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The Three S’s of Quarantine

From the Touchline

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As the COVID-19 global pandemic continues on, the challenges of lockdown and quarantine confront all of us. Whether you are an introvert or extrovert, a person of faith or a person of no faith — these are challenging times to live through.

In today’s From the Touchline episode, I look at three different S’s that are likely present and a challenge for all of us in varying ways right now. Stillness. Solitude. Silence. It’s likely that we feel burdened or stressed by these things, when in truth they are actually a gift if we can become aware of it and if we can learn something of what God might be wanting to show us as people or as communities or as cultures.

Today, I talk a lot about the enneagram. You may or may not be familiar with this personality tool. I would encourage listeners to take a moment and understand their Enneagram type as a potential helpful reference for some of the language that I use in the podcast today.

Below is the main book that I reference in the podcast and the scripture verses that I mention at the end.

From the Touchline is a short-feature (usually 10-15 min) podcast with Rev Brad Kenney, Founder and Executive Director of Soccer Chaplains United and Volunteer Chaplain to the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer. Rev Brad and occasional guests touch on various issues around the topics of faith, family, and football (soccer).

Also, don’t forget that you can listen in our app, SoccrChapUtd, in the Apple and Google store.

Easter Egg Hunt Suspension

yellow blue and pink egg on tray

“Houston, we have a problem, …”

Well, friends, our Easter Egg Hunt was off to a good start; however, we soon received word that the Google/Android side of the app hadn’t been properly completed and there was no new app for our non-Apple friends. 😫

So, unfortunately, we had to suspend the Easter Egg Hunt and postpone it.

Raise my own hand on this (I’m a chaplain, not an app developer) and apologize. We will restart the egg hunt once the Google Play Store has the final app ready for release. We will announce a start time as well.

We did have one very ambitious egg hunter who found all 9 eggs and it took them approximately 18 minutes! I have reached out to them and they don’t mind a “restart.” So hold onto your Easter Egg Baskets and we will have another go, later this week!

There will be 9 different, hidden eggs in our new app! The nine eggs commemorate the nine different teams that Soccer Chaplains United currently serves from the professional ranks to high school teams. The first users to find and email us the location and description of each of the nine Easter eggs will receive a gift from Soccer Chaplains United!

In coordination with our new app launch, there are a few other things changing:

  • New name for the app: SoccChaplain will become SoccrChapUtd
  • Simplified menu
  • Quicker load out and updating
  • Profile creation ability (set preferences on types of content you want to receive)
If your app looks like this, then you’ve got the old version and you might be too early for the egg hunt!

Current users of SoccChaplain will need to update and change the app. We will announce when the new app is ready and released in the Google Play Store and then we will announce a start time.

App screen should look something like this…

New users will look for Soccer Chaplains United or SoccrChapUtd in the Apple or Google stores.

Here’s how we will do the Easter Egg Hunt:

  • Download or update the app
  • Explore, browse, and look through the app to find the numbered eggs
  • Email your egg findings (brief description and the location) to info@soccerchaplainsunited.org
  • We will use the time stamp of the email to determine the “first” person to find a particular egg
  • You are welcome to include more than 1 egg (or all 9) in your email to us to increase your chance of winning
  • We will contact the winners by email and get information on where we can send you a special gift
  • There will be nine different winners

In all of this, we just want to have some fun, show folks our new app and have them explore it for themselves. So get your “basket” ready for our Easter Egg Hunt!

Easter Egg Hunt

Soccer Chaplains United is hosting its very own, virtual Easter egg hunt! On Easter Sunday morning, April 12, at an unannounced hour and in coordination with the release of our new app, there will appear Easter “eggs” hidden throughout the app that can be “discovered” by exploring the different areas of the new app. In what is a common practice in gaming — usually a developer will hide different “eggs” in a program that are a special gift or prize to the “explorative” gamer.

There will be 9 different, hidden eggs in our new app! The nine eggs commemorate the nine different teams that Soccer Chaplains United currently serves from the professional ranks to high school teams. The first users to find and email us the location and description of each of the nine Easter eggs will receive a gift from Soccer Chaplains United!

In coordination with our new app launch, there are a few other things changing:

  • New name for the app: SoccChaplain will become SoccrChapUtd
  • Simplified menu
  • Quicker load out and updating
  • Profile creation ability (set preferences on types of content you want to receive)
If your app looks like this, then you’ve got the old version and you might be too early for the egg hunt!

