Club Chaplain – So What!!!
Some things go well together and just fit, like apple crumble and custard,
fish and chips, Laurel & Hardy, Manchester United and Premiership
Champions??? But Glenavon and a Club Chaplain? Back in the late 80s and early
nineties when I stood on the terraces of Mourneview Park, if I had read in the
programme that we had a new club chaplain, I know what I would have said, Club
Chaplain – So What!!!
Now that I am that club chaplain, what have I to say to you who may be
thinking the same thing? Well, first of all, I consider myself to be just one of
the boys in regard to every other young man who stands on the terraces of
Glenavon every Saturday, with similar expectations, similar hopes, dreams,
failures, disappointments, weaknesses the list goes on. But I stand there
knowing that in spite of all my failings, there is a greater meaning and purpose
to my life, and this world, that I hope to share with others just by being me,
no airs or graces, warts and all. So in answer to the question ‘Club Chaplain,
So What’ I say, myself, I am just a young man who loves football, loves life,
loves people, who just wants to enjoy the football and the friendship with all
of you and be available to you as someone who hopefully, for the most part lives
in the same world you live in, and in some way be able to relate my own
experiences to you as we enjoy watching the Lurgan Blues.
Secondly, and closely related to the above, I want to ask you a question. If
Jesus were to come back to earth in physical form, where do you think he would
go and with whom would he choose to spend his time with? It would NOT be in the
churches, or in the places the people who go to church think he should be, it
would be in the very same places and with the very same people that the
religious people of his day said he should not go and should not associate with.
He would be on the terraces of Glenavon Football Club, he would be on the
training pitch with the players, he would be on the buses with the spectators,
because, as I always say to the folks in Shankill, Jesus calls us to be
different, yes, but He does NOT call us to be odd!
So in answer to the question, ‘Club Chaplain, So What’ I say; Firstly, I
just want to enjoy the football and the craic as a youngish man but as a
youngish Christian man who will be available to anyone confidentially who may
need a listening ear as we go through this sometimes troublous life. And
secondly hopefully to mingle and demonstrate that to be a Christian man does not
necessarily mean that we have to distance ourselves from real life, real
friendships and the things that we enjoy.
So as I close I say "Come on the Lurgan Blues"
William Orr
Chaplain of Glenavon FC
To contact William by email please use the link on the Club button at the top
of the page.
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