Yes. And Yes.
Public schools are allowed to have extracurricular clubs that relate to the faiths of the students. At Taylor Road Middle School, we have the Jewish Club, the Muslim Club, and FCA, which is short for Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Ironically, the most unathletic human being you know (me) is the teacher sponsor of this club. Yes, God shows his sense of humor yet again!
Really, if I am being honest, most of the kids who come to FCA don't even know what the acronym stands for; they just know that it is the Christian club. A few years ago, my boss asked me to consider sponsoring this club. I thought to myself, "You are asking me to share the love and salvation of Jesus with a host of middle school kids...twist my arm."
Yes, people, we are talking about our Lord and Savior in room 114 of Taylor Road, two Friday mornings per month. And we are praying. Yep, prayer in schools. It's ba-a-a-a-c-c-k!
One of the values of the FCA ministry (FCA is actually an international ministry!) is raising up leaders. Each year, I ask 8-10 of our kids to commit to being FCA leaders. This requires two things. One, they meet with me two Thursday mornings per month so that we can plan and pray over the Friday meetings. Two, they serve during the Friday meetings by greeting students, welcoming new faces, leading games, and even straightening up the room when we are done. Along with the student leaders, there are Taylor Road staff and fellow teachers that help lead the club, from set-up to coordinating breakfasts to "crowd control" during our meetings. Thank y'all for all you do!!
Each meeting includes breakfast, games (and prizes!), and a speaker. Our speakers come from three places mainly: the youth staff of Perimeter Church (my local church), the youth staff of North Point Community Church (the great big, Jesus-loving church just down the road from here), and fellow Christian teachers here at Taylor Road. A shout out to these speakers who wake up way too early on a Friday morning, battle traffic and carpool, and come hang out with kids. The speakers are the ones who bring the words of life. They are teaching the kids about God as Creator, Provider, Listener, and Rescuer. They are engaging, hilarious, and they work for cheap. (Okay, free. They work for free. Rewards in heaven, people!)
The true and unsung FCA heroes, though, are the FCA moms! These ladies sign up in two's to provide breakfast for the FCA meetings. (Fun fact: the free and yummy breakfast might be the biggest reason that people of all faiths are willing to try out FCA! Many a Jewish student has come and checked us out in hopes of scoring a Krispy Kreme or two while they are there.) I want to give a shout-out to the FCA moms: we could not do this without you. Having been given a budget of...wait for it...zero dollars, everything we do must be donated. Y'all being generous means that 50-70 kids hear the gospel every other Friday with big smiles on their donut-crumb-crusted faces.
We are at the end of our third year of FCA here at TRMS. Thank you, Lord, for all that you have done for us. I pray that you are changing these kids, truth by truth, so that they see the world as Yours and themselves as Yours. Please keep doing it.
When I first started sponsoring FCA, I thought that it was something that I was doing for God. In true God-fashion, he quickly showed me that it was something he was doing for me...giving me great joy in being able to express my faith in a public school setting, watching him work little miracles two Friday mornings per month, getting to share truth with kids during what is arguably the hardest three years of their lives thus far. Y'all. Can y'all believe that he lets us do fun things like this?! He is just too good to us.