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Team time on Back to Church Sunday

Brett Surmons with Reynolds Demons JV football team members

Brett Surmons didn’t just bring a friend to church on “Back to Church Sunday.”

The quarterback of the Reynolds High School Demons junior varsity football squad walked into the Contemporary Worship Service Sept. 21 at Triad Baptist with his teammates and coach David Hamlin.

All the players wore their game jerseys.

A sophomore at Reynolds, Brett said that Hamlin teaches teamwork and togetherness and began encouraging the Demons last year to look for ways to do things together outside of football to strengthen relationships, and treat each other as family.

Brett, one of the team’s captains, took that message to heart and began planning to treat his teammates to a day at Triad. He first ran the idea past Jared Hoots, who leads Triad’s Radiate High School ministry, and got the thumbs up.

Surmons’ parents, Brandon and Jenny, pitched in by helping him create a flyer distributed to players and their parents along with an email. Hoots arranged a church bus to pick up the players who wanted to participate.

The players attended the worship service, went to Brett’s Sunday School class, and got an unexpected treat: a football-style tailgate meal prepared by Phil West and his Food and Fellowship Team.

Included in the spread: ribs, chicken wings, sausages, salad, sweet tea, desserts, and more.

“It was awesome,” Brett said of attending church with so many of his teammates. “I was just glad to get the team together, and that we had an opportunity to spend a Sunday together.

“Last year we talked about how we wanted to spend more time together getting to know each other outside football, and it’s great to be doing some of the things we talked about.”

Next up for the team off the gridiron: donning their jerseys again as they help Keep America Beautiful and the City of Winston-Salem clean up local waterways Oct. 4 in project Big Sweep.

Hamlin said that the team’s visit to Triad came in the midst of a two-week lull in their schedule. “The break is great to allow our guys to heal, for me to do a lot of teaching and work on the things we need to work on to get better, and it also allows us to do things out in the community like this,” he said.

Along with his leadership as quarterback and captain at Reynolds, Brett leads at Triad by serving on the team that welcomes visitors to the church. A member of Radiate, he’s also active in the Young Life ministry.

“One of my friends invited me one day to Young Life and that's how I got involved,” Brett said. “It allows me to build a relationship with the guys I go to school with, and to talk about my faith.”

He learned the guitar from Triad member Jonnie Manuel, plays at Young Life club events, and hopes to become a leader for Young Life’s Wild Life middle school program soon.

“I just want to set an example of showing kindness towards others and doing it for Jesus, and not myself,” Brett said.

Hoots, who leads Triad’s praise team band, said it cheered him to look down from the stage and see Brett and his team together.

“We encourage kids to bring friends to church,” he said. “Radiate is based on Matthew 5:16 and letting your light shine before others so they see what you do and glorify the God who put that in your heart.

“That’s what Brett was doing when he said, ‘I want my team to come to my church.’ The Demons were a great bunch of guys, and we loved having them with us.“

Phase 2 Shot of TBC B&W 17

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9:00am Traditional Worship
10:30am Contemporary Worship