A Life Redirected - Doug's FCA Story

Renee Hinchcliffe • Feb 09, 2023

Since its founding in 1954, hundreds of thousands of coaches and athletes have engaged in the ministry of FCA through a variety of camps, huddles, trainings, and events. For some people, God uses FCA to strengthen and encourage them in their faith, while for others, FCA completely changes the trajectory of their life.

Doug’s story is the latter.

Doug Schneider was born in northern Illinois as the youngest of four children. For fun, he and his siblings spent most of their time running around with other kids from the neighborhood. Without much supervision from their parents, they were left to find their way through childhood and adolescence under loose boundaries. Smoking pot and drinking were common in the neighborhood, even among those who, like Doug at the time, were only seven or eight years old. While their family did attend church, it was mostly out of obligation and there was little to no faith lived out or practiced at home apart from saying grace before meals.

The summer before his freshman year of high school in 1980, Doug participated in an optional training camp to prepare for the fall football season. During this training, the varsity head coach invited the players to consider attending an FCA camp at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. Doug recalled having some interest in spiritual things from childhood and a church retreat he attended with a friend, so he indicated interest although he knew his family did not have the money to afford camp.

Thanks to a scholarship provided by the coach, Doug was able to go.

Upon arriving at camp, Doug was placed in a small group with other football players. Weighing a whopping 76 pounds, he was clearly the smallest and struggled to find his place in the group. However, he quickly realized that maybe his size and stature could be an advantage in some of the competitions. In the tug of war, Doug found his role as the frontman whose job was to keep the rope low to the ground while the bigger and stronger players pulled from behind. In a game called “Pass Goal”, he was often ignored due to his lack of size and speed, but this allowed him to sneak into the endzone unnoticed. A teammate saw him wide open and threw him the ball, taking the chance that he would catch it. When he did, Doug gained a new sense of confidence and went on to finish as the team’s leading scorer.

About this experience at camp, Doug recalls, “God helped me see my value, even though I was the “runt of the litter” growing up, and the smallest guy on any team I participated on. [My huddle leader and peers] helped me realize that I had value. I recall another member of our huddle praying for me by name during our huddle times. No one had ever voluntarily prayed for me by name.”

Throughout the week, in addition to football training and competitions, the athletes also explored their faith and learned what it meant to have a personal relationship with God. They studied the gospels in small groups, heard from God’s Word during large group chapel times, and were given quiet time to sit alone with God. At the end of the camp, as a cumulation of everything they had learned and experienced throughout the week, the speaker gave everyone the opportunity to accept Christ as their Savior. Doug says, “I recall hearing the gospel during one of the chapel times near the end of the week. When asked to close my eyes and raise my hand if I wanted to receive Christ into my heart I recall thinking yes, I want that. If God knows and loves me and can forgive me, I want that. If what I am seeing lived out in the lives of these guys, if what I am reading in the Bible, and hearing preached from up front is true then yes, I want that.”

Five days after returning home from camp, Doug was standing in his driveway as he waited for a friend to pick him up. He recalls, “As I waited, I realized I was thinking about Jesus and had been thinking about Him every day since the camp.” Shortly after, Doug got involved in youth group and FCA Bible studies, and also started attending church, no longer out of obligation but because he wanted to. Throughout the rest of high school, he participated in several youth group retreats and mission trips and grew to be involved in the leadership and planning of the youth group outreaches.

When asked how the decision he made to follow Jesus impacted and/or changed the trajectory of his life, Doug says this - “Without question, the FCA Camp I attended changed the trajectory of my life. Prior to knowing Christ, I had no direction and no godly goals for my life. There has not been a day since that FCA conference in 1980 that I have not wanted to know God more. He has faithfully led me as His child. Without Christ, I would have probably gone on into alcohol and perhaps drug addiction. It is unlikely I would have gone to college, as none of my older siblings did. But God had other plans. By God’s grace, I was able to go to college and eventually into full-time ministry.”

“I am so grateful for the opportunity I was given to go to this camp and how God used the FCA camps to change my life. It was such a great place to enjoy my love for sports and learn from other athletes, but most importantly to learn that the God who created the universe knew me, loved me, and had a plan for my life that I could have never imagined at that time. I returned for two more camps the following two summers and have now been involved in ministry for 30-plus years. In 1980 I did not want to tell anyone I made a decision to receive Christ, today I want to tell anyone I can, as I am not ashamed of the gospel as it is the power of God for salvation for me, and now my whole family.”

“Today, God has given me a wonderful wife and three wonderful children who by God’s grace have also chosen to follow Jesus. In December of 2019, our oldest daughter, Micaela, and her dear friend went home to Jesus in a car accident during a harsh winter storm. The hope of Christ and reality of eternity has transformed, sustained, and motivated me in living out God’s purposes in my life since 1980, yet, as a parent of a child now living in the perfect presence of God, I am all the more thankful for God drawing me to His Son through FCA. What we do today matters because Christ and eternity are real!”

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