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Academy. It's really interesting hearing from these young men and women why they came to the
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Naval Academy, and when they knew they wanted to go there. She told me she knew she wanted to go to Navy when she was in the fifth grade.
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I just wasn't thinking about those things in fifth grade, I don't know about you. That's what she wanted to do, and she was not a believer at the time, came to Christ through the ministry of Crusade, Campus Crusade for Christ, and just is on fire for the
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Lord. She actually got into sub school, and so went to Charleston, South Carolina, but as she was there, she just learned this is not a place for a woman of God to be, thinking about going out on a sub as an officer, and so was able to get out of that, so they've kind of recommissioned her, and she's coming back to the
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D .C. area soon. Just got married in the fall. My wife and I attended her wedding, but she was the goalie for the women's team, was an
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All -American, and just had great influence among her team, and so I had her come and share her testimony at FCA, and most of these girls from the soccer team came because they wanted to hear her.
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They hadn't been to FCA before, but because of her influence, and so we had a great evening together, and this girl in the gray right here, her name is
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Dayton. She is the soccer goalie now. She's a junior from Tampa, Florida, and there's another picture of her.
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After coming, and again, she just came to hear Elizabeth give her testimony, but after that, she kept coming to FCA, and one night after an
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FCA meeting, she said, I'd really like to talk to you about what it means to be a Christian, and so we went over the gospel together, and later in that weekend, she said,
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Kirby, I want you to know that I've given my life to Christ, and so that is just so rewarding when you see young men and women become followers of Jesus, and so pray for Dayton.
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One thing that is difficult, I think, for midshipmen is finding a local church and having time to be involved in a local church.
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A lot of times, and her coach is not a believer, and so they'll practice on Sunday mornings.
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I mean, they'll practice whenever they want to, and so a lot of times, these athletes don't have an opportunity to go out and be involved in a good
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Bible -teaching church. They do have a chapel on the campus. I've visited there a couple times.
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It's not really for me. I would describe it as more like a Methodist church, very ecumenical.
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They have chaplains at the academy, and so some of the young men and women go there, and occasionally, they'll get some good truth, but just pray for her growth, and we're trying to help her as she matures in Christ.
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One thing that the Lord has really opened the doors for me, and that's why it brought me here this weekend, is just the opportunity to travel with the men's basketball team and minister to the men's basketball team.
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The head coach at Navy, his name is Ed DeCellis. He used to coach at Penn State and came to Navy, and so I knew about him.
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I'm from Indiana. I'm an Indiana Hoosier fan. I knew of Coach DeCellis at Penn State, and so when
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I came to Navy, I wanted to meet him. I think just having the Big Ten common ground there, we kind of became friends.
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He's a Catholic man, and you can pray for him as well, but he has really just given me full access to the basketball team.
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I do chapel services for the guys before every home game, and then when
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I can, I travel with the team, and I have to pay my own way, so I can't do that too often, but last year,
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I did travel with them to Notre Dame. I go to all these Catholic schools. I don't know what's going on, but I'm from Indiana, and so it was a great opportunity to go back to Indiana and go with them, and when you travel, it just opens the door for more conversation because there's more free time, and guys see you there, and so it just happens, and guys will say, hey, can
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I come meet with you? Last year, we flew into Chicago to Midway, and we took a bus driving to South Bend, Indiana, and our bus broke down, so we had like an hour at a
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Hardee's, and one of the players just came to me and said, Kirby, can we meet, and we sat at a
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Hardee's, and this guy just opened up and just poured out everything that was inside and all of his struggles and trials and coming from a broken home, and that wouldn't have happened if I had not traveled with the team, and so I try to do that as often as I can.
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These guys look a little taller than me. It's because they're wearing their covers. That's the only reason, but this is in the airport just waiting to go back to Annapolis, and just some great guys, some guys on the basketball team who really love the
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Lord, and I'm able to invest in them and do some discipleship with them. This was after I traveled with them to West Point to the
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United States Military Academy or Army, and beating Army is a really big deal for Navy.
