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While professional soccer has already returned in the United States and around the world, there is still a massive impact from the novel Coronavirus which has different parts of the country and the world in different stages of reaction and response. Social distancing in one place but wide-open, no restrictions in another, means that finding common ground is difficult. The global pandemic has affected the stock market and global and local economies for months — and businesses and non-profits have felt the effects to varying degrees. So, too with Soccer Chaplains United. Unfortunately, second quarter for us saw a 25% giving decline from the same time last year. In addition, Soccer Chaplains United lost a key donor to start the

I am excited to announce that with the United Soccer League—Championship kicking off this past weekend, Erick Jiménez, has moved through the candidacy process with Soccer Chaplains United and will now be appointed to serve as volunteer chaplain to El Paso Locomotive FC. Erick is the Pastoral Director of Young Marrieds and Family at Coronado Baptist Church and is currently working on his Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. You can read more about him on his bio page here. Erick Jimenez will become El Paso Locomotive's first volunteer chaplain During the time of COVID-19, chaplaincy placement conversations have been extremely difficult as different teams and organizations bide their time to see how the global pandemic will

Last week, a couple of teenagers from Lutheran High School and Valor Christian High School showed up to help Soccer Chaplains United pack out more items for our current (and only project, thus far) for 2020 — the Musana Community Development. Donated items are sorted, counted, packed, and then weighed With the goal to fill 10 bins each, the four students, each seeking to find some volunteer hours prior to school starting this fall, were able to get items sorted and counted and bins filled in record time. Maybe it was the cooler day in Colorado, or maybe it was jamming out to the tunes, but each one worked quickly to get things sorted, counted, and packed. These four teens

In such uncertain times, there are certainly many difficult spaces for football/soccer athletes, coaches, and teams to navigate. Whether issues stemming from COVID-19 and lockdown, to sequestering for a month-long tournament to get back to soccer, or the racial tensions and strife that are rippling throughout US cities and around the world — just a normal day can be overwhelming — before adding all these things into the mix. Where does a chaplain fit into the mix of that? And where and how does a chaplain to an elite women's soccer team serve? Listen to today's podcast to get special insight into the women's game of soccer in the US and the work of a chaplain to help a team remember

In a football, there are a lot of people running — and not only are they running for a ball — many times its much more than that; they are often running away from a past. In truth, we all have a past — things that we are ashamed of, things that happened in the past that are part of us, things that seem too dark, too deviant, irreparable. In today's From the Touchline episode, I take a look at the life of a man who's past could have severely crippled who he was to become had he not been able to overcome the rough start. Listen to hear about this biblical "Messi" who flipped sides and was a key contributor towards

And who is my neighbor? This age-old question has been bandied about a lot with varying responses, but perhaps it has never been more critical for Christians and especially for Christian footballers to wrestle with the question and understanding, who is my neighbor? Sometimes in football/soccer, because of the global nature of the game and because of the diverse settings in our locker rooms and sport, we can feel that we've somehow arrived or that we don't need to go deep in talking about "neighbors." In today's From the Touchline episode, we are going to look at Jesus' answer to this question, Who is my neighbor?, and how in reframing the answer to the definition of "neighbor" not only did