Chaplaincy ministry started over 25 years ago at JGR as the race team was in its infancy stage. The ministry at Joe Gibbs began with Bob Dyar coming to the shop once a week to minister to the then 17 employees. Much of the ministry began with Bob spending time with employees, building relationships, having “Gospel conversations” and leading a weekly Bible Study. With an emphasis on focusing on the Gospel of Jesus Christ through relational ministry, the ministry at JGR began to grow more and more in fruit and opportunities.
Over the years, as Joe Gibbs Racing has grown to over 600 employees, so has the ministry. We now have a ministry team of six full-time or part-time staff. Ministry consist of weekly Large Group Studies at each of our JGR buildings for each level of racing (Cup, Xfinity and MotoCross). We also have multiple small groups throughout the shop during the week.
It is fun to see all the different types of opportunities that arise from being a daily, embedded presence at the shop. From being there for employees as they face tragedy in their lives, to celebrating career victories or the birth of a child, to doing pre-marriage counseling, to regular conversations that see God take someone from being spiritually disinterested to joining a small group to investigating the claims of Christ. There is a variety of opportunities that arise from chaplaincy at JGR. These are all precious times of being able to share the hope, love, and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
With a chaplaincy team we are able to both encourage one another and be available for more of the personal and spiritual needs of employees and their families. With our team approach, we also have the benefit of evangelizing and discipling guys through multiple influencers. I think of one employee who was spiritually disinterested/agnostic but after the death of someone close to him felt a strong desire to be mad at some greater power. As time went on, he thought maybe there was a god to be mad at. As an employee at JGR, he knew he had resources to explore his questions about life and God. He already had relationships with our chaplains and decided to begin coming to our Wednesday Large Group Bible Study. In this meeting, we try to keep it at a Christianity 101 level where anyone would feel comfortable coming and hearing about the Gospel. Becoming more interested in Christianity, he joined a small group to more intentionally study and discuss Christ and the Scriptures. This has led him to be convinced of the claims of Christ. He has benefited from time and discussions with each of our chaplains in a variety of settings. He is currently at a place of discussing and figuring out what it looks like to follow and submit his life to Christ. It is exciting that these are the types of stories Christ is writing in people’s lives at a race shop in Huntersville, NC.
Men and Women come to work for a race team but through the leadership of Joe Gibbs and many others, they have an opportunity for the course of their lives to be changed by the love of Christ. It is important that we build a culture of disciple-making and the importance of using our gifts for the glory of God and love of our neighbor. One other part of our ministry that I would like to highlight is our emphasis on training and caring for our leadership team. The Leadership Team consist of current small group leaders and other potential leaders in the race shop. Semi-annually we take a month off from small groups to train and spend intentional time with our small group leaders. This is a significant part of our ministry. We want to create a culture built on us investing in our leaders with the love of Christ and biblical training so that they may care for and love the other employees that they work with day in and day out.
We are so thankful for this opportunity to be entrusted with the privilege of serving the employees of JGR with the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Prayer Requests:
- Unity, Wisdom & Discernment for Chaplaincy Team
- Pray for One-On-Ones, Small Group (15 each week) and Large Group Ministry. Pray for Gospel clarity, personal conversions, local church involvement and basic discipleship.
- Small Group Leadership Development. Pray for vision and wisdom as we seek to build up leaders to impact others and this industry with the Gospel.
-Bob Dyar
