Baseball Chapel

Being a Christian in the world of professional sports is hard. There are so many temptations out there, they play on Sundays which means they can't go to church, and they're out of town a lot so they can't get plugged into a church if they wanted to. So, back in the 60s, players from the Twins and the Chicago Cubs started having services in hotel rooms when they were on the road. By 1975, all MLB teams had chapel services, which then switched to being held in the ballparks.

How cool is that? Every team has a chapel, and it's in the ballpark so any guy (and family and umps and whomever connected with baseball) can go any week. Each chapel has the same notes, so they have a consistency and don't miss out when they're in other cities. They have league wide Bible studies, devotionals for the wives, and a prayer request/praise board online.

They have a place to sign up for the prayer team: the verse they have on that page is, 'Colossians 4:2-3, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ …"' That is so cool!

A lot of the material on the website seems fairly basic, but when you have guys who are at completely different places spiritually, and people from all different denominations, it's good to be basic. We could all use a kick in the pants to remind us (who have been Believers for awhile) of everything that we take for granted. Mere Christianity, you know?

Yesterday I read the women's devotional of the day. It hit me hard. It's just so where I'm at. "But like the church that Jesus confronts in Ephesus in Revelation 2, I too forsake my first love all too often! I compromise my beliefs, I become lazy in my pursuit of Him through His Word and prayer, I get distracted by day to day life, and I get caught up in the world around me...How it must grieve the heart of my God, the lover of my soul, to see me forsake Him; and how He must yearn to see me return, knowing that only in His embrace will I find true joy and peace in this life!" I could go on, but why don't I just do this: http://baseballchapel.org/index.cfm?FuseAction=Devotionals&CFID=15596630&CFToken=10093784 (It's the one for Sept. 16th that hit me - I haven't read the others yet.)

Anyway - y'all should check out the site. It's so spiffy. Even if you don't care about baseball, you have to admit that it's cool to see ways in which GOD is working.

http://www.baseballchapel.org/