Written by Rob Stanion (as told by Kevin Seelinger, area director)
In Young Life, we're encouraged to go after the kids we think would never have anything to do with us. After all, when confronted with the kids who most intimidate us, our charm and charisma suddenly mean nothing. When we find that we are never funny enough, smart enough, or cool enough to engage a kid — then we have the chance to see God alone at work in our ministry. For every leader, there's a different kind of kid that creates this response. For some it's the athlete in his school jacket, for others, it's the girl with numerous piercings racing across her face. It might be the chess club kid, or the guy in dark clothes listening to even darker music. For me it was a few African-American kids I coached on Martinsburg High's freshman football team. As a middle-aged white guy, I find I have little in common with these guys. All I had was a football and a desire to reach them.
My friendship with David began when he came out for football his eighth-grade year. He was an African-American, an excellent athlete and a good student. He also didn't attend church anywhere and hadn't grown up with any kind of faith background. After wrestling with the uncertainties of rejection, I started inviting him to club his freshman year — to my surprise, he eagerly accepted. Each week I picked him up, along with a group of his friends, and took them to club. I was so excited when David decided to go to Saranac at the end of his sophomore year. I knew he would have the best week of his life and an opportunity to hear about Christ six nights in a row. Even after two years of football games and practice and a year of picking him up and dropping him off at club almost every week, I still struggled to find a reason for him to have anything to do with me — and every week I still had nothing more than a football and a desire.
Each night, as we heard from the camp speaker, I saw David contemplate the idea of following Christ. We talked of how he had filled his life with other things and they had not brought him "real life." After the night of the cross talk, I explained that some see receiving Christ as a ticket into heaven and nothing more. He responded, "Nah, there's so much more to it than that. It's a lot to think about." I suggested we get together again the next evening after the speaker talked about how to know Jesus. When we met the following night, he said to me, "I'm ready to start a relationship with Christ." So I had the great privilege of hearing David confess his belief in the work of Christ and surrender his life to Him.
On the last night of camp, we have a tradition where we allow kids to stand up and "say so" if they decided to follow Christ this week. When it was David's turn he stood up and said, "This week I laid down my weapons and surrendered my life to Christ." A football and a desire ... for God, that's more than enough.