Precious few things will cause me to deviate in this space from things related to ordinary ministry through the ordinary means. But today I venture out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary.
For this afternoon the 2014 World Cup begins.
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow . . .”
For the next month I will be glued to the drama soon to unfold down in Brazil and you should be too. Remember, our God reigns over the nations, and those nations are transfixed with “the beautiful game.”
To whet your appetite I give you the greatest American moment from the 2010 World Cup.
My man Landon1 shook up the country with his 92nd minute strike against Algeria to secure the team’s place into the Round of 16.
And I celebrated with seminary students in, of all places, Charlotte, North Carolina. I had traveled out to RTS for a summer module and actually thought hard about dropping the class when I noticed it would cause me to miss the USA’s final group game against Algeria. World Cup Soccer does things to me few people understand. But I went, and in God’s providence the scheduled class ended early on that fateful day of June 23, 2010.
The classmate on my left, one brother named Joel, pulled up the game on espn.com and we were able to watch the nail-biting final twenty minutes. I wish someone would have taken a video of us that day for we would surely have made the YouTube offering above. Fifteen seminary students – many of whom cared little about soccer – were huddled in close to a fifteen inch screen yelling, pounding tables, and crying out in exasperation. When LD smashed home the game winner we made such a ruckus that all the administrative staff ran upstairs to see what the emergency was.
What a day.
What a moment.
What a game.
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- I had the occasion to play with him on the Olympic team during our failed bid to make the 2004 Summer games in Athens. Not to mention the other times I had to chase him around the field during my few years in the MLS. ↩