Current users of SoccChaplain shouldn’t need to do anything other than re-open the app. The new version should automatically update and change on the first go (in coordination with the version release). The new version release will be on Sunday morning at an undisclosed time.

App screen should look something like this…

New users will look for SoccChaplain or SoccrChapUtd in the Apple or Google stores depending, again, on the download time of the app.

Here’s how we will do the Easter Egg Hunt:

  • Download, update, or re-open the app
  • Explore, browse, and look through the app to find the numbered eggs
  • Email your egg findings (brief description and the location) to info@soccerchaplainsunited.org
  • We will use the time stamp of the email to determine the “first” person to find a particular egg
  • You are welcome to include more than 1 egg (or all 9) in your email to us to increase your chance of winning
  • On Monday, we will contact the winners by email and get information on where we can send you a special gift
  • There will be nine different winners

*Note: Some eggs may be “time-released”: you know we can’t just let the big kids get all the eggs! 🙂

In all of this, we just want to have some fun, show folks our new app and have them explore it for themselves. So get your “basket” ready for our Easter Egg Hunt!

From Captivity

From the Touchline

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Today we are in the midst of Holy Week — Palm Sunday is a fading memory and Easter is soon to come. But this year, around the world will look and feel very different from past Easter celebrations given the global pandemic that we are facing with Coronavirus. Many will have to remain at home. Church buildings will sit empty. The normal festive time for Christian people will be muted in many places.

In today’s From the Touchline episode, we are taking about the feeling of captivity that many are and have been feeling under lockdown. Especially for people living in Colorado and the US, where we are so used to our freedoms and being able to go where we want to go, when we want to go, there are some heard lessons that we are faced with. It is, perhaps, the closest sense of captivity for people that might be felt.

But how do we understand our captivity?

Below is the link to the scripture verses I mention in today’s episode.

From the Touchline is a short-feature (usually 10-15 min) podcast with Rev Brad Kenney, Founder and Executive Director of Soccer Chaplains United and Volunteer Chaplain to the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer. Rev Brad and occasional guests touch on various issues around the topics of faith, family, and football (soccer).

Also, don’t forget that you can listen in our app, SoccChaplain, in the Apple and Google store.

Say Goodbye to Brad

Well it has come time to say goodbye…and this is not a late April Fool’s joke.

No, not to me! To Brad Evans.

Soccer Chaplains United has had an app (SoccChaplain) that we launched when we went through our rebranding a few years ago. A stock photo featuring Seattle Sounders MLS player, Brad Evans, has adorned our front page screen, letting athletes know where to click in our app for content that is designed for them.

Pretty soon, the old app will go the way of the dinosaur

A few months ago, we were notified of new requirements from Apple and Google for app developers and we started working on a new app in conjunction with our fundraising partner PushPay.

Well, we are pretty close to launching the new app. It will have a new looking feel to it and it will also feature a new name. So keep an eye out for our launch and announcement here soon and we will have some cool prizes to hand out to people.

Special Edition: Football Homeschool

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The Coronavirus pandemic has thrown much of life into an uproar — amongst the many things that are no longer normal, school and education around the world looks very different. Children are now full-time at home with their families. Learning and education that once happened in traditional school settings is now taking place online and at home with the willing or, maybe, not so willing work of the parent or guardian. Of course, this is effecting the football world, too. Athletes and their families, at all levels of the game, are now together and education is striving to go on. For some in football, this is a massive and somewhat daunting undertaking.

In today’s From the Touchline episode, I am joined by a special guest, my own wife, Adriana Kenney. Adriana has been educating our children at home for the past 12 years and while our oldest is now a thriving student in traditional high school, Adriana and I share some of our experience and reflections on the journey and work of homeschooling that many around the world are now faced with in light of COVID-19.

I hope that this podcast will be an encouragement for the listener faced with this new, and seemingly difficult challenge.

Below, I link to the scriptures mentioned in today’s episode and a link to a number of books and resources Adriana references that can be helpful tools for someone exploring or wanting to really take on this season of school at home, well.

Scriptures

Resources

From the Touchline is a short-feature (usually 10-15 min) podcast with Rev Brad Kenney, Founder and Executive Director of Soccer Chaplains United and Volunteer Chaplain to the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer. Rev Brad and occasional guests touch on various issues around the topics of faith, family, and football (soccer).

Also, don’t forget that you can listen in our app, SoccChaplain, in the Apple and Google store.

