Sports – The World’s Common Language and a Bridge to the Lost
The television commercial depicts a distinguished Joe Torre on his native New York streets, showing a kid with a stick bat how to grip it and swing. All smiles, the poor child and the wealthy, famous New York Yankees manager have bonded. Whatever Torre says will be remembered for life. They have spoke the world's common language – sports.
In a world where children play baseball with sticks, shurd rocks, and bags for bases if that's all they've got; where kick-the-can can be as fun and intense as an Olympic final, sports is clearly more than an end in itself. It is a vehicle of learning, about teamwork, about competition, about self. Maybe more importantly, about crucial life lessons.
Sports is the stage from which children can be taught the keys to eternal life and temporal life, but they need not merely watch a performance by adults. They participate in a play that is at once real and make-believe, scripted and spontaneous. They are speaking the world's language while experiencing and learning lessons the world needs to know.
Even before D.L. Moody connected with the YMCA in the 19 th century, savvy, culturally sensitive and Christ-centered people have recognized the value of sports as vehicle for sharing the Gospel – especially among children.
“Sports is fun, active, and kids accomplish things and learn things while playing,” says Larry Lynch, a layman in Wake Forest , N.C. , who has run an evangelistic sports camp for the past five summers. “Sports is an easier way to gather a lot of children into one place and to give them a fun time and some quality instruction. That creates a safe environment in which to share Bible stories with them.
“In this sports-crazy country, sports evangelism is probably the most dominant way to reach kids.”
Do you want to break down racial and ethnic barriers in your city, community or the world? Sports can do it. Roll out a soccer ball – or whatever is the athletic tool of choice in that place and season – and you have common ground.
The apostle Paul sought common ground, saying, “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” He used running and boxing illustrations in the Bible. Rodger Oswald of Church Sports International, who has educated church and para-church groups all over the world in how to minister through sports, says, “Someone pointed out that in Acts 2, the gift of tongues was used to allow all people to hear in a common language,” Oswald said. “That person suggested that sports was the tongues of today, the common language we can use to communicate the gospel. I thought that was really profound.”
It is never more profound than with children, where the bias of class culture and the hatred that permeates much of the world hasn't fully engulfed their hearts and minds. Michael Wozniak, marketing director for Major Sports Event Partnership (MSEP), a global sports group, Sports Outreach America (SOA) and Christian sports magazine Sports Spectrum , has seen the effect of ministry through sports on children all over the world.
“Children can be taught positive values and Christian principles through sports and games,” he says. “They learn through experience, and it's an experience they already naturally enjoy. Kids, sports and life lessons are a natural mix.”
How? It's easy, really. Careful planning and intentional teaching are crucial, and models and helps for effective sports ministry to children (and adults) abound. Ministry through sports can come in the form of events, leagues, camps, clinics or combinations thereof.
Events
Children love to hear an athlete speak. Whereas adults might have to be drawn by bigger name athletes, children are impressed by skills and personality of athletes at almost any level. Identify Christian athletes in local colleges and minor league or professionals sports through para-church agencies such as Athletes in Action and Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and invite them to share their testimony or briefly teach at a special gathering for kids. This will often be in conjunction with a league awards banquet, camp or clinic.
Leagues
Upward Basketball ( www.upward.org ) has erupted in recent years as an ideal model of effective sports evangelism leagues. It is focused on participation, learning, fun and devotions, rather than winning. Upward is spinning off models in other sports.
Whatever type of league your church or para-church ministry runs, it can be Christ-centered and can utilize the ‘teachable moments' of sports to share Biblical truth. This is a great arena in which to teach children that ‘keeping score' in life isn't the bottom line.
Camps
Week-long instructional sports camps afford the opportunity for relational evangelism and a consistent Scriptural devotional influence culminating in a Gospel presentation before camp ends. It's dynamics are somewhat similar to that of a league, but in a compressed time. From general sports camps (low-to-mid level multi-sport instruction) to sport-specific camps (usually mid-to-high level instruction), this format is an excellent vehicle of Gospel communication.
Clinics
A half-day or one-day sports clinic, usually sport specific, can draw a large crowd of children (and almost always a large crowd of parents!). The format is simple, and often effectively utilizes the gifts and testimonies of college or professional athletes or high school-or-higher coaches. Quality instruction is mixed with Gospel testimony. The children are given valuable help in their sport by people they grow to trust as the clinic unfolds; it is an easy bridge for the instructors to then share life instruction, either in a group time at the end of the clinic or in a ‘station' along the trail of station-to-station instruction.
Quality evangelistic printed or video materials are frequently a part of the above-mentioned types of sports evangelism. Sports Spectrum ( www.sport.org ) magazine writes about sports from a Christian perspective, clearly sharing the Gospel in each issue and always including a devotional insert that is perfect for kids and especially for coaches or parents to use with kids. Various tracts, sports-themed Bibles, and sport-specific videos are available, as well.
