Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Former college soccer player and influencer Emily Harrigan recently shared with hundreds of thousands of followers that she had been baptised after what she described as a “radical surrender” to Christ. Emily is in a long-term relationship with professional baseball player Noah Bridges, who is also known for his strong Christian faith.

Not every faith journey is the same.

Sports couple Emily Harrigan and Noah Bridges illustrate two very different paths to Christ — but both are powerful testimonies to Jesus’ saving grace.

Emily Harrigan: ‘I’m defined by who Jesus is’

Emily Harrigan is a popular social media influencer, a former Division I soccer player, and a committed Christian. 

Before her social media career kicked off, she had an impressive career as a soccer forward. She holds the all-time record for the most career goals (93) in the Norwin School District, Pennsylvania, and was a four-year varsity starter for the Norwin High School Knights girls soccer team in North Huntingdon — helping lead the team to the 2017 state championship.

Harrigan was recruited by the Division I Rutgers University women’s soccer team, the Scarlet Knights.

Her career at Rutgers was plagued by injury from the beginning, and she later transferred to the Pittsburgh Panthers, where she finally enjoyed a season without injury and became one of just four players that season to score a game-winner.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Emily Harrigan (@emilyyharrigan)

She has spoken about how her single-minded commitment to success in sports — combined with a persistent run of injuries — left her crying herself to sleep, ‘zoned out and obsessed with the sport’.

All the while, she was ‘putting up a front’ on social media — pretending life was all okay.

For the longest time, I couldn’t wrap my head around why I was facing so much adversity. But none of the things I faced made me weak. They made me stronger.

After retiring from soccer, Harrigan says she sought purpose in the only thing she could think of outside of sport: her career.

Social media became a way of proving her worth.

She explains: ‘I was chasing the world trying to fill a void that nothing of the world could ever satisfy.’ In transitioning from soccer to professional social media work, she ‘felt lost’ and found herself ‘questioning’ her purpose.

I was living life on my own terms focused on self-gratification and truly convinced I could figure it all out alone.

While she was a Christian at the time, she struggled to accept herself — or to accept the love that God had for her. It took years, but in October 2025, she shared a post declaring her commitment to Christ and her decision to surrender her life fully to Him and be baptised. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Emily Harrigan (@emilyyharrigan)

Harrigan shared the reason for the radical step to her nearly half a million followers on Instagram:

Over the past few years I’ve learned a truth that has completely changed my life: I’m not defined by what I do, the world’s standards, or my past. I’m defined by who Jesus is.

She explained that ‘no words will ever be enough to fully express the goodness He has shown me’ — ‘His love met me right where I was and for that I am forever grateful!’ 

She finished the post by quoting 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV):

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Harrigan attends the Community Bible Church in Savannah, Georgia, with her long-term boyfriend Noah Bridges, who is also a committed Christian and a baseball player.

CBC is a conservative, non-denominational church with a strong Gospel core, expositional teaching, and a bold Biblical stand on the often inflammatory topic of marriage.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Emily Harrigan (@emilyyharrigan)

Noah Bridges: Banana Ball Baseball Revival

Bridges’ journey to faith began at an early age — and it is one that he has boldly shared, notably in a passionate interview with Sports Spectrum, an organisation that aims to ‘glorify God and His Son Jesus through the lens of sports’.

When asked about the ‘spiritual movement’ stirring within the Banana Ball baseball league, including his team, the Firefighters, Bridges explains:

We just got a bunch of guys who are trying to be fully submitted to the Lord and find humility in Him, knowing that He’s given us a great platform and we play in front of thousands every night.

He explained that the group does regular Bible studies where they talk about being ‘more than just ball players’ — ‘if we actually submit our lives and give them to Him, then we just want to be used.’

Prayer is also central to the spiritual life of the group.

Bridges says that they ‘pray all the time’ asking for God to use them, not just in the good times, but ‘whatever that looks like — success, failure, whatever’. 

The attitude of surrender involves using whatever they have for Christ’s glory, including their platforms.

‘It’s really, really special,’ says Bridges.

The interview with Sports Spectrum took place late last year — but the movement has been underway since 2024, following a casual chat between a couple of teammates ‘about the Lord’. A few of those involved — including Robert Anthony Cruz, an outfielder for the Savannah Bananas widely known as Coach RAC, and Andy Archer, a pitcher for the same team — decided to commit to a Bible study and began praying ‘boldly’ for the study to ‘explode’.

‘It just blew up,’ Bridges explains.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Noah Bridges (@noah_bridges)

Bridges: ‘Jesus at the throne of my heart’

Noah Bridges grew up in church.

He explains that he had a good understanding of who God was thanks to a ‘good Sunday school’ and a strong family culture. 

But something changed when he was about ten, when he had a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit. He explains that for some time, he had been experiencing repeated pain in his chest, which only continued to increase in frequency and severity.

One night, he had a particularly severe attack that left him barely able to breathe — and unable to call for help. In simple faith, Bridges just started ‘calling on the name of Jesus’:

‘Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me,’ he cried.

It’s the last resort. Literally, I had nothing. And He heard and He answered. He was faithful.

The young Bridges felt the Holy Spirit consume him ‘from head to toe like fire’ — and he quickly went from crying for help to crying in gratefulness: ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ It was an experience he took with him through his college years, where he was determined to emulate Jesus in everything he did.

But as he became increasingly successful in the world of sport, Bridges fell to the oldest and most pervasive of human sins: pride.

I started to get a little prideful and there was a switch of Jesus at the throne of my heart to baseball at the throne of my heart.

While baseball began to take precedence in his life, Noah continued to pray what he calls ‘the dangerous prayer’ — ‘If you don’t want baseball, God, take it away from me.’ While he didn’t mean it at the time, COVID-19 soon hit, turning his baseball life upside down.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Noah Bridges (@noah_bridges)

It provoked a crisis for Bridges, forcing him to ask why he was so upset — and he realised that it was because baseball was still the thing that his life revolved around, not God. 

With this realisation at the front of his mind, Noah decided to work hard to turn his life’s focus back to God. But he soon realised that the more he strove to re-centre his life on God, the less it happened, but the more he submitted to Christ, the more he found he was able to re-centre his focus.

… that’s when I got here and I got around guys that were, I mean, just on fire for the Lord and they — I mean immediately the flip switched and I just— out of prayer too. None of my own works. It was just prayer. “I want to be submitted to You,” and like I said if I did it on my own, it wouldn’t have happened. The Lord was faithful to me even when I wasn’t faithful to Him.

It was this resilient and surrendered faith that enabled him to get through a serious injury when his leg was broken in 2024 — with teammates shocked at how calm he was about the major setback.

To questions about how he handles disappointment so well, he responds:

It’s hard to lose when the battle’s already won.

Summarising his walk with Christ now, Bridges says:

I [have] Jesus at the throne of my heart. My priorities are with Him. My life is His. I just want to share. That’s it.

And his life certainly reflects that passion. Noah’s Instagram bio perhaps sums it up best:

He who kneels before God can stand before anyone

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Emily Harrigan (@emilyyharrigan)

Photos courtesy of Emily Harrigan and Noah Bridges via Instagram.