Community members strategize to bring full-time FCA leader to Union County
EL DORADO — Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) has brought student athletes together through their faith for 60 years and community members gathered recently at a luncheon to bring the ministry to Union County.
FCA is an international sports ministry where “huddles” of school athletes meet in student-led groups and minister to one another. Danny Rivers has volunteered with FCA for over 20 years, because it meant a lot to him in high school, he said.
“I’ve tried the best that I could to get a student huddle on every campus and there is one occasionally in Parkers Chapel … in the past, but there is one at Barton and El Dorado High,” Rivers said. “There’s a really strong huddle in Smackover … I’ve really tried to train students, get students ready so students know how to lead a huddle meeting.”
The student-led groups can invite a school official, coach or teacher to speak during a huddle, but this model gives the students freedom to lead and minister as they see fit, he said.
“It’s one of the few places, one of the few methods that still exists to get the gospel of Jesus Christ into a campus. I’m going to continue to volunteer,” Rivers said. “After practice, a coach will dismiss practice and say ‘Practice is over. You can go home, but if you want to stay five more minutes, Mr. Rivers wants to talk to you.’ Some of them leave and some of them stay.”
Rivers said that if a fulltime staff person came to the community, it would help create more consistent huddles on campuses and in athletic leagues around the county.
“I am thrilled with the idea that Eric (Akin) had when he came to me and said, ‘I think we’re ready. We’ve been doing a lot of things here. Seeds have been planted here for many, many years. I think we’re ready to hire someone here full-time.”
A group of community members known as the Vision Team, hosted a luncheon to solicit teammates and team captains for help. The Vision Team includes Rivers, Texarkana, Texas FCA area representative Eric Akin, El Dorado School District superintendent Jim Tucker, lawyer John Thomas Shepherd and El Dorado School Based Health Center administrator Debbie McAdams.
A teammate makes a commitment of a monthly or yearly gift while a team
captain makes a commitment of a monthly or yearly gift and recruits others to do the same, Rivers said.
“If we hire somebody from here to work here and we tell this person ‘You can leave your comfortable job with your salary and you can come over to a job that has an equal salary,’ … a teammate is somebody that says ‘I’m going to make a commitment and I’m going to help cover that person’s salary,” he said.
Akin said he has traveled from Texarkana, Texas to assist with huddles and if the community could “clone him that would be great,” Rivers said.
FCA uses coach, campus, camp and community ministries to uphold its vision “to see the world impacted for Jesus Christ through the influence of coaches and athletes,” Akin said.
“Billy Graham said that a coach can influence more people in a year than most of us sitting in this room will in
a lifetime. Why not influence for Jesus Christ? That’s what we want coaches to do,” Akin said. “That’s why we want FCA in this area more prevalent because when a rep comes to town, everything changes. It goes to another level. Nobody needed the dentist until the dentist came to town.”
For more information about FCA or to join Team FCA,
contact Danny Rivers at 870814-4064 or by email at dannyrivers@sbcglobal.net.
Brittany Williams may be contacted by email at bwilliams@ eldoradonews.com. Follow her on Twitter and like her on Facebook @BWilliamsEDNT for updates on Union County school news.