“Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.” – Psalm 84:10, NIV
When you look across the room, it is filled with all age groups, all ethnic backgrounds, both males and females. Everyone in the room, from the youngest to the oldest, are focusing on the speaker. He has captured the attention of everyone, and has it focused on the message he is presenting. All are mesmerized by this man as his words are hitting home in their hearts.
This man is Melvin Adams. He considers himself a motivational speaker, but once he captivates your mind, you realize he is so much more.
Adams uses his gifts of speaking, humor and basketball to reach out to both kids and adults across America. Adams played college basketball at San Jose Christian College in San Jose, California, and there led the nation in scoring his junior year with 28 points per game. It was also at San Jose that he was twice named an All-American and still holds the records for all-time scoring, steals and assists at the school. His career led to one season with the San Antonio Spurs and three years with the Harlem Globetrotters. He also played professionally in New Zealand, Europe, South America, South Africa and Central America. In March of 2000, he retired from basketball to concentrate not only on being a husband and future father, but also to speaking to youth and men across America about the importance of their decisions and their faith in God.
Adams speaks highly of FCA and his involvement with the organization. His connection to FCA started after college when he was recruited to speak to several Huddles a week. Explains Adams, “FCA was one of the reasons that helped me perfect the skill God had given me.” He says he believes in FCA’s drug-prevention program, One Way 2 Play. OW2P has allowed him access to the schools to speak to kids in large assembly meetings about matters concerning their generation. Adams gives motivational speeches on believing in your dreams, building character, overcoming obstacles, saying no to drugs, making right choices, knowing your purpose, abstinence and racial reconciliation. He also enjoys speaking in churches about God’s purpose for mankind and the love of the Father.
Adams’ heart is focused primarily on youth, but he also addresses the fathers of American society, teaching them to be the men they were called to be. Speaking to youth has made him more aware of the problems children face, which includes challenging home-lives. After only a few speaking engagements, Adams saw the need to speak with kids and the need to reach out to so many who grew up and had a home-life just like his own.
Adams grew up in the projects of Houston, Texas, where he focused his attention on basketball as his outlet and as his god. He found that basketball did not argue with him, did not put him down, and even replaced his own mother’s discouraging comments. He was driven to be the best and knew that if he worked hard enough, basketball could take him somewhere.
Basketball remained his god until his freshman year of college when he was red-shirted. It was there that he realized that sports could let him down and that he needed something that would be a constant in his life. It was not until he was playing professionally in Germany that he started to have a personal relationship with the Lord. He had made several “deals” with God and finally said to the Lord that if He would give him a contract, he would honor Him. Adams was uncertain whether or not his prayer would be answered, but when a contract was offered, he realized that his deal with the Lord would need to be honored.
It was then that he looked at his heart and saw that he was a “good kid still sick with sin” and that he needed the Lord. After attending a church service with a teammate in Germany, Adams went into his hotel room and committed his heart to the Lord. At that moment the Lord replaced basketball as his god. Immediately, Adams did not care if he ever played again. He honored the Lord just as he had promised and wanted nothing but to be in the Lord’s presence and the Lord’s will from that moment forward.
Even though Adams would have quit basketball and preached from then on, the Lord allowed him to continue playing and, in fact, used basketball as a means of spreading the gospel. Adams continues today to use his God-given skills to speak to kids and bring hope and Christ to youth. He incorporates basketball tricks into a majority of his talks—a gesture that captures the attention of audiences. He pulls kids up to the front to participate, causing laughs and wonders alike. He then delivers a message of hope and a future to children who may have never been encouraged in the home and who may have never been told to dream big for themselves.
Although Adams focuses much of his attention on youth, becoming a father added a new perspective. Being a father to two boys, Seth (3) and Silas (1), showed Adams that there was a need in a different area. He realized that speaking to youth was making an impact, but that youth were tremendously influenced and shaped by their fathers. He felt called to speak to men and fathers about their duty of becoming the men God created them to be. He wanted the fathers of this generation to cut off the abuse that their own fathers passed down. Adams saw the domino effect that was going on between the generations and wanted to help tear down the walls of pride and pain that had been built.
Today, Adams realizes that he has a sizable task in front of him. He knows that it is easier not to change than it is to change. One thing Adams has learned is Colossians 3:12-14: “…as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Adams is a firm believer in showing compassion, love and forgiveness toward everyone who is willing to make a change in their lives. He knows that “it’s very hard to tell someone who has been living in sin to just get over it.” But according to Adams, the key to winning the battle for the Lord is understanding and realizing where the abused and hurting individual has journeyed from.
Adams also holds to Matthew 7:3-4 which states, “Why do you look at the speck of saw dust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?" He knows because of what the Lord’s Word says, that all sin is sin. He says that the way to reaching a hurting individual is by being humble before God and being real with those in need. “We’re all taught that we have to be so ‘spiritual’ and do such ‘spiritual’ things, which in itself is a great concept, but we must not forget that the Lord walked with the sinners and beggars of the world and that the He died for the clean and the unclean.”
Melvin Adams is reaching both a hurting and desperate youth generation and an abused and removed generation of fathers. His life verse is Galatians 2:20, which states, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” He knows that the harvest is plentiful but that the workers are few (Matthew 9:37), and he wants to use his gift of basketball to accomplish the purpose that the Lord has not only for him, but for us all.
