I have stolen the title of this entry from the article which is attached so I must give credit where it is due and say that it is one of the tag lines used by Ambassadors in Sport, and international ministry focused on using Football to spread the gospel. I have had the opportunity to be involved in this organisation here in Australia and in South Africa while my wife has been involved with them in America. In each country the style of ministry changes because of the needs in that specific country but the goals are the same: give good quality football training or support and teach people the gospel.

Many countries around the world have a healthy sports culture, in Australia it may be argued that it reaches the level of a new religion, worshipping the god of the game, praying to the saints of whichever team you happen to follow. Saturday and Sunday afternoons are the main worship times as whole households drop everything to see if their team will get over the line this week. at times the church has seen this and reacted by preaching against the evils of sport, in more recent times it has adapted by moving worship times around to fit in with television coverage but at no point has the church as a whole embraced the fact that sport is a part of our culture and we can use that to spread the gospel!

Football (soccer as we call it in Australia) is my own particular interest as I and my wife both play, but sport in general can be an effective tool in both reaching out to the community and in bringing support to the impoverished and neglected. Some churches I know of held big screen showings of the games during the World Cup or held mini tournaments for school kids, but that was few and far between. In America sports ministry has gone further with organisations such as Athletes in Action and the proffessional MLS team the Cleveland City Stars paving the way. In England almost all Premier League clubs have their own chaplain and in the developing world it is being shown how effective Sports Ministry can be in changing entire communities.

I guess my point is to try and start conversation about what is happening in different countries around the world with Sports Ministry and to learn from each other how this important and severely neglected mission field may grow in the future!