MANY FIFA WORLD CUP GREATS GIVING GLORY TO GOD

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This year’s FIFA tournament is inadvertently platforming the Christian faith. World Cup head turners like Leo Messi and Felix Nmecha are part of a much broader line-up of Christian players proclaiming Soli Deo Gloria instead of bragging about scoring goals. Such as the US Men’s soccer team (USMNT), who have unashamedly taken more than one knee to shine their light before all men (Matthew 5:16).

Few salutes in soccer will hit home the way Felix Nmecha’s “crown down” gesture does. The unashamed Christian footballer’s Revelation 4:10–11 celebration went viral after he cast his crown upon scoring the sixth fastest goal so far in FIFA’s 2026 World Cup. Nmecha’s goal-scoring amplification of the gospel is being heralded as the 25-year-old’s signature celebration.

Like the legend Leo Messi, what grounds Nmecha isn’t fame. It’s faith, family and a love of the game. Talking casually with Sports World (SW) in May, the German-born, ethnic Nigerian said his upbringing and family play a big role in where he is today. Family means a lot, he asserted. They’re close and have been close from an early age. “Especially when you go through a lot of struggles and trials. When you go through them together, it just makes you even closer.”

Raised in Manchester, England, Nmecha recounted the ups and downs, telling SW, “The root and foundation is still [his] faith.” As a professional athlete, “you try and take all the positives that you can from the different things that you learn over.”

Discussing faith and how it also plays a role in his life, Nmecha said, “I grew up in a Christian household. So, we used to go to church, not every Sunday, but we used to go to church quite often.” “I always thought I was a Christian. And I’d tell people I’m a Christian. I was just following these things that you grow up with.” “But then I reached a point when I was like 14, 15 where I had a true conviction for myself to really put my faith in Jesus and not just follow a religion.” “I realised how much it is about just relationship with our creator,” Nmecha recalled. “Since taking that step, it’s been year by year,” he said, “just growing in that relationship with God and getting to know a lot of the truths and even evidence behind the faith.”

“Finding it out for myself and doing research on it as well has helped a lot to strengthen the faith; to know that it’s not just a blind thing that I’m following and putting my whole life into.” “I’d say obviously my faith is my main source of joy in my relationship with God but also just relationship.”

God, Joy and Sport

Expanding on this, Nmecha credited the Church and sound friendships with stability, stating, “I’m so grateful for a church that I’m able to go to and in so many different places as well.” “It’s not always easy to find the right one for you, but when you do, it’s such a blessing.”

On the sports world’s daily grind, Nmecha affirmed a love for the game that many lose. “I think it can be easy in football because it for some people becomes just like a job.” “I’m grateful that I still have that joy and I don’t just see it as my job. I see it as a blessing that I’m able to do something that I love every day.” The money is a gift, not the goal, he asserted. Nmecha said his greater goal is “to really honour and glorify Christ. It’s so much more than just like being a footballer.” “I think if you’re tied to that, and it is everything that you are and who you are, [just being a footballer] can be very dangerous.” “What happens when your career finishes?” “So, I always try and speak on the fact of not having your identity in football.” As great as soccer is, and as great as being able to play professionally is, Nmecha said, it “shouldn’t be your basis for who you are.”

Providing a blunter take on his faith, Nmecha recalled the reset in his relationship with Jesus Christ, telling the Football with Vision project that he signed his first contract at the age of 17. After an injury set him back, Nmecha fought off the temptation to wallow and brood. He instead chose to “use the time to invest in his relationship with God.”

He now considers the injury downtime as a blessing. Nmecha said, “I grew spiritually like never before. I also grew mentally.” “I was always trying to stay focused in school,” he explained. And “in football, of course sometimes you mess about, but I saw myself as a good person, a good son.” Nmecha recalled learning that “I wasn’t good and was actually in need of a Saviour.” This “brought me to Jesus, and just through that time I realised that by my own works, in my own strength, it wasn’t possible to be saved.” “It’s not possible to have eternal life at the end of the day. I realised,” he added, “that my works will not be good enough because God’s standard is perfect.” “None of us are perfect,” Nmecha continued. “I had a good friend. He was also born again. We were always encouraging each other as we were growing and learning.”

