History

History

This year is Arsenal FC's (English Football Club) 125 year of existence.  They are having a ceremony and putting up statues this coming Saturday of some of the Arsenal "legends".  The three people being memorialized in stone are Herbert Chapman, Tony Adams, and Thierry Henry.

It got me thinking about "legends" and how much I knew about these "legends".  I have never been to a game in London and I may never be.  I have had the opportunity to watch Henry (French name pronounced - onray) here in Colorado. He actually scored and my friends said I stopped breathing for a few minutes, it was a very cool night. Let me tell you why these three are famous and then I'll go into some other "legends".

Herbert Chapman - Former manager Chapman, who died suddenly in 1934, delivered two league titles and an FA Cup during his time at Arsenal - creating a telling legacy that saw the team that he had built go on to win a further two successive First Division titles.  His vision saw his teams continue their dominance after he passed away.

Tony Adams - Adams was the last man to dedicate his entire playing career to the Gunners, spending 19 years at the club and captaining them for 14 of those; he won 13 major honours, including a pair of Premier League and FA Cup doubles in 1997-98 and 2000-01.

Thierry Henry - Henry is Arsenal's all-time leading scorer with 226 goals in 370 games during his eight-year spell in North London, which began in 1999 when Arsene Wenger snapped him up from Juventus. One of the stars of the Premier League era, he also captained the club and scooped a pair of Premier League titles and three FA Cups.  He was part of the Invincibles who went an entire season without losing.  He is by far my all time favorite player!

Then I started thinking about parallel "legends" in the christian community.  People that other people look at and say... he is a Christian "legend". I wanted to have somebody I had no knowledge about (like Chapman), somebody I had followed even though I never saw him in person (like Adams) and somebody I had met. 

C.S. Lewis - Clive Staples Lewis  known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland. He is known for both his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy and his nonfiction, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles and The Problem of Pain. 

Simon Peter - Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. After working to establish the church of Antioch for seven years presiding as the city's bishop^[2] and preaching to scattered communities of believers (Jews, Hebrew Christians and the gentiles), in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Minor and Bithynia, Peter went to Rome.

Art Rorheim - Art Rorheim is co-founder of Awana. Art built Awana from the ground up from its early days as a weekly club program at the North Side Gospel Center in Chicago. He co-founded Awana as a resource and training provider to churches with Lance Latham in 1950. Under Art’s leadership, Awana has expanded to 20,000 churches in 100 countries and impacts nearly 1.5 million children and youth worldwide in a given week. He has been one of the greatest people to meet!

There are "legends" in sports and within the church.  We don't know who the next legend of either is going to be.  Now that you know a few of the people I see as "legends", next week I want to focus on what makes each of these a "legend".  Where the crossover between sports and faith is when it comes to "legends", and where they differ. See you then!