FAITH-BASED DEVELOPMENTAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE'S COACH: "WE PUT GOD FIRST IN EVERYTHING WE DO"

By NANCY FLORY 

An uplifting story from a sport that's taken a lot of shots this week.

Coach J. David Miller of the SoCal Coyotes

“The story we don’t get to tell other outlets is that there’s only one path to heaven and that’s through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Coach J. David Miller of the SoCal Coyotes doesn’t sound like he’s talking about a football league. But he is.

God First

Coach Miller was approached several years ago to open a developmental football league in the Coachella Valley of California. After praying about it, he and his family made the commitment to move across the country. This was a program like none other: It began as a ministry — the only pro football ministry in the world, Miller says.

Faith is involved in all that the program represents and does. Even the logo has a spiritual meaning: “That shield behind the coyote represents God first, family second and football third,” explained Miller in an interview with The Stream. “We teach the boys that if you do the first two, the third will take care of itself.”

Being a developmental football team isn’t easy by any means. Everyone’s in development. “Everybody comes here with an asterisk,” said Miller. “Our job is to find that asterisk and remove it.” The asterisk could represent anything from poor grades in college to past performance on the field.

The ‘Conveyor Belt to Manhood’

All potential players are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but they must have one thing in common: “At the end of the day, it all comes down to the choices you make and your desire,” Miller said. “Do you wake up this morning with a desire to change? Do you wake up with a hunger and a thirst to be better?”

If so, Miller says that’s when the players get on a “conveyor belt to manhood.” This is no simple metaphor, because it represents the main focus of the Coyotes. The players want to develop their skills to play in the NFL, he says. 

But we’re also developing them as men so that in the event they never play another down, that they find themselves secure in themselves, secure in the Lord, secure in the Gospel of Christ and secure in the path that Christ has laid out for them and each one of them are different.

‘We Put God First in All That We Do’

But Miller isn’t about hitting the players over the head with the Gospel. “We don’t believe that you can mandate faith or Christianity,” he said. “We do believe you can expose people to it and it’s their opportunity to accept it or turn away.” And players are not required to be Christians to play. But, said Miller, “he’ll operate within that sphere of understanding that this is a faith-based ministry — that we put God first in all that we do.”

Some guys have not heard the Gospel before, but they do during orientation. Coaches and stuff, including former NFL players, witness to them. The athletic director is also a minister and counsels them individually. And the most important verses they teach? “In the beginning, God,” said Miller. “If you can get those four words, you can get the rest of the book.”

There’s one key that unlocks the Bible — obedience. “We all answer to authority,” Miller explained. “And we begin to unlock the promises of the Word of God through acts of obedience and acts of accountability.” He added, “So we start that process the day they get here.”

Coyotes don’t have it easy. The curriculum is rigorous and a strict code of conduct requires them to hold a job and take care of their families. “We’re just putting good boundaries up, really strong boundaries, and surrounding them with great leadership. Then we just stand back and watch them flourish,” said Miller. 

The Mentors

The leaders the Coyotes learn from are NFL greats. They include Assistant Coach Lynn Cain, who played 8 years in the NFL, Lombardi Award winner Brad Budde, who played seven seasons in the NFL, and Mouse Davis, former assistant coach of the Atlanta Falcons and the Detroit Lions.

Miller asks all of the mentors to reach out to the players. They need to make themselves available to them. “That’s the most important thing, accessibility.”

The mentors aren’t the only heroes in the league, however. All of the Coyotes volunteer to help kids on and off the field. “Not only do we work with the kids that are in the schools, we volunteer with over 100 organizations throughout the Coachella Valley,” said Miller. That means volunteering for the Boys and Girls Clubs, all of the middle schools, high school camps.

Players go into Juvenile Hall with a program called Real Men Read. Coyotes read to the kids and work with them on their life skills. Sometimes they send the “hard-scrabble” players to juvenile hall to talk so the youth there can “see the importance of the good choices” the players made.

‘We’re All in the Same Boat Now’

The Coyotes’ league isn’t just for those who’ve had a rough life, although Miller understands that. He grew up without what he calls “a male rudder,” and his passion for this work comes from that. His father wasn’t around when he was growing up, but his mother was a strong Christian influence in his life.

