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.
Embrace their sport’s culture.
Too often, we in the Church tolerate sport culture and try to relate to elite, professional, and high-profile sportspeople while firmly entrenched in church culture. Sportspeople are not against church culture; they just don’t understand it. They have lived in and are deeply immersed in their unique sport’s culture. Too many of my sport chaplain and character coach colleagues endure the culture of sport while anxious to get to their opportunity to speak. Competitors and coaches feel the distance and are hesitant to respond to those of such an attitude.
The way to break through this issue is to heartily embrace the sport culture, warts and all, and thereby communicate unconditional acceptance to those who live therein. Beware the temptation to simply add sports clichés to your vocabulary. Poorly applied sports language raises the red flags of “phony,” “poser,” and “wannabe.” As we learn to speak their language, to fit into their schedules, and to understand their values, we are more able to serve and to speak effectively.
How comfortably do you live in the culture of your sport? Does it fit like a well-worn batting glove or more like a size eight shoe on your size twelve foot? Do you find it relaxing or stressful? Do you speak its language and enjoy its nuances of gesture and posture or do you seem like an outsider? As you serve Christ in the world of sport, do you live in its culture and work to transform it or simply import Church culture into sport?
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