Why Sports Ministry?
The world is enamored with sport. Millions of people worship in stadiums and put athletes on pedestals. From national leagues to international competition, athletes hold positions of prestige worldwide. Athletes need to be reached and discipled to live out and proclaim the message of Christ.
What IS Athletes in Action?
Athletes in Action (AIA) was founded in 1966 as a ministry to collegiate athletes of the student movement of Campus Crusade for Christ International. AIA's first international project was to send a team of Christian wrestlers to Japan where they shared their faith in Christ through competition and via television. The next year, AIA's basketball team played twenty-nine games and spoke to over 50,000 people in live audiences. AIA soon spread to other sports and grew to include nearly 100 universities and thirty-five professional sports teams. Globally, AIA has a presence in eighty-five countries on six continents.
Crime, Murder, Abuse, Racism, Scandal, Corruption; the news tells the depressing and sometimes tragic story of a world that is far from realizing its created purpose.
Many athletes and coaches, once thought to be ideal role models for today’s youth, are swept up in a culture that seems to have abandoned a moral compass for a “win at all cost” mentality.
Sport is a universal language with the powerful ability to shape a culture, heal a nation, break down political, racial and economic barriers and restore national pride. Sport is a language that adults and children around the world understand.
For billions of people, the stadiums of the world serve as houses of worship; where there is a scoreboard, there is a crowd.
In many cultures the performance of an athlete is highly esteemed and gives him or her a national platform of influence. Athletes in Action wants to help build a movement of sport heroes that have a character worth modeling.
AIA uses the universal language of sport to share about the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. If we are successful, the world will be different.
As societies around the world look up to athletes as heroes, they must find those heroes looking up to God!
We can no longer sit on the sidelines as spectators. We must get in the game to win a victory beyond competition, because the game of life counts for eternity.
our ministry
Our ministry involves personal development through mentoring athletes, developing AIA leaders and helping pioneer sport ministry throughout Asia. We also train others in sport ministry and take part in outreaches at major events such as the Olympics, World University Games and Southeast Asian Games.
contact us
phone: 970-412-0678
email: brad.bartz@athletesinaction.org
social media: @xoadriennebartz
webpage: www.athletesinaction.org
donate: give.cru.org/0442260