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You go into the weight room, and every plate, every weighted plate has on there, beat
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Army. It's amazing. They sing the alma mater like they're doing here, and at the very end, they say, beat
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Army, and it's really interesting because when you're a plebe or a freshman at the
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Academy, you're not allowed to say very much, but you can say beat Army, so you have all these plebes walking down the hallway going, beat
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Army, beat Army, so it's really ingrained in them. I had no idea. I'd watched the football game for years, the
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Army -Navy game, but it is ingrained in every sport. There have been coaches who have had a very successful winning season, and they lost to Army, and see you later, go find another job.
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It was fun to be with them at Army, a very competitive game, and we came on top there and also at home.
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They played for something called the N -Star, and we won that.
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This is our superintendent who is like a college president, and he's an admiral in the
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Navy, and so again, a lot of joy from those guys. These are the seniors on the basketball team.
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Will Kelly on the left, he's 6 '9". Look how long his arms are, I mean, it's just amazing. He's the second leading shot blocker in the country, and you can tell why.
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And then Tillman Dunbar in the middle, he's our point guard, and then this young man on the right is
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Kendall Knorr, and Kendall's from Concord, North Carolina, and we have a good time.
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I'm from Indiana, he's from North Carolina. We have a great argument, who has the better basketball, Indiana or North Carolina.
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But I met him early last year, he was a junior, and I met him at a football
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Bible study, actually. He had gone, the pastor does this football Bible study, and opened it up for basketball players to come to, and I met
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Kendall there, and he said, hey, could I meet with you? He'd been coming to FCA, and he said, you know what?
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I grew up in a Methodist church, and I grew up hearing about the Lord. Went through confirmation and everything, but he said, it wasn't until you came here and started
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FCA that I became a follower of Jesus. And so, pray for Kendall, he will be graduating in May, he'll be commissioned as a naval flight officer, so he's the, if you think about a plane, a jet, he's the second guy, he's in the back.
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They claim they're the smart ones, they just, they tell the pilots where to go, and so again, just meeting these young men and women who have dedicated their lives to going to school there for four years, and then a minimum of five -year commitment to our country, and because he is looking at being a naval flight officer, that's a seven -year commitment, at least, and Kendall's a great guy, going through some injuries right now, but we meet every week when we can to study the
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Gospel of John, just verse by verse, and he bought this little notebook, it's a little red notebook, it's called his
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Fat Little Notebook, and it's just fun, just meeting with him and looking at all the
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I Am statements and who Jesus said he was, and him just writing notes, just simple discipleship, and I really, really enjoy that time with him.
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Last weekend, this is at Madison Square Garden, we traveled to New York City last weekend to play
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Army at Madison Square Garden, Army paid for it and everything, and so the girls played first, and then we were to play after, the girls played at 11 .30,
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the guys were supposed to play at 2, so we're in the locker room, the guys are stretched out, they're ready to go, the coach is about to address the team and tell them what we need to do to win, and the athletic director from Army came in and said, coach,
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I need to see you now, and I knew it wasn't good, and the governor of New York had declared a state of emergency, and so at 2 .30,
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everybody had to be off the road, so our game was canceled, and these guys were crushed,
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I mean, I thought they would be disappointed, but they were distraught,
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I think just the opportunity to play in the finest arena in the country, and so I got to do some ministry after that, just reminding them that God is sovereign, that's what
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I did, I walked around to the Christian guys and I told them that God is sovereign even over this, but we at least got to go out on the floor and took some pictures, and so they're smiling a little bit, because at least they got down on the court.
