The FCA Club (short for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes) is an affiliate club on campus that seems, at first glance, just that: a congregation of Christian athletes. FCA’s scope, however, reaches far beyond that. Since its inception, way back in the olden times, FCA has been uplifting the minds and spirits of those present during meetings. Since the spring of 2017, they’ve met in S214 every other Tuesday during lunch.
Every meeting, members do curated activities that are centered around a certain theme or Bible verse, be it about joy or family, that the club leaders conceived of the week before. There’s some recurring things, notably sessions where students get to speak up about a topic they’re passionate about, be it concerning the theme or not. FCA fosters a space for vulnerability by being non-judgemental, so members are safe to be their authentic selves. Per the name, FCA members also discuss sports and how they’re doing, and offer to one another support regarding that. Everyone’s games are attended, and outside of campus, people attend each other’s youth groups and organize and engage in various community events.
FCA values a wide array of principles, such as integrity, excellence, service, and kindness. Mr. Brown believes every Bullard student has the capacity within them to be the best version of themselves, and believes FCA helps achieve that with their members. In fact, he believes society looks down upon teens for being vulnerable and open, so in the creation of FCA, there now was a space where teens could feel safe and secure, to be open and vulnerable with their true nature, and promote self-empowerment. As Mr. Brown puts it:
“If you just look at the political nature of our country right now, if you share your heart, you can be ostracized, right? And to have a safe place to go share and be vulnerable is super important […]. I think that everyone needs that in their own lives because we can’t always share it at home. We can’t share what is on our heart out in public.”
He further elaborated with:
“We get into this space inside of our own brains, especially as teenagers, where we just feel like we’re not good enough, right? And, let me tell ya, spoiler alert, it’s like that throughout all of life, where we feel that we’re not good enough, right? And so we [as FCA] want to give an opportunity for growth.”
FCA students are instilled with a confident, growth-oriented mindset, with his hope being that students come out as people who are more productive and upstanding, who’ll (hopefully) make an immense, positive impact on society.
FCA is also an affiliate club, like the CSF Club, which means it’s associated with an overarching organization, usually on the statewide or national scale. How connected affiliate clubs are to their organization may exist on a spectrum, from fully independent and merely using the name, to very dependent, where they receive full-fledged funding and have to follow organizational rules. FCA, on this scale. is more on the independent side, and this serves them well as they’re free to arrange anything they think is best for themselves, including whatever you think too if you were to participate.
Like its organization, FCA also isn’t tied to any specific denomination of Christianity. Really, you don’t need to be Christian or religious in any way to enjoy and develop the space with them. It’s a tight community made by Bullard students, for Bullard students. That’s ultimately what it is. Their next meeting is November 17th, and it’d be to your service to attend it.