Christ Soccer Academy

On Saturday June 28th, we completed our 3rd season of Christ's Soccer Academy. It was a great day and an excellent season. Christ's Soccer Academy exists to support the ministry of HBF by using soccer to draw individuals and families into the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.

This was our biggest season yet, with 119 players on 18 teams over 4 divisions (U5, U8, U11, and U14). Our season began on May 31st and ran for 5 Saturdays. We are so grateful for the effort of all who contributed to make this academy work. From parents and grandparents to our great team of volunteer coaches, assistant coaches, referees, grounds crew, administration team, concession workers, field marshall, and our skills trainers, it took each and every one of you to make this season happen and we couldn't be more excited about how it went!

This year, we started a new tradition of awarding a CSA Shield to one team in each division showing the team who performed the best, in play on the field as well as attitude, improvement in skills, and overall team effort. This was awarded to teams in the form of a certificate at our celebration on Sunday June 29th and will be memorialized with a placard on a physical shield which will be displayed in our church building later this year. The winners of the shield for the 2025 CSA season are:

U5 - Jaguars - Zona Engel, Houston Herndon, Lorelei Engel, Homer Heath, Myla Aman, and Andrew Stanwix -Coached by Abigail Engel, Stephanie Herndon, and Elisabeth Hedges

U8 - The Skittles - Milo Armstrong, Ryder Breit, Sullivan Gargano, Kaylie Ware, Ellie Aman, Eli Gipson, Malachi Jones, and Elias Berg - Coached by Erin Gipson and Audrey Gipson

U11 - Team Phoenix - Hunter Otto, Weston Otto, Alivia Johnston, Xavier Perkins, Charliann Jones, Bradley Newby, and Grayson Wirth - Coached by Stephen Wirth

U14 - Orangutans - Ethan Larcom, Tristan Newland, Emma Lengemann, Aiden Miller, Devin Miller, and Verily Jones - Coached by Jesse Larcom and Lucas Larcom

Each Saturday, players were taken through 3 rotations, a devotion from the Word of God, a skills training session, and a scrimmage. The devotions were centered around the gospel and we used the five colors on our gospel soccer balls: Green, black, red, white, and gold to show the children God's love for them from creation to Christ.

Green represents God's creation, black is our sin which separates us from God, red is the blood of Christ that was shed for each of us, white shows the cleansing of our sin when we accept the gift of Christ, and gold showing Christ's diety and the reward of Heaven to all who place their faith in Him.

Our skills station is led by Samuel Hedges and he works with each age group teaching them the skills needed to be successful on the pitch. They learn about the game of soccer as well as ball control drills designed to help them improve. Samuel's hands-on approach in working with the players and coaches results in improvement across the league each season.

God continues to bless this ministry and has provided in so many ways over the first 3 seasons. We are grateful for the ways that he continues to provide players and families from all over our community, he continues to bless with great weather each season, despite playing in June we saw some cloudy mornings which made the temperatures much more bearable. We are looking forward to seeing how He will use the ministry going forward, especially next year as the World Cup comes to Kansas City and soccer continues to grow in popularity all over the metro.