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This is another player named Shawn Anderson, Shawn is a sophomore, he's from New Castle, Pennsylvania, and I met him when he was going through plebe summer, which is six weeks, and just saw a young man who really loved the
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Lord, and so we meet weekly as well for discipleship. Another kid who comes from a broken home, and you meet these athletes, and I would say 50 to 60 % of them do not come from a home when there's a mom and a dad together, married together, a lot of divorces, a lot of,
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I live with my mom, or I live with my dad, or one young man, I haven't seen my dad for 10 years, and so it's very, very tough situations, and so we meet together, and he's a great friend, very good basketball player, and again,
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I really treasure that opportunity to meet with him. This is a guy, maybe you know who he is on the right, his name's
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Clark Kellogg, if you like college basketball, you've seen him in the studio for CBS, he played at Ohio State in the 80s, played for the
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Pacers for a little while, and I actually got him to come and speak at the Naval Academy, he spoke at a luncheon that any midshipman could come to, and really gave the gospel, did a great job of doing that, and so got to meet the superintendent afterwards, and this is a jacket that the student athletes are issued, actually all midshipmen get this, and it's called their blue and gold, it's something they can wear, they're in uniform all day long, but after dinner, they can get in their blue and gold, it's kind of like sweats, and a lot of them wear that when they come to FCA, and so they got him a jacket, got his name on it,
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Kellogg, he's 6 '9", so he put it on, and he was like, it actually fits, you know, but he was so proud of that, that he said, you know what,
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I'm going to text my producer at CBS, and ask if I can wear this on the air, at least for one segment, in the studio in New York City, and so he did that, and so it was great publicity for the academy, and I've known
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Clark Kellogg for about 23 years, and he is a genuine believer, just rock solid in his faith, has been a really good friend to me, and so when you see him, think about him, and pray for him, and his influence that he has, even with those people at CBS.
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Probably one of the most famous graduates of the Naval Academy is David Robinson, David Robinson was 6 '7 when he entered the academy, and he left, and he was 7 foot, so he was a pretty good basketball player when he got there, but then he grew, and then just was dominant, the admiral was his nickname, had many years with the
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San Antonio Spurs, David is a Christian, and he actually went to FCA when he was at the
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Naval Academy, but was not a believer, his roommate was from Indiana, and played basketball, and invited him to FCA, and so he would go, but wasn't living for Christ, and during his second season with the
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Spurs, came to know Christ as his savior, and so he, at our
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FCA National Convention last February in San Antonio, he came and gave his testimony, and I darted out of the hotel ballroom so I could meet him, and just tell him who
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I was, and what I was doing, and so we had a great conversation, and then he came back in March to receive a distinguished graduate award at the
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Naval Academy, and while he was there, he had all these leadership things he had to go to, but then he wanted to meet with the basketball team, the guys and the girls team, and just talk to them, and the coach was gracious to allow me to come to that, and I was sitting in this meeting with these players, and after five minutes,
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I thought, did David Robinson think he was coming to speak at FCA, because he was just talking about the
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Lord the whole time, quoting scripture, talking about what he used to do before he was saved, and how the
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Lord changed him, and it was unbelievable, he was just fearless, giving his testimony, and so he talked for a while, and he said, hey,
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I'll take any questions, anything you want to ask me, and Sean, who I showed you earlier, number 20, he raises his hand and says, sir, could you tell us how you came to know
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Jesus as your savior, it was great, and so he did, and he talked about that, and so that was a great opportunity, and then it was spring break, so we had some friends in town, and we were walking in downtown
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Annapolis, and there he is, and so we went over and got a picture with him, and I told him, I said, you can't wear a
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San Antonio sweatshirt and be seven foot, and walk around Annapolis, and not expect people to recognize you, but I think he really enjoyed being recognized, and very gracious man, and thankful for his influence as well.
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I had the great opportunity this, in December, to go with the
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Navy Men's Basketball team to Pearl Harbor. Fox Sports hosted a tournament at Pearl Harbor this year, they're doing it this year, and then next year, to commemorate, this is the 74th anniversary of the attack, next year will be 75, and so they just, the president of Fox Sports just had this vision of having this tournament, and remembering those who were killed in 1941, and so again, just because of my relationship with the coach,
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I was able to go on this trip with them, I had to pray about it for a long time, but the
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Lord told me I should go to Hawaii, and so that was great, and again, many ministry opportunities just because of travel, but this is the team at the
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USS Arizona, and boy, that was a somber experience, to see that with them, and to be thinking what they might be thinking, as they're about to become officers in the
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Navy, or the Marines, and they were pretty quiet, but it's really interesting to ask some of them, and then to meet athletes who maybe played for a couple years, and then they end up quitting, or they get injured, and you ask them, hey, are you thinking about leaving, and they're like, no,
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I came here because I wanted to serve my country, it's just amazing, and so this was just a great time to be with these men, and our whole family went, and very grateful for that opportunity.
