If you’re a Jesus fan, you ought to be excited about this.” The speaker was Chette Williams. The excitement he reported was that 15 Auburn University football players were baptized last year after each asked Jesus Christ to come into his heart and be his Savior.
While speaking in a recent worship service at Twelfth Street Baptist Church in Gadsden, Williams, chaplain for the team, also noted that monthly meetings are bringing together players and coaches for the purpose of learning about Jesus.
When the meetings — which have the blessing of head Coach Tommy Tuberville — first started, 15 of those in attendance made decisions for Christ.
Williams, who is a former Auburn football player, returned to his alma mater in 1999 to serve as campus director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) and state director for the organization’s Urban Ministries. For four years, he has continued to share the gospel with Auburn’s athletes.
“My hope and dream is that every one of these kids, coaches and all who are involved in athletics will come to Christ,” Williams said.
Tuberville said Williams’ presence has made a difference in the team’s behavior and attitudes.
“They have a guidance counselor, so to speak, who is around them,” Tuberville said. “It is somebody that is around every day, somebody they can feel comfortable with, somebody they know they can trust.”
The road to that trust, and to being on staff at Auburn was not an easy or short one, as Williams shared with the Twelfth Street Baptist’s congregation, during a sermon on John the Baptist.
The pleasant, polished Williams spoke in stark contrast to the “angry, unhappy individual” he describes himself as being during his early years as a football player at Auburn — a past that allows him to relate to those 15 players.
It was the 1980s at the university, and Williams was a walk-on on the Auburn football team. Though he had grown up in church and had even been baptized, Williams had never asked Jesus to come into his heart.
Instead, his heart was filled with anger and his life with unhappiness. Another walk-on, Kyle Collins, tried to be nice to Williams, even though Williams was not receptive.
Again and again through the months that followed, Collins would tell Williams that Jesus loved him. “I would run from Kyle Collins,” recalls Williams.
Truth is, Collins, who was FCA president at the time, had felt impressed to pray for Williams, despite the fact that others told him it would be a waste of time.
But after Williams had been at Auburn for two years, then-head football Coach Pat Dye told Williams he would have to leave the university. Listing a bad attitude among other grievances, Dye informed Williams that it just was not working out.
Williams found himself going to the dorm room of Collins, the one person on campus he most wanted to avoid.
He shared with Collins about his life. And suddenly, both men were on their knees in prayer in Collins’ room. Williams prayed, admitting his sin, and asked Jesus to come into his heart and be his Savior.
Williams recalls that he had gone into Collins’ room a sinner bound for hell. He left Collins’ room a sinner saved by the grace of God almighty through His Son, Jesus Christ.
After that time of prayer in Collins’ room, Williams earned his way back on the football team and went on to graduate from Auburn. He then earned a master of divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
An ordained minister, Williams was pastor of New Covenant Baptist Church in New Orleans and was co-pastor of New Song Baptist Church in Mobile while in seminary. The married father of three is also the former president of IMPACT ministries, which is housed in South Carolina.
In 1999, Tuberville asked the former player to return to the university to become a full-time chaplain.
Williams pointed out he had been given the opportunity to go back to the place where he came to know Christ, so he could help show the way to others.
Showing the way to others is also what John the Baptist knew he was to do.
Frequently referring to John the Baptist as “ole J.B.,” Williams explained that this man, a contemporary of Christ, knew his role in life was to tell others about Jesus.
Though people sometimes asked John if he, himself, were the Christ for whom they were waiting, John knew it wasn’t his place to take credit or allow himself to be mistaken as the Savior. “It’s not about me,” Williams said, paraphrasing what John the Baptist proclaimed in the Bible. “I’m pointing you to the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. I’m just the delivery boy.”
Williams emphasizes that each believer should be the conduit that takes the message about Jesus to others.
“John was used as a highway for Jesus to reach other people,” said Williams.
Often circumstances cause believers to feel like they can’t be effective in their calling to be a “highway.”
Yet God, with His power, can level the “mountains” in the life of a believer, fill the valleys and smooth the rough places, said Williams. “He can use you just like He did John the Baptist.”
Just as it was the duty of John the Baptist to announce the first coming of Jesus, Williams said, it is the job of believers to make sure others know Christ is coming again.
(Jennifer Davis Rash contributed)
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