For the next number of weeks, I will be sharing excerpts from my new book, Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople. https://www.
Sports ministry leaders are often a little puzzled as they encounter elite and professional sportspeople. They expect them to be just like other people, but their lives in sport often present obstacles to their involvement in church services and ministry events that are a great fit for the general population.
I have been serving coaches and student-athletes at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, for nearly thirty years, as well as eight years with a professional baseball club, and in that time I have learned several factors that are key to effectively engaging, serving, building relationships with, and making disciples among the coaches and players in our community. I hope these simple thoughts serve you and your ministry well.
The following is a quick overview of those factors:
• Respect their time constraints.
• Embrace their sport’s culture.
• Communicate directly.
• Demonstrate genuine interest in them.
• Invite them into your home.
• Love extravagantly.
• Serve selflessly.
In addition to the expansion of each of these factors will be illustrative narratives for each, a final section with faith development exercises that have proven effective across many decades, as well as occasional notes of emphasis for service in professional sport from a forerunner for many of us, the late Walt Enoch of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in St. Louis, Missouri.
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