sports ministry emphasis?

I had an interesting conversation with my roommate Kyle Isabelli tonight as we went on an adventure to buy some Chicago Cubs tickets from a guy in a parking lot. Yeah I know sounds kinda sketch, right? But it turned out to be legit and he got the tickets and we both made it out alive, so thats always good.

So back to the interesting conversation. We started talking about our futures after school. Kyle started talking about his home church (Grace Church) and how big of an emphasis they put on sports ministry. They have several sports leagues that they run almost year-round, and one of their biggest ministries is a Jr. High Upwards basketball league which has about 400 kids. Thats awesome!

The interesting thing is that they don't have a full-time Sports Ministry Pastor on staff, instead they just spread out the different sports ministry responsibilities to different pastors in the church. Apparently this has kept things running pretty well for a while, but Kyle said alot of times it takes away from the other ministries that these pastors are leading, which is not good. A full-time Sports Ministry Pastor would definitely fix this problem, and would most likely add even more to the Sports Ministries at the church.

Then I look at my church and see how what seems like little emphasis they put on sports ministry. I'm not sure how much stuff they do for adults in the church, such as basketball leagues, or other things, but I know its not a huge emphasis. I wonder how many more people we could bring into the church through sports who would otherwise never step foot into a church. I believe that it could be quite a few, and they would get a different perception of what the church is, compared to just coming in on a Sunday morning.

There are so many benefits to having sports ministry in your church. I think Calvary Baptist needs to do more of it.

What kind of an emphasis does your church put on sports ministry?

Do they do sports ministry at all?

Let me know, leave a comment.

I'm trying to get a feel for what other churches are doing in sports ministry.