But many of the teammates came from good homes, nuclear families with both parents. “But the amazing thing is you put them all together,” said Miller. “I tell them, ‘it doesn’t matter what ship you came in on, we’re all in the same boat now.'”

“We go about our Father’s business to share the love of Jesus with all those that are in our path,” he said. “We can’t go fast enough.” While the players represent different dreams for the future, “when you funnel all of that energy and you nourish it with the Word of God and you nourish it with the Holy Spirit … these men are an unstoppable force.” 

He adds that as servant leaders, they “assume no rights.” “We’re here to serve. It’s the front lines of the Gospel.” He added, “We are all called to witness and football is merely a platform. Every single person on earth has been given a skill, given a gift. Our gift just happens to fall under a tiny little niche called football. And we’re using that platform to the glory of God.”

2 REASONS THE PROTESTING NFL STARS ARE WRONG

by Christopher Corbett

The flag and our anthem represent America's principles and ideals — not society's departure from them.

Members of the Cleveland Browns take a knee during the national anthem before an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts in Indianapolis, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017.

Taking up chess will be more mentally strengthening than watching the NFL. But before I dust off the board, I need to leave behind two reasons I believe protesting the national anthem and the flag is a bad idea.

Attack on America’s Ideals

First, whether intentional or not, the protests target the fundamental principles and ideals of our nation. The national anthem is a poem set to music. In it, the flag is said to embody American ideals. That’s what national anthems and flags of nations do. They embody the ideals and core principles of that nation. They don’t embody the ugly departures from those ideals.

So to visibly disrespect the anthem and flag signals that you probably believe one of two things. Perhaps you don’t agree with those ideals. Or perhaps you think those ideals have been irrevocably perverted so that the flag and anthem are now a mockery of those ideals. And therefore you are disassociating your very allegiance to the nation itself.

These sports stars showing disrespect for the national anthem and the flag — stars that sadly include many who are Christians — are either confused or cowardly. 

But is this reasonable? These millionaire sports stars are made rich by the social environment created by American ideals. Do they actually disagree with those very ideals? 

Or perhaps it is the second reason: they believe that American ideals have been so perverted that their symbols must be rejected. But if so, how did this perversion result in their status as millionaires? How did its total loss result in the election of an African-American president? An unprecedented number of racial-minority political and corporate leaders? So many minority academicians? Integrated schools? Widespread interracial marriage? It seems farcical to make this contention.

It’s fair game to criticize the actions of one’s country. But they should honor the ideals. They should honor the symbols of those ideals. And they should honor those who spilled blood to preserve those principles.

I can personalize this. As a pro-life American, I could perhaps justify refusing to honor the symbols of a nation whose leaders have allowed the genocide of the unborn. But I don’t resort to such a protest. I believe that legal abortion is a departure from the country’s ideals. I also believe that within our system the return to those ideals is viable, not irrevocably lost. This was Lincoln’s stance regarding slavery. So despite the heartache of the partial departure of America from what it is meant to be, I will salute those ideals and principles as embodied in the flag and anthem.

Attacking God-Ordained Authority

Second, as a Christian, I understand that God ordained nations to give order and justice to a fallen humanity. Nations and their laws are a guard against anarchy — which is even worse than bad government. Thus, the Bible teaches me to honor the ruling authorities. (And that injunction was written during the reign of Nero). Of course, the nation is not to become an idol. But it is to be respected as a creation of God for the general good.

And so I will respect the symbols of that nation. I see the nation as representing God’s grace, despite the flaws. I will try to move it toward a more perfect alignment with God’s ideals for any nation. But unless the nation utterly transforms its symbols as representing evil (such as the Germans did with the Swastika, which I would not have honored), then I will publicly respect those symbols.

The sports stars showing disrespect for the national anthem and the flag — stars that sadly include many who are Christians — are either confused or a bit cowardly. There are no other categories for them. If they are serious about their stance, perhaps they should stop merely posturing and transfer their citizenship to nations more in line with whatever ideals they believe America lacks. Because it is the symbols of American ideals these athletes are choosing to dishonor. That’s why so many fellow citizens who might otherwise listen to their arguments are instead tuning them out.

