When is a football field not a football field?
When it becomes a house of worship.
Such was the case Wednesday, October 12 on the William A. Cooper Memorial Field of Mount Paran Christian School (MPCS).
Middle and high school students from across Cobb County, joined with students from MPCS for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes evening of worship and inspiration. Students and families sat and heard from coaches, other students, community leaders, and motivational speakers.
C.L. “Shep” Shepherd, the keynote speaker, delivered an impactful message to our student athletes. As a former football player, Shep has participated on every level of competition. Today he is founder and CEO of Keep the Change, Inc., an organization dedicated to investing in the lives of student athletes.
Joining Shepherd was Blake Goss-who led worship-the Harrison FCA Band, and Jamie Goodwin who shared her special testimony.
Teisha Venable Ault, an MPCS parent and attendee at the event, commented on the touching event and the impact it made on her family.
“It was such a magical night,” she said. “This has blessed us all. This has increased the faith of my children, also. They even mentioned to me that night that this is my vision.”
Ault was so moved that she shared the following message with other involved at MPCS about the stadium’s numerous possibilities.
“My vision I shared with Dr. David Tilley, Headmaster, and Tawanna Rusk, Head of High School, was that our school stadium was built for more opportunities, more than just sports or political figures using it. Our stadium was built to be the beacon of light in our community to bring families together to praise and worship our Lord.
God is going to use our school to heal our community. There are so many issues with drugs and other unfortunate circumstances happening. I believe that we can share hope and make a difference for our young people and our parents in Cobb County.
I ended up not going down on the field as I just wanted to see the beautiful vision from the stadium looking down at the amazing site of these young people praying. While standing in the stadium I saw young man, and in my excitement, I shared with him the vision I had about this gathering, not knowing it would be a “Fields of Faith.” My family attended Fields of Faith in Cherokee County five years ago, so we were familiar with the impact of this event. This young gentleman turned out to be Cameron Tidwell, who is not only in charge of our West Cobb FCA, but would be in charge of the 2017 Fields of Faith event.
Cameron shared with me that the Fields of Faith event was originally scheduled for North Cobb High School, but wound up being moved to Mount Paran Christian School. Well, this increased my faith even more! As a result of our meeting, I now plan to help him with implementing FCA groups within the school and help advertise for Fields of Faith. Cameron and I agreed we can fill our entire stadium and including having people on the field in our end zones!
God is always at work in our lives if we can just be sensitive to the Holy Spirit God can make huge changes in our world!”