"Love to Jesus is the basis of all true piety, and the intensity of this love will ever be the measure of our zeal for His glory. Let us love Him with all our hearts, and then diligent labor, and consistent living will be sure to follow." -Charles Spurgeon
Another year has come and gone since the start of Tenfifteen Ministries in the summer of 2019. We have been blessed to be a part of a ministry where we get to share our faith in Jesus using soccer. We could never have predicted all the ways God would work through this ministry. Each year we have grown and changed. This past year marked a big change in how we view ministry. We believe that ministry should be done and people should be sent through the local church. That is why we have come under our local church, ONE Church. The context of a believer consists of being an active member in their local church, so why would ministry be any different? With ONE church we have been able to do more together. We have done soccer clinics, food drop offs, and we are planning a futsal tournament and fall festival together with our church and the ministry- always with the purpose of sharing the gospel and making disciples through soccer. We can do outreach using soccer, and we can do it together with our church. Several of our players have been attending ONE Church on Sundays. So not only do we partner in outreach, we are able to point our adult players to a church home to be taught what it means to live out their faith and follow Jesus daily.
In July and August, Tenfifteen FC has been preparing for our third season in the UPSL. The last two seasons have not gone our way. In the beginning of August we participated in the tournament the "Heineken Cup". This tournament also did not go our way. We have had a disappointing year so far, as far as the soccer is concerned. We have lost a lot of games that we think we should have won, but that is how it goes sometimes. We have been encouraged by the consistency of a core group of about 11 players. They have consistently showed up to two trainings a week and mostly every game for two years now. We believe soccer teaches a lot of lessons. One lesson is consistency and commitment. Not many people are able to stick with the same thing for too long anymore. We live in a world where it is perfectly normal to quit your job because you want to, or stop showing up to a commitment you made because you 'aren't feeling it'. The world tells you to 'be true to yourself' and not to do anything you don't want to do. We feel blessed to have something that we can offer to our players that is consistent and has been for years. They can learn consistency and commitment simply by showing up training after training and game after game. Our consistency is fueled by our love for Jesus. We are able to be excited to go to training after training and game after game because we love Jesus and we are passionate about sharing our faith with these players. Many of the players are not believers, and so their commitment and consistency is not fueled by love for Jesus, but love for themselves. That is probably why people have a hard time sticking to their commitments nowadays. Either way, we love Jesus and will continue to proclaim the gospel boldly to our players.
Some exciting soccer things are coming up for Tenfifteen FC. We have been accepted into the Open Cup. The Open Cup is a single game elimination tournament that if you keep winning, you could potentially play a professional team. It is a cool tournament because amateur teams can enter and see how far they get. Also, to give some perspective on the tournament, Messi and Inter Miami are playing in the Open Cup final at the end of September. So, theoretically speaking, we could be playing against Messi next year. It is not easy for amateur teams to make it into the knockout rounds against professional teams. The tournament starts for us on September 30 and we will play one game per month until we lose. If we make it all the way into the spring, we will start playing USL teams, and if we keep winning, we will play MLS teams next summer. The team is excited to have an opportunity to play in this tournament.
Something you can be praying for a meeting that Zach has this Thursday at 2pm with some of the organizers of the TST (the soccer tournament). That is the 7v7 million dollar tournament that Zach and I played in this past summer. It was so fun, and we started dreaming that it would be awesome to take a 10//15 FC team there next year.
Lastly, although expectations were not met in the Heineken cup, we were able to debut our new all white kits and the team loved them! They look very nice with our two jersey sponsors (thank you ONE Church and Tetelestai Renovations). We are thankful for everyone's support and prayer! Please keep praying that God would open eyes and soften hearts to the gospel!