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FORMER MLB STAR SAYS FAITH IN JESUS HELPED HIM BEAT OPIOID ADDICTION

By NICK GIVAS

Darryl Strawberry 

Former Major League Baseball star Darryl Strawberry spoke out about his personal struggle with drug use Wednesday, crediting his faith in Jesus to help him overcome opioid addiction.

“It’s faith. It’s in Jesus that my life changed forever. We need to get back to faith and get faith programs to educate them and that part of the brokenness that’s going on inside,” he said on Fox and Friends.

“And there’s some brokenness that goes on inside that needs to be healed. We don’t know what happened to people, so we should always care about them. Because their life matters, regardless of them getting addicted to drugs. There are places that can help them and education is the most important part.”

Strawberry said it’s not about race or color but about people helping one another to get back on the right path.

“People help people. And if we don’t get back to what this is really all about is being real people and not color, but get back to just helping people — people are going to continue to die,” he said.

He added President Donald Trump was right to label the problem a crisis and said young people are especially susceptible to drug and alcohol addiction because of their brain chemistry.

“He [Trump’s] right. It’s a crisis. And we just need to get out here and we need to just really educate everybody, and the stigma of addiction and drugs are real. And people need help, and we just need to get back to doing that,” Strawberry said. “Anything that you use as a drug that alters your mind is going to change your thinking and the process of who you are. That’s why so many young people are getting so addicted to the opiates. Because their brains are young, and once it alters their mind they feel good, it changes them and it separates them from who they really are.”

Strawberry said opioid and drug addiction is not limited to urban areas, claiming many of the young people he sees in treatment are from the suburbs. He also warned parents to be more discriminating with how they dispense pain medication to their children.

“These are suburban kids that are coming to treatment that are lost. That are looking for answers … we try to lead them into faith so they can find out ‘what’s wrong with me.’ The trauma inside of them no one knows,” he said. “And parents need to be careful about allowing their kids to pick up prescription pills. They need to get away from that when they get injures. Give them Tylenol and let them go lay on the couch until they feel better.”

UNIVERSITY SETTLES LAWSUIT WITH SCIENTIST FIRED AFTER HE FOUND SOFT TISSUE IN DINOSAUR BONES

By Chad Dou 

CSUN scientist Mark Armitage

CSUN scientist Mark Armitage found soft tissue in a dinosaur bone, a discovery that throws significant doubt on evolution. Then, two weeks after publishing his findings, he was fired.

Now California State University at Northridge has paid Armitage a six-figure sum to settle his wrongful termination suit based on religious discrimination. While the university admits no wrongdoing, Armitage’s attorney said they feared losing a protracted lawsuit because of a “smoking gun” email that backed the plaintiff’s case.

The case of Armitage is the latest to show the mounting hostility Christians face in academics and other public arenas.

“Soft tissue in dinosaur bones destroys ‘deep time.’ Dinosaur bones cannot be old if they’re full of soft tissue,” Armitage said in a YouTube video. “Deep time is the linchpin of evolution. If you don’t have deep time, you don’t have evolution. The whole discussion of evolution ends if you show that the earth is young. You can just erase evolution off the whiteboard because of soft tissue in dinosaur bones.”

Armitage was hired as a microscopist to manage CSUN’s electron and confocal microscope suite in 2010. He had published some 30 articles in scientific journals about his specialty.

A graduate of Liberty University, Armitage adheres to the “young earth” view,  against the majority of scientists who say our planet is 5 billion years old. He engaged students in his lab with Socratic dialogue over the issue of the earth’s age based on his and others’ research, he said.

In May 2012, Armitage went on a dinosaur dig at the famous fossil site of Hell Creek in Montana, where he unearthed the largest triceratops horn ever found there. Back at CSUN, he put the fossil under his microscope and made the startling discovery: unfossilized, undecayed tissue was present.

If the dinosaur were 65 million years old, the soft tissue could not have possibly remained, he says. His findings seconded groundbreaking discoveries by noted molecular paleontologist Mary Schweitzer, who triggered an earthquake in the world of paleontology when she published about soft tissue in dinosaur bones in 2005. (Schweitzer subsequently postulated that iron is responsible for preserving the soft tissue.)

Armitage’s February 2013 study was published in the peer-reviewed Acta Histochemica, a journal of cell and tissue research. Two week later, he found himself without a job.