“A big part was realising that football is a huge blessing, but it would never give you the fulfilment that you think it does.” Nmecha then testified that he came to realise only Jesus could provide that fulfilment. Understanding this, he said, “has helped him so much because it’s made him see that when his joy and his peace are in Christ, then his life can be constant.” “I can promise people,” Nmecha stated, “that when you get to know Jesus, you will be fulfilled.”

“It doesn’t mean that when someone comes to Christ all the hardship is going to stop; it means you know God is with you through it.” Sharing the gospel, and leaning on John 3:16–17, the rising soccer star proclaimed: “What Jesus did on that cross, he died for us so that we could have this relationship with him.” This is also so “that we could know actually who he’s created us to be. There’s so much peace, joy and just truth in Jesus.” “Once you experience this, your life will never be the same. That’s how I came to Christ.”

As Nmecha told Football with Vision, “I was lost. I thought I was a Christian. I thought I was good, but I was self-righteous and prideful, and God, Jesus saved me.”

Casting His Crown

Nmecha putting his crown down wasn’t without controversy. The gratitude gesture was misconstrued by some oddball commentators who tried to represent Nmecha’s actions as him “crowning himself” (see here and here). Correcting the misconception, X accounts like Ballers for God, Christhlete, and X’s own community notes, explained that “after scoring, Nmecha was symbolically laying down his crown.” This was “a reminder that every gift, every victory and every moment of glory ultimately belong to Jesus.”

YOU WILL ENJOY HEARING MARY ELLEN BROOKS

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Mary Ellen Brooks walked onto the stage of America’s Talent Arena looking nervous, quiet, and completely ordinary.
But the moment she began singing…
The entire atmosphere changed.
Her original worship ballad, “He Still Knows My Name,” became one of the most emotional moments ever seen on the show.
The audience fell silent. The judges were left speechless. And by the final chorus, tears were everywhere across the arena.
This wasn’t about fame. This wasn’t about perfection.

It was about a woman who believed God never forgot her. And maybe… He hasn’t forgotten you either.

GOD USES PERSECUTION TO GROW THE CHURCH IN UKRAINE

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As war continues to devastate Ukraine, a mighty spiritual revival is unfolding amid the ruins, according to Ukrainian evangelist David Karcha, who told a gathering of European church leaders that the Gospel becomes unstoppable in a time of war. Speaking at the European Congress on Evangelism in Berlin, Germany, on May 29, Karcha described how churches across Ukraine have become beacons of hope, drawing thousands to Christ even as the country endures deep physical and emotional suffering. His address came just a day after Franklin Graham met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin to pray for peace, underscoring the Congress’s message of gospel resilience in the face of crisis. “In a time of peace, the Gospel is powerful. But in a time of war, it is unstoppable,” said Karcha in his opening remarks in which he brought greetings from the Evangelical wider Church in Ukraine to the Berlin Congress delegates.

After Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Karcha said Ukrainian Evangelicals faced a critical choice: to fracture and flee, or to remain and share in the suffering of their fellow countrymen. This was “not because we had a plan, not because we felt ready, but because we saw that even the smallest act done in faith becomes a part of something much greater.” “Hope as a reality is something searched for as part of human existence seeking “something greater, something essential,” Karcha pondered. For the Church in Ukraine, this journey of hope, made within the light of the living Lord Jesus, has meant taking small steps as a unified community moving together. By doing so, “it becomes a movement no war can stop.” Karcha wanted to set the record straight about religious persecution, often dominating news about Christian Ukrainians. He pointed out that the main headline story in Ukraine is about masses of people turning to Christ. The church minister said that in 2023 “alone,” Baptist churches witnessed “thousands of people publicly profess their faith through baptism.”

The Church has woken up to the spiritual hunger in the country and stood up to the challenge of serving not just bodies but souls. In the last three years, Karcha testified that “hundreds of thousands of people have walked through the doors of Ukrainian churches and encountered the love and care of God.” “Many of them for the first time in their life,” he added, and told the story he heard from a German pastor at the Congress of a particular woman who knew nothing of church but fled to Germany as a refugee and sought shelter in a church. She experienced food, care and the church showed love, telling her about Jesus. The woman eventually gave her heart to Jesus Christ. Karcha thanked churches across Europe for their loving support for Ukrainians in the past few years of the war. “The body of Christ is not confined to one country or to one border but is alive and active whenever his people are present,” said Karcha, to more applause. “Thank you for being his hands and his heart for those who are in real need.”

