MLB Standouts and Ben Zobrist Impact Communities, Share Faith with Fellowship of Christian Athletes

With Under Way, Players Work to Make a Difference Off the Field; Talk to FCA About Their Trust in Christ

KANSAS CITY, Mo.— is a numbers game. Balls and strikes. ERA. pitched. Bases stolen. Runs scored.

But for two standout MLB players, the numbers off the baseball diamond are eternally more important as any they may rack up on the field.

Multiple Award winner Clayton Kershaw has a home with the for the next four years, and Ben Zobrist has returned to his home state of Illinois to play with the with the until 2020.

With some security in their careers, these two players are making sure others feel secure as well—in their faith.

Kershaw and Zobrist have talked to Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA, www.fca.org) Magazine about their faith journeys, and have remained active with the six-decade-old international sports ministry.

“Spring Training marks a new beginning for baseball each season,” said FCA President and CEO Les Steckel, “and we’re happy to feature the stories of players like Clayton Kershaw and Ben Zobrist. These Big Leaguers know that Little Leaguers all around the world are looking up to them, and they don’t take the responsibility lightly. For more than 60 years, FCA has focused on impacting coaches and athletes through Christ, and our late founder, Don McClanen, dreamed about a Christian organization where pro athletes would talk about their faith just as passionately as they endorsed products. His vision has been realized, as we help share the stories of these players and countless other athletes from every sport who make impact on every playing field.”

For Kershaw, the numbers came one by one, in the form of enamored kids in Africa, clamoring around the seemingly giant for a game a catch. It was a trip to Zambia that changed his outlook—on baseball and on life.

But years before that trip, the baseball world was talking about the Highland Park High School pitcher that virtually no one could . It was at Highland Park that his faith in Christ grew. He began attending his high school’s FCA Huddle as a freshman and stayed actively involved all four years. Even now, he and his wife, Ellen, return to Highland Park each offseason to speak at the FCA Huddle there.

“In high school, everybody called themselves Christians, but FCA brought it to the forefront,” Kershaw told FCA for a magazine interview. “It really helped me grow and showed me that it’s a lifestyle. Jesus is your Savior, and you live for Him. Everything you do is for Him, and athletics are a part of that.”

In 2006, the Dodgers drafted Kershaw from his hometown of . Then during a Spring Training game against Boston in 2008, his legend continued to grow, after Kershaw struck out three-time All-Star on an 0-2 that was so wicked, renowned Dodgers broadcaster declared it “Public Enemy No. 1.”

Kershaw made his MLB debut in L.A. on May 25, 2008, at just 20 years old—the youngest player in the majors that year and the fourth-youngest in Dodgers history. A decade later, Kershaw is among the great Dodger , but as Ellen says, Clayton is “the most humble person you’ll ever meet,” adding, “He realizes there’s more to life than baseball. With Clayton, he’s always had a greater perspective.” For anyone else, that perspective may be hard to keep, especially the way Kershaw’s career has exploded. He’s pitched in every All-Star Game since 2011, won the NL in 2011, 2013 and 2014 and was named the NL TSN Pitcher of the Year three times. In 2014, Kershaw was the Most Valuable Player, and No. 22 has also been honored with the 2012 Award and the 2013 Award; Rickey was one of the “Founding Fathers” of FCA.

Kershaw’s perspective in life took on a tangible shape when he joined Ellen on a trip to Zambia, Africa, in 2010. His wife had a heart for the region and the many needs of its people, but she tried to prepare her husband for the poverty of Zambia, where homes are spaces underneath battered plastic sheets and people subsist on less than a dollar per day, where two shirts are a luxury, running water doesn’t exist and raw sewage fills the streets, where 13.5 percent of all adults carry HIV or AIDS—the sixth-worst rate worldwide—and roughly half the population is age 16 or under because of the disease’s staggering death toll.

“The AIDS/HIV virus has pretty much knocked out an entire generation,” Kershaw “It’s kids raising kids or grandparents raising kids. It presents an overwhelming task because you can’t get to every kid.”

