Cede Sports, formerly The Sports Outreach Group, was born out of a need to provide a sports ministry built upon relational outreach. Bob Dyar founded the ministry after recognizing a gap which existed with both churches and sports chaplains: the lack of access to relational models of ministry to meet people where they are.
We believe sports opens the door, but to make a long-term impact, we must be a part of people’s lives. We demonstrate our faith through day-to-day living and doing, not simply telling.
Our history includes name changes, new staff and over 20 years of growth. However, our vision to mobilize churches and chaplains has remained constant. Our hope will always be to see God continue to use the universal language of sports to reach others for his glory.
1996
Sports Outreach is born
Cede Sports, known then as Carolina Sports Outreach (CSO), was born in Charlotte, NC in response to a need to equip churches and chaplains to minister through the language of sports. These two areas were selected as a result of the experience of the founder of Cede Sports, Bob Dyar.
1999
Expansion into other states
Opportunities arose to assist beyond the Carolina borders into Georgia, Florida and Virginia. As a result of the ministry’s growth, Carolina Sports Outreach changed it’s name to Sports Outreach Group (SOG) and created a new churches centric division called Church Sports Outreach (CSO).
2003
Staff growth
CSO invited Bob Schindler, former pastor and sports minister from Tennessee, to join the team to keep up with the demand to build resources and educational materials for churches and chaplains.
2007
We went international
This year marked the first international emphasis of the ministry. Bob Dyar and Bob Schindler took trips to Africa – Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe – and Asia – Vietnam, China, Thailand – where they trained hundreds of leaders that continue to train churches using sports to impact their countries.
2010
Chaplain outreach growth
The chaplain centric ministry, also known as The Sports Chaplains Network (SCN) continued to expand at Joe Gibbs Racing where Bob Dyar was also serving as a chaplain. SCN grew to five sports chaplains working with as many as 600 families and over 20 small groups each week at the…
2016
Why we changed the name
As result of the continued growth of the ministries amongst churches and chaplains worldwide, it was determined that a new name be put in place to represent the meaning of the group’s mission. The word Cede was selected which means to yield or submit. SOG is now known as Cede…