Hello from Matt Williams, CFC's newest staff member (next post 8/22)

Hello Community for Coaches!

This is Matt Williams writing, and I am the newest staff member for CFC. I am extremely excited to join Ryan in this ministry that God is already using throughout the KC metro, and I can’t wait to be a part of what God has in store for us in the future. With my first contribution to this blog, I wanted to introduce myself and talk a little bit about why I believe Coaching With Purpose is so important.




First, a little about me. I grew up in Michigan playing multiple sports, but baseball was always my passion. After excelling in high school, I earned a scholarship to play at Duke University. I was fortunate to earn a starting spot at catcher as a freshman and ended up starting all four of my years at Duke. After my senior year, I was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 18th round of the 2009 MLB draft and played one season of professional baseball. Even though I only played one year of professional ball, my body was past burned out, so I decided to retire and pursue a career in ministry and coaching. 

For the past four years, I have been working multiple jobs in ministry and have coached baseball on the side, including volunteering with CFC for over a year. Now, I am very excited to merge my work in ministry with my coaching efforts by joining the CFC staff team. 

Now, why does Coaching With Purpose matter? I believe Coaching With Purpose matters because, as coaches, our coaching provides too great of an opportunity to make an eternal impact in the lives of young people to not have a purpose behind our coaching. Everyone who has played a sport, no matter how old, remembers a coach, for better or for worse. The platform that coaches have is one that can have an enormous amount of influence on their players, both in life and in their respective sport. One of my favorite quotes comes from Jackie Robinson that says, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” I believe there is a lot of truth to that statement. Jesus, in Matthew 22, says that we are all called to love God and love others with our lives. Coaching is an opportunity to make an impact in the lives of young people, and to ultimately point our athletes to their Creator. I believe that coaches have too much responsibility and potential for impact to not put a lot of though and effort into why I coach. 

Personally, CFC has played a huge role in helping me to articulate my purpose in coaching. I have been through the Coaching With Purpose curriculum, and have developed the following purpose statement:

“I coach to develop my players into men of integrity who will love, serve, and lead others with confidence, excellence, and purpose.” 

That purpose statement is the lens through which I view everything as a coach. It is my why and my foundation. God has worked in my life through CFC, and I am so excited and grateful to officially join the staff of CFC and continue working hard to help every coach in Kansas City develop and successfully live out a transformational purpose in the lives of those whom they influence, thus becoming agents of eternal change.