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We played in this little arena, it was really small, probably as big as Holy Cross, the gym we were in yesterday,
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Mike, maybe seats 2 ,000 people, it's called Block Arena, and on December 6th of 1941, they had a big band concert in this arena, and just think about those men and women who were there, not knowing what would happen the very next morning, and so they restored this arena for this tournament, and we got to play here, there are still bullet holes in the building from the attack of 1941, and so these guys were really excited about playing there, we played
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Oregon, we lost, but it was a great opportunity, Oklahoma and Villanova played there as well.
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Things were really slow with the men's football team last year, didn't have many football players coming, the
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Naval Academy has, I think right now we have seven chaplains that work at the academy, five
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Protestant, a Jewish rabbi, and a Roman Catholic, I'm not setting up a joke, this is the way it's set up, and so they assign one of their chaplains to the football team, so this guy in uniform here that's playing with the team, his name is
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Brian Purvis, he is the chaplain for the football team, so he does chapel with them, he travels with them, and so football is kind of its own entity, and we just had, we were really slow at getting some of those guys to be a part of FCA, but this year, we've had a ton of guys coming from the football team,
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I think last year we may have had four or five, and this year we've had over 30 guys from the football team come to FCA, and so this is a post -game prayer that we did with Tulane University, they're in our conference, the
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American conference, and because I work for FCA, I got contacted by one of the football coaches at Tulane, they were coming up to Annapolis, and said, hey, could you find someone to do chapel for us when we come to Navy, and I said, can
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I do it, and he said, absolutely, and so, you know, I've done chapel services before with the
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Colts and the Buffalo Bills, and even Notre Dame, Purdue University, Northwestern, and so, you know, sometimes it's very quick, and it's general, and so I wanted to know from this coach what to expect, and so I asked him,
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I said, how many of your guys normally come to chapel, because chapel is usually voluntary, it's after all the meetings are over, and he said, well
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Kirby, everybody comes to chapel, it's something our coach mandates, all the players come, all the coaches come, all the administrators come, and I was like, okay, wow, this is going to be different, and then
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I said, how long do I have, and usually it's 15, 20 minutes at the most, and he goes, take all the time you want, oh man, as a pastor, you're like foaming at the mouth, right, and then
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I said, so then I'm starting to think, if the whole team is there, maybe he doesn't really want a chapel, maybe he wants an inspirational talk, you know, some positive words, and I said, well, would
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I have the freedom to give the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he said, Kirby, that's what we're expecting you to do, it was unbelievable, now that coach just got fired, but to have a guy that bold, and I talked to him afterwards, he said, hey,
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I'm a Christian, this is what I believe, and I want my team to know Christ, and so after doing chapel with Tulane, I just said, hey, what would you think about, you know, just in good spirit, what if we prayed after the game, and this guy was all about it, and the
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Navy guys were excited about it too, and so we did that, and kind of started doing that, we did that with Memphis, after beating them down at their place, and the guys really appreciated that, you know,
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I'm trying to teach our guys this concept of doing sports God's way, that we are competing for Christ, you can worship
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God on the football field, you can worship God on the basketball court, by playing for him, by giving him glory, and also the concept of, yes,
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Memphis is your opponent, but if there are Christians that play for Memphis, you are competing together for the glory of God, and so just the opportunity after a game, and to just take 30 seconds and give
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God the glory, and give thanks to Jesus Christ, our guys really appreciated that opportunity.
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Our football team had a great season, 11 -2, we were number 18 in the nation, won our bowl game, and so it was a fun run to be a part of that.
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Another graduate that you might be familiar with from Navy is Roger Staubach there in the middle, he was the
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Heisman Trophy winner in 1963, went on and played for the Dallas Cowboys, I think he played in five
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Super Bowls, won two, he is obviously well known and comes back to the academy, and we got to meet him this year, my friend
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Connor with me as well. This is another picture of one of our huddle meetings, and what
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I love about FCA is the diversity, we have men and women, we have black and white, because black and white, they all play sports, and so I like to say
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FCA is the most diverse religious group on campus, because we are targeting athletes, and just trying to give them the gospel.