“God is teaching us to listen and to see where he is already at work,” he continued. “Ukrainian churches are there on the front lines, ministering as chaplains in the trenches and grounds, at hospitals, bringing prayer and the hope of Christ to the soldiers in the fire of battle and places of hopelessness.” “We are there for the widows of fallen soldiers and for the orphans whose mothers are never coming home, holding their clothes, sharing the grief. We minister to those who have lost everything, homes reduced to rubble, families torn apart, bodies and souls scared by unspeakable fragments and torture brought to us by the Russian army.” All of these ministries start with active listening, Karcha said, “We listen. We pray. We help. And then when we see how we can help and what can be gone, we speak Jesus.” A man called Viktor, in his mid-50s, came to Karcha’s own church as a refugee, “like so many other at that time.” He was a quiet man, according to the church leader, who seemed broken and carried a “lifelong lifetime of burdens.”

One day, Viktor asked Karcha if they could talk. He disclosed that he knew about God since childhood and spent many decades running away from him, causing pain around him. However, he declared a readiness to surrender his life to Christ. “He cried. He wept. And he was born again, right in front of our eyes,” said Karcha, adding that God is still at work and listening, and still redeeming, bringing children home. “Dear brothers and sisters,” Karcha told delegates, “This is a little bit of what God is doing in our country. He’s awakening his church, stirring a desperate search for hope, and teaching us to listen and watch him work.” “He’s stirring suffering into testimony, fear into faith, and small acts of love into seeds for his kingdom. In the world’s eyes, Ukraine is a story of war. But in God’s eyes, it is a story of revival, a story that reminds us all that the Gospel … advances. That even when the rockets are exploding next to us, the foundation of Christ stands firm. That even in the darkest night, the light of his truth still breaks.” “Let history bow down to the cross,” Karcha said, concluding with an encouragement to boldly proclaim Jesus as Lord regardless of circumstance.

Source:   Christian Daily International

EZEKIEL’S END TIMES PROPHECY IS COMING TO LIFE

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Ezekiel’s Prophecy Is Coming to Life—The Return to Israel Has Begun! This is a Christian motivational video that aims to bless, inspire, and encourage you while strengthening your prayer life and daily walk with God. As you listen to this daily devotional video, may Jesus Christ light up your life!

YFC ACTIVE AT SCHOOLIES ON THE GOLD COAST

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Mark Powell is the pastor at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, Hobart, and a writer and commentator on Christian issues. Pastor Powell was especially impressed to learn what happened at Schoolies on the Gold Coast last month.

He was pleasantly surprised to see a story about “queues of teens” lining up to be baptised in a mainstream media report written by Eleanor Katelaris on news.com.au, one of Australia’s two dominant news sites according to Ipsos rankings. She wrote in part: “An organisation called Youth for Christ (YFC) is hosting public baptisms, inviting teenagers to embrace a more spiritual path amid the usual Schoolies chaos.” “It is a public declaration of faith signifying the symbolic death of a believer’s old life and the beginning of a brand new life following Jesus.”

“This wholesome side of Schoolies has caught the attention of many on TikTok, where one YFC missionary is sharing videos of their initiative.” “It’s certainly an unusual sight – in one clip, a sea of young people walk through the main strip of Surfers Paradise holding Jesus Loves You and Get Baptised signs.” “In another, teens are seen lining up on the street to visit the YFC stall on the main strip.” Cindy McGarvie, National Director of Youth for Christ Australia, said its mission teams have been offering baptisms at Schoolies since 2016. “We’re at Schoolies to share the hope of Jesus. It’s the message we want to be sharing wherever we go. The baptisms are a small, but significant outworking of this simple focus,” she told the reporter. Ms. McGarvie said the feedback this year was “overwhelmingly positive” — noting that most nights there was a constant flow of schoolies coming up to them, asking genuine questions about God. She conceded there can be a lot of “negative influences” on young people at Schoolies, so she is “thrilled” to see so many keen to learn about Christianity.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/teens-are-getting-baptised-at-schoolies/video/b00e14b04343b15ddc0754fd68dd2122