This Chapter Spotlight features FAITH RXD Hickory, located in North Carolina, USA, and was written by their Chapter Director Matthew Duncan. To find a chapter near you, please visit Find A Chapter.
Just before the 2018 Crossfit Open, my wife and I started Crossfit. We were drawn to the great community and competitive nature of pushing ourselves to new limits.
We began to behold relationships with folks in our box and began to see a great opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus with our new community. We began to look into ‘Crossfit’ bible studies and came across FAITH RXD on Instagram. I began to follow them on social media and I signed up for Athlete’s Word devotions via email. After a few months, I began feeling God call us to start a local chapter.
We felt God had given us a passion for Crossfit so that we could share our passion for God with others. We began to share this calling with our friends and family. Honestly, we did feel as though we were not equipped for such a great work. After lots of prayer and encouragement from those around us, we attended an Iron Sharpens Iron camp in Sept. 2019 in Chicago, IL.
After our second day of the camp, my wife and I had such peace and assurance that God was calling us to start a chapter in our hometown of Hickory. God assured us that he had called us and equipped us to bring the Gospel to others through our commons ground of functional fitness. Once we brought the idea to some of our community at our box, the interest was overwhelming.
God had gone before us and prepared people’s hearts for this ministry. He was already working, all we had to do was be willing workers. Over the following months, we established a team of leaders from a few surrounding churches. Again, by God’s providence, our home box was overjoyed to host our first Faith and Fitness event in March of 2020.
We were overwhelmed with the response of attendance and enthusiasm we had at our first event at Crossfit Hickory. We had close to 50 athletes attend our first event!! We were so humbled and reassured of God’s calling on our chapter.
He chose to take a dark, evil, influence on our community, and stop it. Then he transformed the building to become a light to our community. He took what the enemy had for evil and made it into a vessel for His Gospel, His hope, and His love. There is no doubt that God has called FAITH RXD Hickory to be salt, light, and love in our community. We are so thankful to be a part of God’s mission with FAITH RXD. He is so faithful and so good.