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And then we had something this October called Fields of Faith, where we gathered out on the football field, this is something
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FCA began a few years ago, and I had a few of our student athletes give their testimonies, and then just challenge them to get in the word of God, take the next 21 days to read the gospel of John, and these are busy kids, and to challenge them to do that, take 15 or 20 minutes a day and make sure you are getting in God's word, and just the testimonies that came back from that,
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Kirby I took your challenge, I have been reading God's word, and now I am making that a daily part of my life, this is really good to see happen.
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This is a picture that has been made famous by FCA over the years, this is a group of guys at a
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FCA camp in Black Mountain, North Carolina, many years ago, and this little boy was four years old named
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David Dean, and here he is watching this huddle meeting as these guys study the Bible, so this has kind of become a picture that FCA uses, they call it influence, because of the influence that coaches and athletes have,
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I remember years ago Light Beer from Miller, remember when Light Beer always had sports commercials, and they did a study and it said that 96 % of Americans are influenced by sport, and so they knew what they were doing when they would target their audience with sports figures, and so our founder, the founder of FCA, Don McClannan, he got together with a guy named
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Branch Rickey who was responsible for getting Jackie Robinson into baseball, and that's how
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FCA was birthed 61 years ago, just trying to use athletes and coaches who knew
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Christ to influence others for the kingdom of God. So that's the famous picture, and then we had a huddle meeting last year, that guy in the middle, his name is
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Ron Brown, Ron Brown played at Brown University many years ago, and I think he's 58 years old now, he was an assistant football coach at Nebraska for 24 years under three different head coaches, and last year their head coach got fired and so he got fired as well, and now he's an assistant coach for football at Liberty, but Ron came and spoke at our
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FCA huddle, and he's very passionate for Christ, I say he's the boldest
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Christian I've ever met, and so we like to, whenever we have a speaker, we just like to pray for them, and I don't know if you can see, but that's
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Andre in the middle, he's got his eyes open, and I said, I think this is the new influence picture,
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I blew it up a little bit, I mean, he got in trouble later for keeping his eyes open, but just the influence, again,
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I take my boys to FCA, and to have them around these young men, especially those who love the
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Lord, it's just a great opportunity for my boys, and again, here is Jonathan, my 12 year old talking to Clark Kellogg, Jonathan, at this point in his life is thinking about sports broadcasting, or being a coach, and this was just a great moment of,
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I said, Jonathan, you're here with Clark Kellogg in our apartment, here's your chance, ask him what you want to ask him, it's like a two minute conversation, but again, just the influence that men can have on others.
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My wife, Sally, I've brought her on part -time staff, because again, we do have female athletes that are part of FCA, and they have come to me at times and said, hey,
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I know that you meet with Sean one -on -one, can I meet with you? No, I'm not going to do that, but my wife will, and so I'm very thankful for her, brought her on part -time, and she's starting to meet with some girls for discipleship, and she loves it.
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My wife is very disciplined, every morning she's up early, like Kim, and she's in the
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Word, and so she reads through the Bible in a year, and then takes whatever she read, and then just kind of takes that and puts it into an email to about 30 female athletes at the academy, and just to give them some encouragement, something to read, and I'm just really thankful for her influence with our ladies as well.
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So, would really appreciate your prayers, this is our family, I got out of the picture, because it would look better without me, but I would ask for your prayers as we minister to coaches and athletes at the
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Naval Academy, as we evangelize, as we disciple, as we counsel future
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Navy and Marine officers, the future leaders of our military and our country.
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This is just a real incredible and strategic place to do gospel ministry, and right now the door is open for me to be there, and so I'm running through that door, and preaching
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Christ, and giving the gospel. I really, Mike and I were talking about this last night,
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I'm kind of like an independent contractor, I'm allowed on the yard, I have a
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DOD pass to get on there, not everybody can just drive on the academy, and because of that position, because I work for FCA, and I'm kind of seen as an independent contractor,
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I can really say whatever I want to say, and so where the military is accepting of gays, and gay marriage, and all these things, where the military chaplains at a public event cannot pray in Jesus name, the guy
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I showed you earlier, I asked him one day, I said Brian, what would happen if you prayed in Jesus name at a public event, and he said,
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I would be fired, and so I can come and do those things, and preach Christ, and remind them that God is the one who ordained marriage, and it's between a man and a woman, that homosexuality is a sin, that people can be redeemed of that lifestyle, and just give them the gospel, so I'm very grateful to be able to do that, but pray for us.
