Welcome to Soccer Chaplains United! We are glad that you've found our new website and we are excited with moving forward. In 2002, when I first began to work as a chaplain with the Colorado Rapids, I was looking for a framework, a phrase for doing ministry. Cross-training, at the time, was an emerging philosophy of exercise where the whole of a person was considered. The idea was that an athlete needed to cross-train in order to be a better all-around athlete. Taking that idea further — I felt that those in sport needed to cross-train, but in emotional and spiritual areas. And so, CrossTraining was born. But in more recent times, with the emergence of the crossfit  exercise movement, we've

A man may be of value to another man, not because he wishes to be important, not because he possesses some inner wealth of soul, nor because of something he is, but because of what he is - not. His importance may consist in his poverty, in his hopes and fears, in his waiting and hurrying, in the direction of his whole being toward what lies beyond his horizon and beyond his power. The importance of being an apostle is negative rather than positive. In him a void becomes visible. And for this reason he is something to others: he is able to share grace with them, to focus their attention, and to establish them in waiting and in adoration.

At the recent 2015 NSCAA (National Soccer Coaches Association of America) Convention in Philadelphia, I was waiting in Starbucks for a meeting when I overheard a woman ask a friend to make introductions with a potential employer and influencer in the game. "Maybe if you could just introduce me," she suggested, "it could open the door for me." She was hopeful that her friend had enough influence and rapport to get an opportunity or an audience. As I reflected on the woman's hopeful tone, I realized my own meeting was about an introduction - waiting to meet someone in the new USL-Pro franchise for Charlotte, the Charlotte Independence. I was, too, hopeful for good introductions and the beginning of a trusting

We discover the shepherds of Advent in Luke 2:8-20. You will recall that Advent has to do with waiting; Advent has to do with living in expectancy. And, as the shepherds of Advent journey to the creche at Christmas their hearts are filled with awe and wonder. The shepherd's story has long captured the imagination of many throughout the years - whether in church Christmas plays and dramas with young kids hitting each other with paper staffs or in the professionally-made films and productions with robed and burly-looking men playing the part. Who were these men, these boys (perhaps), who were visited by an angelic messenger, serenaded by a host of angels, and sent on their way to discover a baby in a

This past Tuesday, November 11, was Veterans Day, but it also serves as the feast day for the patron Saint Martin of Tours. St. Martin has a special place in the heart for the for me personally and for the ministry of CrossTraining. If you don't know the story, Martin was a soldier in the Roman army, following in the footsteps of his father. One day, outside the city gates of Amiens in France he met a beggar who was naked and out in the cold. As the story goes, Martin cut his cloak in half and clothed the beggar half. Later that night, resting with his garrisoned troops in the city, he had a vision of Jesus Christ appearing