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As the summer season moves closer to fall, many college and high school students are starting to get back into the swing of fall soccer pre-season preparations. We check in with Moody Bible Institute Men’s Soccer Chaplain Pete Distler to see what steps he and the team are taking ahead of a mid-August campus report date.

The student athletes at Moody Bible Institute are busy ‘sweating’ a summer regimen of personal training routines designed by Coach Jon.  Inherent competition and accountability is seen in published key performance metrics that keep team chat channels buzzing. Freshman players are already preparing to make the cut are showing impressive numbers and looking to push MBI veterans to elevate their game.

Chaplain Pete, on the athlete preseason preparations

Different from years of old, college athletes are rarely far from being ready for the season come fall. There’s not much “offseason” or moments when soccer team members don’t have an eye toward the season goals and coming into a pre-season with as much athletic fitness as possible. But the athletes aren’t the only ones readying themselves as Pete shared with me,

For myself as chaplain, spiritual preparations include praying for the team roster, healing prayers for several injured players and wisdom for developing meaningful devotionals to lead the team through for the season. Once we begin pre-season training in mid-August, discipleship will evolve to transitional needs for freshman players and a variety of concerns from returning players. 

Chaplain Pete, on the chaplain pre-season preparations

Of course, a new season means implementing some new practices for the team’s ongoing spiritual, emotional, and mental development. Mixing in with some standard practices that have been built into the Moody Soccer culture — Pete will continue to find the balance in serving the needs of the athletes and the coaches, alike. And, as a new rotation of students athletes come into the fold the ongoing development of leadership and the mainstay goals will continue,

Representing Jesus on and off the field with excellence will be a predominant focus during our season. In sports it can be really difficult to see the truth that winning games really only represents short term fruit. Winning must be superseded by understanding the eternal value of ministering the Gospel, and this many times through our on-field Christian character behavior. 

Chaplain Pete, on the season goals looking ahead to 2019-2020

We invite you to pray for Chaplain Pete and the Moody Men’s Soccer Team. And we encourage you to join us, not only as a prayer partner, but also as a financial partner.

Soccer Chaplains United is non-profit, 501(c)3. Our chaplains all volutneer with the teams and communities that they serve. We are dependent upon the financial support of our partners to carry out our work of developing chaplaincy, counseling, and community service across all levels of soccer.

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