Celebrating CSA
Saturday June 30th we celebrated the conclusion of our second season of Christ’s Soccer Academy. Christ’s Soccer Academy exists to support the mission of HBF by using Soccer to draw individuals and families into the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.
We had a great season fielding twelve teams in three divisions (U6, U9 and U12). The parents and the children were great, rising early for five consecutive Saturdays to start at 9:00AM. God blessed the ministry with a great team of volunteer coaches, referees, grounds crew, administration help, and the very important concession stand attendees.
This year we saw a marked improvement in the skill level of the returning children and good advances in the children who joined this year. We fully expected the U6 to fill up, but it ended up with about the same number of players as last year. This year the upper divisions (U9 and U12) were well manned allowing us to implement goalies for four-on-four play as well as play our first five on five game the last game of the season. We are praying about adding a U15 division in 2025.
Each Saturday the coaches shared devotions that correlated to message connected to our wordless book soccer ball or the character quality associated with the skill training that day. We use a “gospel” soccer ball with the colors green, black, red, white and gold. Each day we start with a color associated with and aspect of taking the children from creation to Christ. We start with green, representing God’s creation and end with gold, representing Christ’s deity and the reward of Heaven. The black represents the sin, red represents the blood of Christ, white the cleansing of sin and the sanctification of the saint. Though it is repetitive each year, it really drives home the precepts and gives us a gospel framework for the entire ministry.
In addition to the work God is doing in the children and families, God is growing the ministers who volunteer to pour their lives into the children, their families and each other. This year the coaching staff grew, and we were able to support the coaches with more assistants. Samuel Hedges’ skill in teaching children key soccer skills continues to improve and the field were phenomenal. God was extra gracious to provide the right amount of rain, cloud cover and temperate weather for each session. We were prepared for a much harsher climate than God provided, and we were thankful for his mercy upon all involved in the ministry.
This year we saw children travel from as far away as Lee’s Summit and Grain Valley Missouri each week to participate in CSA. The complements and encouragement of the parents really helped us see the impact of CSA is greater than we anticipated by God’s grace.
With the World Cup coming to Kansas City in 2026, we look forward to growing in our knowledge of soccer, so we have another avenue to engage an increasingly international culture with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ through the sport of soccer in the years to come.