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Some of my fellow classmates from the Master's Seminary don't understand, and I wish I could bring them all, like Mike's going to come in a couple weeks, and speak on his book on sexual fidelity, and I wish they could see this incredible ministry opportunity at this strategic location, but I'm grateful to be there.
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I can do the same type of ministry I did in my church for 12 years, and do so without compromise, with no compromise, and I'm very grateful for that, and pray that God would keep that door open.
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This week, they had a ship selection night for those who want to be surface warfare officers, so I think 249 seniors, it was kind of like draft night, they got to go select what ship they wanted to be on for their next five years of service, and they had this huge board, and they would go up and select their ship, and hold it up, and it was really fun, it was streamed online, and I was watching it with my boys, and it was just a neat opportunity to do that, and so, you know, these officers are selecting,
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I'm going to Mayport, Florida, or Norfolk, Virginia, or San Diego, California, or Japan, or Rota, Spain, Bahrain, and so you just see the opportunity to pour into these men and women, and disciple them, because they're going to the ends of the earth, and so that is just so rewarding, to be a part of that, to have a part in that, and try to obey
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God, and give these young men and women the gospel, and equip them for what lies ahead.
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I wanted to leave some time for any questions you might have about our ministry, about the
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Naval Academy, about our basketball game versus Army tomorrow night, whatever you'd like to ask,
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I'd be glad to answer, yes, yeah, thank you, it is, and I think you, we hear a lot of the negative things, there are a lot of things we've heard about the
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Air Force Academy, and some of the religious freedoms that have been taken away, but I can tell you there are some great things going on, there are, you know, the brigade is the entire group of midshipmen, and then they break them into companies, and there are several company officers there who know the
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Lord, and are strong believers, and so very grateful for their influence there as well. Well, you know, my goal in going there was to target athletes.
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I've been involved with FCA since I was a sophomore in high school, and I've worked on, I worked on staff for FCA in Illinois for four and a half years, then went to the
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Master's Seminary, pastored, now I'm working for FCA again, and, but I've been involved since 1985, and I have seen in all those years that athletes love to be together, and so it's a special thing on Tuesday nights when, when athletes come together from all different sports, they just, they have that common bond of, of perseverance and competition and those things.
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This is a great story, Derek, who is the captain of the soccer team, one night
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I was walking with him after their practice, and we were walking by the women's practice, and he said, Kirby, he goes,
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I gotta tell you this, he said, before you came here, he said, we share this building with the women's soccer team, he goes, we don't even talk to the women's soccer team, we might say hello to them in the hallway, even though they share the same facility, he goes,
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I never talked to them, but now, because of FCA, I come to FCA, and I see the girls on the soccer team, and I'm hugging them, you know, and it was just really neat to, they, they have that, that in common, athletics.
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So I've really targeted athletes, we don't make them show their varsity card at the door, but one thing,
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I, I can do that with a clear conscience, because we have some other good ministries on the yard, navigators, a crew is there, probably the strongest ministry with us would be
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Baptist Collegiate Ministry, or it's BCM, or some schools, it's called Baptist Student Union, so, you know, they are welcome to come, but we talk a lot of, about athletics and about competition, so I think after a while, if they're not an athlete, they kind of say, hey, maybe
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I should find another group, and I'm happy to tell them, hey, go check out BCM, or go check out crew, or, or navigators, because I know the men that are leading those ministries, and they are godly men.
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We get together a couple times a month for fellowship, all the leaders of those other evangelical
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Protestant ministries, just for fellowship, encouragement, for prayer, because at times you do feel like you're competing, you know, like competing for the same group of kids, but I just tell them, listen,
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I just want the athletes, you can have everybody else, so they're definitely welcome, but I think over time, they, they start to feel like maybe
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I should find another group to be a part of, yeah, good question. Don't get any resistance, because,
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I mean, there are Muslims at the academy, there are a few Jewish kids there, too, and as I said, they have a, they have a rabbi there, they have
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Jewish activities, services provided for them, and so everybody just, you know, they can go to whatever they want to go to.
