“Was there competition in the Garden before the Fall? Will there be competition in Heaven?” – crucial questions for Sports Ministers to clearly and convincingly answer.
If there wasn’t competition in Garden until the Fall, then sanctification – the process God takes all followers of Jesus Christ through to make them more and more like him – would move us toward the progressive removal of all competition as a follower matures. If this is the goal, Sports Ministers involved in this sanctification process would be working themselves out of a job or would abandon the process completely out of self-preservation.
But if competition existed in the Garden before the Fall and will exist in Heaven, then sanctification is not about removing but redeeming competition. It is about raising competition from the worldly ways it has sunk to and restoring it to God’s design. The Sport Minister who sees competition this way enters into this world of competition to fulfill of his or her calling to equip people to bring glory to God in this “heart exposing” realm of life called competition.
Do you have clear and convincing convictions about these questions about the origin of competition? If you see competition as something good and a part of God’s design, do you have clear in your mind how to equip others to do their competition for God’s glory rather than their own? I hope so.
If not, check out the CSO Leadership Center Class – Theology of Competition where these and other issues like this are discussed in creative and conviction developing ways.
