Football and Christian Education

What does football have to do with Christian education? My answer may surprise you. I believe football has much to do with Christian education.

First, if it is something that we decide to do as a school, then it will be something that we do with excellence.

Second, football, in this day and age, is a learning opportunity that we can provide our boys to learn how to be boys in all the right ways. This has huge ramifications for the type of faculty, staff and coaches we seek at Westminster.

And finally, football, like most of athletics, provides a venue in which to learn many things, but one of the most important lessons learned is that in order to be successful on the football field each player needs to learn the following lesson: true unity and collective success is only found when each member of the team understands that they must sacrifice in order to achieve team success. This sacrifice must occur from the head coach all the way down to the last volunteer.

Last night, in our home opener, we all saw our football team take two steps forward. We saw this team make mistakes and fall behind 20 - 0 in the first quarter to the 4th ranked 2A team in the state. But, then something happened! This team began to believe in itself and slowly started to crawl back into this game. They began to move the ball on a defense that, last week, only gave up 18 points to Lee, a 5A school. Their defense began to step forward and stop the run, forcing a run-oriented team to turn to the pass. This team became a team that sudden believed it could compete with anyone!

Sadly, we did lose this game, but, in my opinion, never has a lose won so much. As I walked through the locker room, our players were dejected with the loss, but not in the normal way. I saw in the eyes of these young men and growing confidence in their ability to compete with anyone. I saw in them what I see in our school, a readiness to take on the world for our Lord and Savior.

Football and Christian education...it fits with our mission. At Westminster Christian Academy, we feel the Lord has called us to provide, first, an education that will produce graduates who can think critically and in higher categories, discern in order to determine the false prophets and wolves in sheep's clothing of the day and stand firm for the truth and their Savior in a sea of ambiguity and hostility.

But, we also feel called, as a school, to engage culture. We go to Brockway, our new campus, not to build a fence and hid from the world; on the contrary, we go to Brockway to engage culture by being part of Huntsville, being part of Alabama, and being part of our country in order to bring glory to our Lord by way of excellence. We believe that competition, even in education, spurs us on towards love, good deeds and excellence.

The next time you see the 'W' above remember it is a 'W' with a special meaning. Contained within that one letter is a school that strives to provide education that is rooted in Christ and excellent in all things, including every one of our athletic programs. At Westminster, how we do something is as important to us as the results of what we do.

This is Westminster Christian Academy!