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It's funny, because at the beginning of the year, everybody comes into alumni hall, which is the basketball arena, and they tell them of all the religious programs they can be a part of, so, you know, you've got the
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Protestants on one end, the Catholics on the other, and then you've got Buddhists and Hindu and Muslims, and, and then there's a group of, you know, even the atheists and the free thinkers, they have a group for them, and I don't know what they talk about, but, but they're kind of gathered there, too, so really, they have opportunities, as the chaplains would say, to, to worship or not to worship, even though we know that everybody worships something, right?
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So, not really. I've not seen any, any resistance to this point, and I'm grateful for that.
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Yeah, yeah, there are some good churches. My wife and I struggled in finding a good
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Bible teaching church, you know, I've been doing expository preaching for the last 12 years, and trying to find something like that, we weren't really finding anything that would satisfy us, and I told my wife,
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I said, listen, if, if we leave, and we were able to leave a church in a good standing, and it was very hard to leave, because we'd really given our lives for that, that church, but I said, if we make this move, we're going to have to find a good
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Bible teaching church, because I'm going to be pouring out all week doing evangelism and discipleship,
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I'm going to need to be fed and edified, and so we actually go to Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D .C.,
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Mark Dever, I'm pretty filled going there every Sunday, and really feel equipped then to go and do ministry there, but there are three or four churches that I could recommend to a midshipman, hey, you can go here, because you're going to get a lot more truth, a lot more
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Bible than you would by going to the chapel, but you could pray that Annapolis would have a good church like Bethlehem Bible Church that, where they could really grow in the
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Word in Annapolis, okay? Maybe one more? Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, just remind them of who they are in Christ, and you know, I think if you can find one more,
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I remember there weren't a lot of, I think FCA was really good for me in high school, because it really opened my eyes to a lot of my friends are not saved, they're good people, right, but they're on their way to hell, and FCA just woke me up to that, but you know,
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I remember having one other Christian friend on the cross -country team, and just having that, and being able to have an accountability relationship, we went to camp together, and we just started as cross -country, you know, before a race, they let you have a little run out, where you run out, and we would do that together, and then we would just pray together, and say,
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Lord, you know, help us run, help us to run for you, and may you be glorified, even in our race today, so I think that's important, that you're doing athletics for the glory of God, just like anything else you're doing, and if you can find another athlete who loves the
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Lord as well, just for prayer, and encouragement, and support, I think that's very helpful. All right, want me to close in prayer?
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Yeah, I would say pray that the door continues to remain open, and that we can continue to do gospel ministry there.
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You know, I used to think that I was going to be at the church the rest of my life, if people would have asked me, how long do you see yourself being here?
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You know, even my non -Christian friends would say, hey, the church is growing, you're going to go big time soon, where are you going to go next?
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I go, nowhere, I mean, this is where I want to be, and I feel that way now, that I would love for this to be my last ministry stop, just to be faithful for 20 years at the academy, but I don't know
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God's plans, but we want to be faithful, and so you can pray for that, and pray for our family, that we would just embrace those midshipmen, that we would love them with the gospel, and yeah,
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I do have to raise my own support, and God has been faithful to this point, to bring in that, if that's something that you would be interested in, you could just, this is probably the easy way is to go to Google, since they sponsored the
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Republican debate the other night, we'll give them some more publicity, but you could just Google Kirby Myers, it's
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M -Y -E -R -S, and then MyFCA, and then I have a little website there with our picture, and a little caption of what we're trying to do at the academy, and there's an opportunity there for people to give, so all right, let me pray, all right,
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Lord, thank you for this time, and thank you for these dear people, and Lord, I'm anxious now just to be a part of this body for worship, as we sing to you, as we hear from your word, as we hear your word preached,
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Lord, we pray that you would be glorified in the next moments together, that you would receive all the glory, pray for Mike as he preaches your truth, find a place in our hearts that where your word can come in and conform us to the image of Jesus Christ, we pray this in your name, amen.