Foolish Things

From the Touchline

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The first of April is usually a day wrought with jokes and pranks around the world. But during these times of global pandemic, there likely won’t be a lot of practical jokes going on and, in fact, some have made comments about the “foolishness” of certain things like sports and football, or soccer. Times like these do bring different introspection and perspective, but is football just a fool’s game?

In today’s From the Touchline episode, I take a look at what C.S. Lewis distinguished as first and second things. While there are some generalized sentiments around the global game of football and other sports during this time, I argue that there is an “importance” to an unimportant thing such as football, that ought not be ignored. In fact, we do well to realize the deep reaching impact of losing things like football.

Below is the link to the scripture I mention in today’s episode and a link to the book I reference and to the CS Lewis essay that offers some further reflection and insight into first and second things.

From the Touchline is a short-feature (usually 10-15 min) podcast with Rev Brad Kenney, Founder and Executive Director of Soccer Chaplains United and Volunteer Chaplain to the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer. Rev Brad and occasional guests touch on various issues around the topics of faith, family, and football (soccer).

Also, don’t forget that you can listen in our app, SoccChaplain, in the Apple and Google store.

God as Defender with Jared Watts

From the Touchline

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Defender is a descriptor used at several different points throughout the Bible to describe God. He is there for the weak, the vulnerable, the oppressed — for His people — as the ultimate refuge, as a shelter, as shield, as protector. During these difficult times, when the world is struggling with fear from the coronavirus and its tremendous impact, perhaps more than ever, we need to remember and call upon God to be our Defender.

In today’s From the Touchline episode, special guest and friend, Jared Watts joins me to share some different defensive points of view for the beautiful game and to help illustrate ways that God is our Defender. Jared shares memories from his own story and journey through soccer and we walk and talk through some of the characteristics of God as Defender as found in the Bible verse of Deuteronomy 32:4.

Below is the link to the scripture for today’s episode and a link to the book referenced at the end, as well as the webpage for Jared’s goal :

From the Touchline is a short-feature (usually 10-15 min) podcast with Rev Brad Kenney, Founder and Executive Director of Soccer Chaplains United and Volunteer Chaplain to the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer. Rev Brad and occasional guests touch on various issues around the topics of faith, family, and football (soccer).

Also, don’t forget that you can listen in our app, SoccChaplain, in the Apple and Google store.

Coming Soon: A New App

If there is a silver lining to the timing of the Coronavirus, it has been at a time when I have been working on a new, updated app for Soccer Chaplains United. Our current app, SoccChaplain, has needed some updating and recently Apple and Google have changed some of their requirements for apps and developers which will require us to make changes.

When I first heard the news back in February, I was left thinking, “When will I have time to do that?” But the Coronavirus pause has not only afforded the time, but also helped sharpen thinking around the app and its use during times like these.

Now, to be fair — our new app isn’t going to change the world. In fact, it may not feel all too different from the one that we currently have. I am not smart enough to design some great thing and there will likely be some different issues to work out as I learn more about the new platform and how to build it out in the best way. But, I am excited — that hopefully the new app will seem simpler and be really useful for people to use — whether an athlete, coach, staff or family member who are part of the global game of soccer.

Stay tuned for more news and information on when we plan to launch the new app!

Saint Patrick

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One of my favorite days and favorite historical persons is Saint Patrick and his feast day is March 17. I feel that I connect with Patrick on many levels — from the way he lived life, to some of the ways that he, by faith, came to understand and know and believe in God. My Scot-Irish background also plays a big part of of why I have enjoyed studying and reading Patrick a bit more closely — whether his legacy or his legend.

In today’s From the Touchline episode, I look at a couple stories from Patrick’s life and share one or two of my own. At the close, is a reading of the Breastplate of Saint Patrick, also known as the Lorica of Patrick. It is a long prayer, but one in which a person prays for the power and protection of Jesus to be with them no matter what may be faced. It is a good prayer for us to know today — much of scripture is woven into the prayer.

Here are some helpful links for today’s episode:

From the Touchline is a short-feature (usually 10-15 min) podcast with Rev Brad Kenney, Founder and Executive Director of Soccer Chaplains United and Volunteer Chaplain to the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer. Rev Brad and occasional guests touch on various issues around the topics of faith, family, and football (soccer).

Also, don’t forget that you can listen in our app, SoccChaplain, in the Apple and Google store.

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