A biology professor had come into his office and said, “We are not going to tolerate your religion in this department.”

Armitage fought back. Professors and students alike had praised his work managing the microscope lab. His suit alleged he was excluded from a secret meetings of the microscopy committee. In a “smoking gun” email, university officials suggested they could ease Armitage out of his part-time position by making it full-time, Reinach said.

A colleague described the process as a “witch hunt,” according to Inside Higher Ed.

For two years, CSUN fought Armitage’s lawsuit. The university alleged his firing was simply a restructuring of their biology department and not a case of religious discrimination. But CSUN lost its bid to have the judge summarily throw the case out of court as groundless in July of last year.

So CSUN settled with Armitage for $399,500 in 2016, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Alan Reinach, Armitage’s attorney, hailed the settlement as precedent-setting.

“We are not aware of any other cases where a creationist received a favorable outcome,” said Reinach, executive director of the Church State Council, a nonprofit California public interest legal organization. “This was truly a historic case.”

CSUN has downplayed its decision to settle, saying in a statement that the university is committed to religious freedom and freedom of speech.

“The Superior Court did not rule on the merits of Mr. Armitage’s complaint, and this voluntary settlement is not an indication of wrong-doing,” according to a CSUN statement published in Retraction Watch. “The decision to settle was based on a desire to avoid the costs involved in a protracted legal battle, including manpower, time and state dollars.”

But Reinach countered: “They certainly would not have paid that kind of money if they did not recognize that we had them dead to rights. The state doesn’t put large, six-figure settlement money out unless they are really concerned they are going to lose.”

Prior to looking for soft tissue in dinosaur bones, Armitage studied diatoms, unicellular organisms that make up phytoplankton, which reveal a dizzying complexity and organization at the microscopic level.

According to Armitage, the beauty and complexity of diatoms lends credence to the idea they are a product of a Creator and not of spontaneous evolution.

“Evolution is structure supported by two pillars: one is chance, and the other is time. Chance is required because we obviously can’t say that a thinking force created life on earth. That is anathema for the materialists. If you kick out one of those two pillars the whole structure collapses,” Armitage noted. “If you kick out chance by showing incredible design, the structure of evolution starts to totter and it may crash. Because you cannot have design in a world that doesn’t have a Designer.

“The other pillar is time because you cannot get a man from a frog unless the princess kissed the frog. That’s a fairy tale. So in science you have to have deep time to get evolution.”

Subsequent to the controversy, Armitage has been on additional digs and found more soft tissue but is finding it difficult to get published. “I’m clearly being blackballed,” he said in The College Fix.

“Soft tissue in dinosaur bones destroys deep time.” Armitage said. “Dinosaur bones cannot be old if they’re full of soft tissue.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP DECLARES SUNDAY "A NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER"

by Heather Sells

President Trump has just declared Sunday to be "a National Day of Prayer," joining with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who has also called on Texans to pray for recovery efforts from Hurricane Harvey.

"We are deeply grateful for those performing acts of service, and we pray for healing and comfort for those in need," the President's proclamation states.

"As response and recovery efforts continue, and as Americans provide much needed relief to the people of Texas and Louisiana, we are reminded of Scripture's promise that 'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,'" the proclamation continues.

"I call on all Americans and houses of worship throughout the Nation to join in one voice of prayer, as we seek to uplift one another and assist those suffering from the consequences of this terrible storm," Trump says.

 Meanwhile, the governor of Texas has also called on his fellow Texans and people around the country to pray for Texas on Sunday.

Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation calling for an official day of prayer for Texans "of all faiths and religious traditions and backgrounds."

The governor is urging people to pray for the safety of first responders, public safety officers and military personnel involved in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

He's also calling for prayers for the "healing of individuals, rebuilding of communities and the restoration of the entire region struck by this disaster."

Abbott applauded Texans for helping each other through the ordeal and noted they are grateful for the support and resources they've received in days since Harvey struck.

Harvey has caused record flooding in parts of the state and has been blamed for the deaths of more than 30 people.

In 2011, Texas Gov. Rick Perry also called for official prayer but ironically--he called for prayers for rain. At the time, the Lone Star state was in the throes of severe drought and wildfires. Perry called for three official days of prayer, from April 22-24, to pray for rain.