Count Your Blessings: GLCC Soccer Camp 2009

The notion of football as a form of evangelical outreach is by no means radical or new-age. In fact, during the Victorian ages, due to disciplinary problems and educational idealism, “athleticism”, had already been utilized as a civilizing offensive, aiding Christianity and education in the character-conditioning and health of sometimes bad-behaved children. More pertinently, like many who served alongside me in the recent football camp, football fashions for us an imaginary realm that extends an outlet for outflows of profuse emotions.



Everyone who supports the same team wore the team colours, sang the same team songs, and admired the same football players. Yet this shared passion has hitherto been unable to penetrate the parapet of our Christian ministry. I had always felt it a waste that football, with its global appeal to masses, had previously never been tapped as an evangelistic tool by our Church. However, all that changed when the Lord began planting seeds of His intentions in a group of people in the youth ministry, as well as the church leadership.



Consequently, the idea of a GLCC football program was conceived over a series of prayers and canteen conversations. The vision is a relationship building outreach leveraged upon a common footballing passion. Indeed, typical of the way our gracious Lord works, preparation for the camp began falling into place one by one. The labourers were raised up, followed by the provision of cheap field and accommodation, as well as a generous sponsorship of sports equipment.



We praise God that He blessed us with a wonderful June camp (where 4 out of 5 unsaved souls came to know the Lord), and we hope that you will continue to pray with us that we will persevere with our football program which, God willing, will eventually span across GLCC’s mission fields and ministry.

- Eric "Cantona" Khaw