SHAWNEE – It can be easy, at times, to get discouraged with the state of major collegiate sports. So much of what we see about the inner workings of sports programs seems negative – we see the academic or moral scandals, we see the coaches getting fired, and we get cynical. As a Christian university, we desire for our school to be different – holy, set apart. That's part of the reason why a sit down interview with
Thomas Shroder is so encouraging – he's the kind of guy that you just naturally want to root for. What you see is what you get, and what you see makes you proud to cheer for the Bison.
Shroder is a junior here at Oklahoma Baptist, and he's making a name for himself as a pitcher on the Baseball team. But when you sit down and talk to Thomas, one thing becomes instantly clear: baseball is not the primary thing that he wants to speak to you about. He wants to talk to you about his relationship with Jesus Christ, and with the ministry opportunities that the Lord has given him since he fully accepted the call to ministry and came to OBU.
Growing up in California, Thomas was a natural athlete, and took to competitive sports easily. But it was specifically baseball, Shroder says, that has always been his main interest in life – in fact, he loved it so much that it became a problem. "Baseball was all I wanted to do," he says. "And so much of my identity, growing up, got wrapped up in that."
The son of a youth minister and a worship leader, Shroder was no stranger to the Christian life. Rather than strengthening his own faith, however, this dynamic almost seemed to push Thomas away. "I just sort of adopted
their faith," he says, "and that made itself very clear when I got to high school and junior college. Church was just something I did on Sundays, and I ran to the world."
When the time came to pick a college, Shroder decided to play two years of baseball at a junior college in Arizona, and then he transferred to the University of Texas at Arlington. His major, at that time, was Economics, but the subject never really took his heart. It was picked more out of indecision over what he wanted to do with his life after school than passion. During his time at UTA, Shroder suffered an injury, was unable to pitch to full capacity, and was redshirted. This led to a time of depression for Shroder – who was he, without baseball? "I really felt God saying, 'If I took away baseball from you, you'd have nothing.'" Shroder says. "It was my whole identity, and I knew it was going to let me down."
Shroder felt it was an invitation to a deeper relationship with the Lord, and it was during this time that he began to grow closer to Him. Now, he's thankful for that redshirt year. "It turned out to be a blessing in disguise," Thomas says. "I have another year of baseball now, which gives me the extra year of school that I needed after switching majors."
The story of
why Shroder switched majors is a long one, but he says that it started, ironically enough, as a joke. During a post-church lunch with one of his friends at UTA, Shroder brought up the conversation of what life would look like after college. What were they going to do if baseball didn't work out? The conversation came, Shroder says, at a time when God had been working on his life. So, jokingly, he blurted, "Oh well, I'll just go be a pastor."
Be careful what you joke about.
In the months following that lunchtime conversation, Shroder's joke turned into a reality. Through a number of conversations with spiritual mentors, God began to turn that offhand command into an intense, serious calling. There was no doubt, now, that Thomas knew what God had for him: ministry, in some capacity.
"But at that point," Shroder says, "I had no way to pursue that calling. I was still at UTA, I was still studying economics. I just sort of thought… okay, great, but maybe after school." God, though, had other plans. After situations turned a bit tense with the coaching staff at UTA, Shroder was approached by OBU – a team that had recruited him out of junior college and one that he had considered very strongly. In the end, the door opened for him to come play his final two seasons as a Bison, and to change his major to Pastoral Ministries and Apologetics. He didn't hesitate.
Here on Bison Hill, Shroder spends his time as a Supply Preacher – someone who isn't
officially a pastor, but who can preach and minister to congregations. Shroder's is one of several names on a list for supply preacher duty in the Pastoral department, and he's been called on to preach once before, in Macomb. He divides all of his time between his time in baseball and his ministry, which currently takes the form of a youth pastor position at First Baptist Church of Sparks. "I'm really looking more to serve," he says, "rather than just being an attender."
Juggling baseball and faith can be a challenge, especially navigating the dichotomy between competitive fire a Christian faith. "It's not easy," Shroder says. "I spend all of my time with the Lord trying to cultivate that mercy and grace, being rooted in that, but when it comes to being on the mound, there's a tenacity there, an intensity." Shroder has struggled at times with reconciling those two things, and has tried to turn an arrogance and confidence in himself into a confidence in the talent and position that the Lord has given him. "Ultimately, it's about how you carry yourself, win or lose."
Long term, Shroder's path is a little fuzzy at this point – the comforting fuzziness that comes from being completely open to whatever God has for him. "Right now, I'm just looking to serve," he says. Ironically, he doesn't feel called to a full time pastorate, but does desire to stay active in ministry and dedicate himself to the Lord. One interesting project that he's working on is a blog, Godly Digest, where he and a friend from UTA – the very friend, in fact, to whom Shroder first joked that he would go into ministry – seek to chronicle their faith journey. Someday, Shroder hopes that the blog could be turned into a book and used to encourage others in their faith. "I don't know where I'll go, but my job right now is just to be faithful."
Ultimately, Shroder wants his journey to encourage others who may identify with it, who may not have it all figured out yet. "My encouragement to anyone reading this is just, don't wait," he says. "I'll tell about the pitfalls that I had to go through to get to this point, but I encourage people to not get there before they come to the Lord. The God of the universe is calling you to an authentic relationship."
Those are the two main themes to a conversation with
Thomas Shroder: service, and a passionate pursuit of the Lord. It's that pursuit that's going to give him success in life, no matter what his sports career here on Bison Hill has in store for him.
