Proud and faithful Christians can be found all across Major League Baseball.

But who said true believers have to be in the majors?

As Gabriel Stovall documented in this week’s edition of The Covington News, at least one high school athlete is dedicated to using baseball as a platform for sharing his faith.

Teenager Jackson Watts, a junior at Covington’s Eastside High School in Georgia, was recently baptized at a Christ In You Move camp in Tennessee. And now, with renewed confidence in his “relationship with the Lord,” Watts is determined to make his faith the most appealing part of his life. That means, according to Stovall, finding “practical, everyday ways to show people the change God has made in his life.” And it means bringing God onto the diamond.

“It doesn’t really take much to influence your friends,” Watts told Stovall. “Especially on something like baseball teams, where we’re already close-knit guys who are eating together, changing together and sometimes sleeping together. You don’t have to tell someone they have to read the entire Bible right away in order to give your life to the Lord. It doesn’t take a lot to show that change your faith makes in you.”

A congregant of his local Eastridge Community Church, Watts said his mission since being baptized has been to live out the Bible’s emphasis on godly community and be a “shining example” of what it means to walk with the Lord.

“The Bible talks a lot about community,” he said. “Less ‘I’ and more ‘we.’ We for He, actually. It’s really all about caring for each other and showing light.”

You can read the entire story in the Covington News by clicking here.

(Photo Courtesy: Gabriel Stovall/Covington News)

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