“Love, if something doesn’t change, I need to walk.”
This is what I told my wife, who has seen it all over our 6 years of being together.
See, I have lived in Prague since 2004. I’ve worked with the Prague Lions, but also have been the OC of both the Czech junior and senior nationals teams and a smattering of other things. I survived a team split. I’ve been part of a group that rebuilt a whole program from nothing to reach the Championship game only 4 years later. I’ve been on the wrong end of one of the most controversial non-calls in American football history. I’ve had more guys walk on me and us than I can imagine. I’ve made more enemies, by holding people accountable than I could ever imagine. I have spent more nights crying and trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and why we couldn’t turn the corner and if I was actually the problem.
In short, I have been through a lot in my roughly 15 years of football and ministry in Europe.
This has been my life, as I’ve served in the Czech Republic. Beyond this, the Czech Republic also boasts of being roughly 90% atheist, with the “evangelical” church less than one-third of one percent.
This is where God has called me. This is where God has called my wife, who’s Czech, to serve her countrymen and women. This is where we long to see fundamental, eternal, and much needed change.
Some ask me, “Zach what the heck do you do over there in Prague”. My response is, “I’m a football (the American kind) coaching church planter or church planting football coach, who lives on mission daily in the messy setting of arguably one of the most skeptical and atheistic countries on the face of the planet.
My context is the American football community and serving as a missional insider there. You might be asking, “Why is that Zach?” See in a country of skepticism, lack of trust as a result of a tumultuous history, if you go in with “Gospel guns” a'blazing, you are going to be met with jeers, laughs and all of your “good intentions” are going to be for next to nothing. I’ve seen it in my time here in Czech, what they call a missionary graveyard, where the average missionary with a commitment of 5 plus years makes it on average 18 months.
I know this well. I’ve been through this feeling of leaving the feeling of bailing on everything. Every couple of years I go through this and last year it reached it’s peak with our work within the American football community here. I was done for all the reasons that I shared earlier and more. Years of good intentions, effort, strategy and a heart for the Czech Republic had run dry. Even though God had given me the mindset and heart to live the way of Jesus, on mission, incarnating the Gospel in flesh and ways that people will understand and not push people away. Years ago I realized that if I would endure here or make any impact I had to find a way of shifting from being an outsider to that of an insider. See to this people, this culture, this tough language, even though I have a Czech wife (which ups my Czech street cred for sure!), speak the language fluently and am working on citizenship, I’m still an outsider.
So the question is, “what does one, who is an outsider, do to become an insider?” The answer to this question lies in more questions, “What passions do you have?” “What gifts do you have?” “What is that makes you come alive, when you do it?” I have many answers to those questions, but not all of them are things that God might call me to focus on. See, my father was a football coach for 40 years. I love the game. I believe it’s the best sport and for sure the best team sport on the planet (maybe I need to write a future blog about this, to convince you all! 😉). I see football is a sport, even a language, I can speak to bring change in lives and do the pre-Gospel work to see people move towards Jesus. It’s an opportunity for me to be somewhat of an expert, that meets felt needs in the football community. It allows me to be an INSIDER.
After years of ups and downs, continuing to move forward God gave me a great gift, in a week our second son was born and the team I coach, that I nearly walked away from a year ago, won the championship game after a 13 year old draught. Leading up to this championship game and following the game, I was moved to see that years of consistency in living what I believe to my core, lead to Czech press writing articles about my faith, seeking God in my decision making process from the previous year, me “speaking” the language of football to bring life change whether or not my players ever believe in Jesus, because maybe their kids will meet Jesus!
This could be just the start of what I’ve desired, prayed for, long for and worked to see for years! This is where God has called us, the Harrodovi (the Harrods in Czech) to serve. My wife, Míša, and my two sons, Oliver and Artur, are seeking to live lives of mission not only in the American football community but in all the spheres of life where God has taken us as a result of this game.