NHL Center Ryan Johansen Describes Moment He Found Christ: ‘Where I Belong’
By Movieguide® Contributor
NHL center Ryan Johansen has played in the hockey league for the last fourteen years, but despite being surrounded by teammates and coaches, he still felt like he needed something more.
On Sports Spectrum’s “I Once Was” series, Johansen revealed the moment when his faith became real and personal.
“I met this beautiful young woman named Abbey, and she grew up a follower and a Christian,” Johansen began. “She encouraged me over the first few months of us dating to open my heart to maybe experiencing church and Christianity, and [that] led to Abbey singing in the choir at our local church in Nashville.”
Then, one day, Abbey asked Johansen if he would like to attend the church where she would sing. He agreed.
“She was singing in the choir, kicking off the start of the Sunday and the Lord took over,” Johansen explained. “I started bawling my eyes out, borderline weeping, crying, I just couldn’t control it. I’m looking around, and I don’t know what is going on right now. I couldn’t help but think the rest of the service, ‘Wow. This is where I belong.’”
He revealed that he decided to get baptized while at a Christian conference for athletes.
“That changed my life forever,” Johansen declared. “Every speaker we were listening to and every pastor talking to fellow Christians, now that I was introduced to. I decided at the end of that conference that I wanted to get baptized. I want to spend the rest of my life following Jesus and the perspective I see is so much bigger than the game.”
Johansen also uses his platform to help those in need. In a recent Instagram post, he shared, “Y’all! We Have a project we’re announcing and that I’m proud to be a part of…the amount of time and work gone into the Fill the Arena project is finally here to share…join myself and compassion international tomorrow at the preds game as we kick off fill the arena to help feed 17,159 children in crisis.”
Johansen also partnered with the Nashville Humane Society to sell shirts to give some of the proceeds to the humane society.
“Y’all check out our new family dog tees from JRT,” the hockey player wrote. “With this fun project we also wanted to help support a specific cause in our Nashville community. Partial proceeds from each shirt will go towards the Nashville Humane Society.”
“Since 1946, Nashville Humane Association has been committed to promoting humane education, controlling pet overpopulation, and finding responsible homes for the homeless and adoptable pet community in Nashville and throughout middle Tennessee,” he continued. “As one of Nashville’s oldest service organizations, NHA has been voted ‘Best Shelter’ and ‘Favorite Not-For-Profit’ year over year, including finding homes for over 3,400 animals and a 99% save rate in 2020.”
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