The Church Disciplinarians Dominate Viking Olympics

For the second year running, the guest speakers at the Calvary Chapel Scandinavia conference assembled their own team and won the annual Viking Games in style.

Led by Captain DomiNate (a.k.a. pastor Nate Holdridge of Calvary Monterey), the Church Disciplinarians triumphed against national teams from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland as they competed in disciplines such as Death on a Swing (water balloon fight), beach volleyball, and a baton race / miniature golf combo.

This was the 5th annual Viking Games, which has now become a traditional Friday afternoon activity at the Scandinavian conferences. This year, the games were held in the spirit of the ongoing Olympics, however the Olympic sportsmanship was sometimes hard to find as national nordic rivalry and fun banter between the athletes flourished in the hours leading up to the event.

National Anthems
The games were kicked off by each team performing their national anthem, a feature requiring some creative thinking of the specially assembled team of multi-national guest speakers who ended up belting out "He'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain When He Comes" (a song referred to in a humorous teaching parable by pastor and team-mate Mark Walsh earlier that day).

Although many teams fought courageously, the team of guest speakers - dubbed "The Church Disciplinarians" - slowly exhorted their superiority on the various courts of battle, ultimately finishing as a clear overall winner with Denmark and Sweden coming in for second and third place.

Turning Hubris into Fear
The triumphant winners received their gold medals and the highly-coveted Viking Games trophy at the award ceremony on Friday evening to the cheers of their humbled opponents and the tune of "We Are The Champions". And team captain Nate Holdridge didn't pull any punches when it came time for the victory speech to be delivered.



"As the humble captain, I was rather taken aback by the hubris of the other teams. Be that as it may, I figured the good Lord would grant us the victory, not because of our righteousness, but as a judgment against the arrogance of the other squads," he said.

"Whether it was the Fins on the beach volleyball court, the Swedes in the water balloon zone, or the Danes in general, our greatest tactic was the fear of the Lord. From the opening note of our pastoral anthem, I could sense the pride of the other teams dissipate into a puddle of fear. As the walls of Jericho fell for Joshua, so the victory was easy for us after that moment. To God be the glory!," said Captain DomiNate after securing the 2012 Viking Games title.

However, already a few days after these 5th annual Viking Games, rumors are circulating that previous winner Captain Kyle is already going through intense preparations at a training camp in a secret location in North America to take back the Viking Games trophy that has eluded him since his remarkable comeback victory in 2010.

But no matter what, for the next year the five team members of The Church Disciplinarians - Nate Holdridge, Arpad Horvath-Kavai, Mark Walsh, Phil Metzger, and Bob Pecoraro - can rightly call themselves Viking Games champions.