Coach Joe Kennedy never set out to make headlines. He wasn’t trying to launch a national conversation or become the face of a major legal battle over religious liberty. He simply wanted to live out his Christian faith and not have to leave it at the door when he went to work as a high school football coach.
At the recent Kingdom Come Conference (KCC), hosted by our partners at the Institute for Faith & Culture (IFC), Kennedy shared the remarkable story of how a quiet, personal act of prayer after football games led him all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Coach Kennedy’s practice of kneeling in silent prayer at the 50-yard line began as a personal commitment to honor God after each game. Over time, players voluntarily join him. When school officials took issue with his public expressions of faith, Kennedy was placed on administrative leave and ultimately lost his job. But with the support of his community and help of the First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit legal organization committed to defending religious liberty, he took his case to the highest court in the land and won.
“This is a tremendous victory for Coach Kennedy and religious liberty for all Americans,” said Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, and Chief Counsel for First Liberty. “Our Constitution protects the right of every American to engage in private religious expression, including praying in public, without fear of getting fired. We are grateful that the Supreme Court recognized what the Constitution and law have always said—Americans are free to live out their faith in public.”
Dr. Rob Pacienza, President of IFWE and IFC, summed it up this way: “A lot of people think they could never have a platform like this, could never do something significant for the kingdom, but [in Kennedy’s case] God took an ordinary individual to do extraordinary things for the kingdom.”
Fighting the Good Fight
While his legal team was confident in the constitutional arguments, Kennedy himself struggled with doubt. “I often thought, ‘God you’ve got the wrong guy for this,’” he told the audience at KCC. He worried what might happen if the case was lost—for him and for others who want to live out their faith at work. “What if my name ends up on a decision that hurts religious liberty?” he wondered.
When asked how he found the motivation to push forward, he shared that he was comforted by the Apostle Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 4:7 (ESV), a verse he has tattooed on his arm: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
Kennedy reflected, “Nowhere in there does it say you have to win the fight… All we have to do is show up and remain faithful.” This simple truth carried him through a years-long legal battle. Just as significant as the legal victory was the spiritual lesson for him: God calls us to obedience, not outcomes.
The Apologetics of Faithfulness
Kennedy’s story challenges each of us to reconsider how we live our faith in our own spheres of influence—particularly in the workplace. We may not all be called to the courtroom or the football field, but we are all called to be faithful in our vocations.
While listening to “Coach Joe” tell his story to the crowd at KCC, I was struck by the parallels his story has with the story of Wes Huff, the apologist who shared the gospel on Joe Rogan’s podcast. At the time I wrote about his story, I shared the following observation:
When we work faithfully at what we have been called to do, we bring glory to God, we serve our neighbors, and we experience more personal fulfillment. But there is something else about the story of Huff and Rogan that jumps out to me.
Rogan saw Huff doing good work and wanted to learn more. That’s what led to the invitation, a conversation, and ultimately (near the end of the three-plus hour podcast) the opportunity to share the gospel. His good work and pursuit of excellence were just as much of an apologetic as the ancient manuscripts he discussed. Rogan likely would not have listened to Huff’s defense of Christ’s resurrection if Huff couldn’t defend his own scholarship first.
Like Huff, Kennedy was working faithfully at his job as a football coach. His players and community knew and respected him, and he had the opportunity to share his faith with many of them. His story would have turned out much differently if he was a bad football coach. While the platform Kennedy has today—speaking at conferences and on podcasts—came through the tribulation of losing his job and navigating a years-long legal battle, many people now know about both his faith and his faithfulness.
While the primary lesson I took away from Huff’s story was that Christians ought to pursue excellence in their work, Kennedy’s story also shows us that Christians need to be resilient in their work. Resilience is something Kennedy was well-equipped for because before coaching football, he served 20 years as a U.S. Marine. Seems to me that God knew exactly who he was choosing to use.
Closing Challenge
Kennedy left the audience with several questions and personal challenges, one of which was, “Do your co-workers know where you stand in your faith?” This question is just as much about the quality of our work as it is about the frequency of our evangelism.
Christians at work should stand out for our dedication, pursuit of excellence, and demonstration of the Fruit of the Spirit. It should not be a surprise to our colleagues when they hear that we are Christians or see our faith in action. We may not have a 50-yard line to pray on at work, but we do have little opportunities to demonstrate our faith and our faithfulness every day. Coach Kennedy’s story should inspire us to look for those opportunities even more.
Just remember that we won’t know where those opportunities will take us. Working faithfully landed Huff in one of the most famous podcast studios in the world, but it landed Kennedy in a courtroom—and God is using both.