Internet Resources for Sports Ministry
(not exhaustive, particularly highlighting sites that have specific or networking information about sports evangelism process)
www.sportsoutreach.org
A comprehensive guide to the church and para-church agencies doing sports evangelism around the world. Includes details on resources, organizations, church.
www.csrm.org
The official web site of the Association of Church Sports and Recreation Ministers
www.churchsports.org
The web site of Rodger Oswald, a top sports evangelism practitioner
www.thekidsgames.com
Official site of The KidsGames, a world-wide outreach.
SIDEBAR 1
With a little creativity, elbow grease, and willingness to blow up the spiritual box you've been living in, you can reach lost children and their families through sports camps. Richland Creek Community church in Wake Forest , N.C. , has proved it.
God inspired layman Larry Lynch to begin a free, weeklong sports camp in the summer of 1998. Some tenets of the camp: It is for children, but not for church members; it is free; the targeted children live in lower-income areas, where day care needs were great; the church provides transportation; it is a multi-sport camp (several sports stations per day); a devotional is shared each day by a special speaker, usually a local sports athlete of some notoriety or expertise; each child receives sports equipment; a special Sunday celebration concludes the camp (the children are given their equipment at this time, assuring their attendance).
“We get underprivileged kids who can't go to Duke or N.C. State 's basketball camp, or Pinehurst's golf camp,” says Lynch, a local businessman. “But they get a high quality of instruction from us, and the get Bible-centered teaching. Sports is something kids just love. What better way to gather a group of kids together – let them have fun, bounce or kick balls, do some cheerleading, and the rest of the time talk about Christ. Sports and evangelism were made for each other.”
Richland Creek, a growing mid-size church, runs the camp with volunteers and gets the equipment donated. The results have been phenomenal: In the first year, 130 children participated, 17 gave their life to Christ, and 17 more family members accepted Christ via follow-up through the year. In years three and four the camp maxed out on space, drawing 330 kids each time, with 78 salvations in year three and 50 in year four. (Repeat attenders accounts for some decline in salvation totals).
“Any church can do this,” Lynch says. “It's a matter of priorities and commitment, where they determine to spend their time and energy resources. And it is a matter of organization and attention to details. The rewards are great; God has used it.”
Go www.victorlee.org/sportsmanual for more detailed sports evangelism info.
SIDEBAR 2
The KidsGames (cq, formally one word) is sweeping the world with a vision empowered by Christ. Children everywhere love the Olympics and World Cup soccer, the two biggest sporting events with world-wide appeal. KidsGames plays off of those events with a purpose and format that is changing lives.
“KidsGames (www.thekidsgames.com) is a kids-to-kids program with the end goal of serving all children and raising up a generation of leaders in each community by teaching positive values and Christian principles through sports and games,” says Michael Wozniak, marketing director for Major Sports Event Partnership (MSEP), a global sports group, Sports Outreach America (SOA) and Sports Spectrum magazine. “It provides a means for churches to work together on an on-going basis.”
The KidsGames vision: “ To see all children united globally, learning, and playing together, to bring about personal, spiritual, and community transformation through love.” The Kids mission statement: “To instill hope and positive values in the children of the world through sports and games.”
Ecumenical and evangelistic, Kids Games is breaking down religious boundaries, penetrating areas of the world branches of society hardly before reached in the name of kids and Christ. Madras just finished a KidsGames that drew more than 12,000 children, with more than 10,000 indicating first-time decisions to follow Christ! KidsGames are planned for 80 countries this year, with expectations of hosting half-a-million kids ages 4 to 14.
It's catching on in the United States , too. In Cincinnati , it has been adopted as an official reconciliation program by the city. The mayor and secular companies are leading the planning.
Formats vary slightly for KidsGames. Wozniak explains that there are 10 lessons in a curriculum, with a new curriculum produced every two years in conjunction with a major sports event such as the Olympics or World Cup. Each lesson is a Biblical lesson, and a sport and/or game goes along with the lesson to re-enforce it.
“It is experiential learning,” Wozniak says. “For instance, the game might have had a theme of perseverance. After the game, the kids would go into a time of learning, perhaps about Joseph and how he persevered. That would get kids talking and connecting the lesson with what they just did. Then they might go on to play an Olympic-type sport that has something to do with perseverance.
“At the end of the day, they've had fun playing, they've learned Bible verses and a song, and they've had a certain theme hammered home through experience. It seems to be a very cutting edge way of learning, then applying it to your life.”
The KidsGames requires culturally flexibility, depending on where it is being played, “but at the same time, we don't want to lose our identity as Christians,” Wozniak says. World-wide results suggest that identity is coming across loud and clear.
This article originally appeared in Home Life magazine
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