Moved by that trip, Clayton and Ellen started Kershaw’s Challenge in 2011, a Christ-centered, others-focused organization existing to encourage people to use whatever God-given passion or talent they have to make a difference and give back to people in need. The organization seeks to empower people to use their spheres of influence to positively impact communities and to expand God’s Kingdom, believing that God can transform at-risk children and neighborhoods through the benevolence and impact of others. For more about Kershaw’s Challenge, visit www.kershawschallenge.com.

Kershaw can expect to be in L.A. for at least a while, having signed with the team through 2020. Just this month, the MLB Network named Kershaw No. 3 on its list of the top 100 players going in to the 2016 season. But Kershaw is keeping his eye on the ball long into the future.

“My legacy … I hope it’s more than baseball,” Kershaw told FCA. “I hope I have a lasting impact. At the same time, I hope I get to play baseball for a long time. I love it. I hope I get to do a ton of different things with that. But I hope it opens up a lot of different avenues that wouldn’t be easily accessible without baseball.”

Like Kershaw, Chicago Cubs’ new acquisition Ben Zobrist—called a “super ”— makes certain that his influence in the world matches or exceeds his numbers on the field. Over his 10-year career, Zobrist has been with the ’ minor league club, Tampa Bay, Oakland and Kansas City, joining Chicago this season, back in Illinois where he attended high school in his hometown of Eureka. In December, Zobrist and the Cubs inked a four-year deal.

And in those 10 years, Zobrist has seen success on the diamond—a steady force for all of his teams—and was a member of the 2009 and 2013 All-Star teams.

Zobrist, married to his wife, Juliana, since 2005, first became involved with FCA while in high school and college, and attended an FCA Leadership Camp. Today, he continues to make frequent appearances at FCA events and has ministered to FCA Huddle Coaches.

“I loved my time in FCA as a student-athlete,” Zobrist told FCA Magazine. “And now it’s been a great organization and a great vehicle for us to reach out to the community and reach the fellow believers who are on our hearts. We love when Christians are reaching into the community and schools and spreading the gospel.

“Even as Christians, everyone wants us to give a message about hard work and character, but the message we carry is an exclusive message—one about Christ and His mystery,” he continued. “I know that I’ve glossed over it in the past. I’ve failed to mention sin and what Christ has actually done for me in taking my penalty on Himself. I’ve failed to mention how unworthy I really am, and that that’s why Christ had to die. The last thing we want people to do is come away from a message about Christ thinking that it’s just about trying to become a better person. Christ didn’t come just to make us better people. He came to die for us and to let us know that He was the better person. I want people to know that everything good in me comes from Him and not my own effort.”

Ben and Juliana, a Christian recording artist, know that young people look up to those with celebrity, so they want to make sure the spotlight redirects all watching eyes to the cross.

One of the ways Zobrist ministers through his time and talent is by sponsoring baseball tournaments in Ukraine through FCA, where he provides uplifting video messages for both young players and coaches, sharing about the game of baseball as well as how God is the foundation of his life. At the tournaments, FCA also has the opportunity to share “3Dimensional Coaching,” an online curriculum of video training modules that allows coaches to determine their transformational purpose in coaching.

Wrote Yurii Tyvonchuck of FCA Ukraine, “After these kinds of tournaments you can see how coaches open up. We see even more of a need to show attention to coaches. You can see how a small gift of a baseball hat or giving hug or word encouragement just make coaches open up more and more.”

“In Scripture, we’re told that if we stay connected to the vine, we are going to bear fruit,” Zobrist said. “The way we bear that fruit may not be the way people think, but what God has taught me over the years as He’s kept me in the game is that ministry can happen anywhere— wherever we work; wherever we go—but it has to happen in our own hearts first. Then, He will take our lives and connect them to those around us. It doesn’t matter if it’s a baseball field, a clubhouse, a backyard or a neighborhood. Wherever we go, we will be His vessels.”