Guest post by Jason Miller
We’ve all heard it used before as an excuse to act a certain way…”I was drunk.”
Well, nothing that comes out of the mouth of a drunk wasn’t already there. Many times what we see from people is not the “real” issue. It’s just the spewing out of all the crap inside. This is just another reason why Sports Ministry is so vital to refining a person towards holiness.
People go to church every week and they listen to the preacher. They take their communion, they sing the songs, they pray, and they even nod in agreement once in a while. Those same people could be a mess on the inside. We all have “dirt” in our lives, much of which most people would be ashamed to admit, and we’ve come up with the perfect plan. If we can hide our “issues” from people…tuck them way down deep inside of us…we can stay comfortable. There’s a part of us that hopes they’ll just go away. We claim things like, “That’s personal” or “That’s between me and God”. We also believe that since we have paid attention to some of the other “dirt” in our lives (most of the time it’s the “dirt” that most people wouldn’t care about or that isn’t “really” bad) that we’re doing ok, or that we’re strengthening our relationship with God. So, we walk around with masks that are so lifelike that it’s hard to tell the real person apart from whatever image we want people to see.
So then, how do these “issues” ever get dealt with? We have two options. Either we clean our heart or we try effortlessly to not get drunk. The second option is obviously the easiest and most painless. However, that same option cannot work. The junk continues to pile up and pile up until inevitably one day, all the junk starts to overflow out of us. Ahhh…that’s where the beauty of Sports Ministry comes into play. You see, God doesn’t want us to not get drunk (please understand that I’m using this phrase figuratively). He doesn’t want us to avoid the “real” issues, and just remove ourselves from that which will ultimately lead to our perfection. He wants us to deal with it…head on.
Church services and fellowship gatherings just don’t provide the avenue for people to “puke” out their issues. Sports, however, have the ability to bring out the best and worst in people. However, if we leave it at that and only focus on the sports aspect, then people are left where they’re at and are no more refined than when they started.
As Sports Ministers, we have a very high calling to usher people into the kingdom of God, to refine people (as iron sharpening iron) until they are able to break free from the chains that these “issues” have them in bondage to, and to disciple people into a mature relationship with Jesus Christ. Our responsibility doesn’t stop there. We are to then equip people to go and do the same thing.
I would challenge all of us as Sports Ministers to examine ourselves and what we do. If we discover that we have created an atmosphere that allows our people to “not get drunk”, that doesn’t challenge them to deal with the heart issues of their lives, then we need to rethink our purpose. Why are we doing what we do? Anyone can gather a group of people to play a sport. There’s nothing special about that. What sets a Sports Minister apart is his/her ability to gather a group of people to meet Jesus through playing a sport. The two are vastly different…incredibly misunderstood…yet Sports Ministry may be the most effective way to impact people for Jesus Christ.
Now…picture the revival if churches everywhere “got it”! Millions of people all over the world, who couldn’t be “reached” any other way, would meet Jesus face to face. Wow! I can only imagine…
