The Ministry Of Soccer Fields

The Ministry of Soccer Fields

“Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Pulling my car onto the shoulder of the gently curving road, I scanned the fields containing a hundred soccer players, searching for Aaron. He was easy to spot, his pale skin and blond hair highlighted beside the Somali players running around him—a visible reminder of the cultural and religious differences between us.

Aaron and I live in a community whose racial and religious tensions have been exposed in a series of hateful incidents, and we have long pondered how to engage our large Somali community through genuine friendship. But friendship requires trust, and when trust is hard to find, we must be the ones willing to step outside of our comfort zones instead of inviting others into our safe spaces.

For Aaron, moving outside of his comfort zone meant taking the risk of asking to join a group of young Somali men in their pickup soccer game. Those games in the nearby park then morphed into a fathering/coaching/mentoring relationship with the young men he played alongside. Many of them arrived in the United States after years in refugee camps, often in households headed by single moms. Now, these young men gather periodically in our home on Saturday mornings for a pancake breakfast before they head downstairs to shout encouragement at their favorite Premier League soccer team on the TV and tease those rooting for the opponent.

I cannot help but smile as I listen to the good-natured teasing in two languages whenever a goal is scored, because I’m reminded that we have finally figured out how to be bridge builders after a number of well-intentioned failures.

Loving others requires proximity, and it often requires us to be bold, uncomfortable, and vulnerable. As believers, we are the ones called to carry the risk of rejection as we move forward with an offer of friendship, trusting God to do the rest.

— Julie

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Ask God to show you how you might take the risk of rejection when reaching out to a people group who look, think, or believe differently than you, rather than asking them to walk into your comfort zone.