The commandments of the "Chaplain"

Some of the Commandments of being a "Sports" Chaplain as outlined by South Carolina Football Chaplain Adrian Despres reads like this:
1)Never Coach.
2)Never Get in the Way.
3)Never be a fan.
4)Never deal with the media.

Most of these are pretty simple for me. Even though I am a Bass Fisherman I have never had the temptation to try and teach Dean Rojas how to fish a frog or instruct KVD on my spinnerbait ideas.
I was asked by Bernie Schultz once to move my motorcycle helmet while he was fighting 5 pounder at Lake wheeler. (He caught the fish BTW). As far as the media goes, I am pretty much invisible on the BASS Scene. No reporters are beating down the door to get the opinion of the Bass Chaplain. I would say that out of the 4 "Chaplain commandments" only one gives me a little trouble.

"Never be a fan" is difficult for a guy who's heroes were all BASS Pros growing up. I mean I still get the shakes when I speak to Paul Elias, Shaw Grigsby, and Rick Clunn. This past season proved to be a real struggle for the "Never be a fan" command. Out of the top 5 finishers for the Angler of the year title,(AOY) 4 of them were FOCAS members, and attend our Bible Study on a regular Basis.

This year on the Tour we tried something a little different with our worship times. In the past we have traditionally had the FOCAS meeting before the Pre Tournament meeting. We elected to try it afterwards this year. We improved the number of Pros that attend our meetings, but lost most of the Marshalls.(Marshalls are amateurs that ride along with the Pros during the event).

On the Final tournament we decided to do both. We had a meeting before which was mostly Marshalls, and a meeting after for the Pros. We ended up seeing 9 Marshalls Pray to receive Christ. The plan for next year is to do 2 (FOCAS) meetings per BASS Elite Series Event.

When you think of Mission work often times visions of far away and exotic lands come to mind. That is certainly a part of our Mission as followers of Christ. We don't often envision a guy that rides in a $60,000 Bass boat as a "Mission" Field. However a person's financial status does not determine where he or she spends eternity. The fact is that everyone not matter where they are or what their social status is needs Jesus. I've got the 4 Chaplain Commandments down. It's the great commandment in Matthew 28:16-20 that I'm working on now.