Got basketball?
The Filipino community of greater Mobile does, thanks to Mobile Baptist Association.
But what it doesn’t have yet is a church, something that Doug Beck hopes will develop from the fun and games over time.
“God has blessed us with a wonderful relationship with the Filipinos. They come down every Tuesday and Thursday night for basketball practice,” said Beck, director of the association’s International Ministries Center (IMC) in Mobile.
The practices are part of a ministry Mobile Association provides to the local Filipino men and women who come to play basketball — their favorite pastime — at the IMC.
Anywhere between 10 and 50 show up for the practices each Tuesday and Thursday.
In addition, 75 to 125 Filipinos show up for tournaments held on Friday nights.
So two or three times a week for more than a year, “we have been given a unique opportunity to share the gospel with this community,” Beck explained.
He said the Filipinos have a Roman Catholic background and deep respect for spiritual matters but “we also want to make sure that they understand it’s a personal relationship with Christ and a confession of sins (that save you).”
Ariél Semaña, vice president of the Filipino-American Association of Greater Mobile, and his wife, Cecilia, conceptualized and spearheaded the basketball tournaments and later decided to incorporate sharing the gospel story. A devotion and prayer time is held between games.
“We use basketball as a chance to gather together, and there we provide a time for sharing,” Cecilia Semaña said, noting believers are invited to come and share how they met Jesus Christ.
“Then after we share the Word with people, we also have to pray for them so that God will open their hearts and minds to understand Him,” she said.
Currently there are 10 language churches or Bible studies for the more than 40 language groups in Mobile, Beck said, and though the Filipinos have been “a mainstay in Mobile,” theirs is not one of the groups with a church.
His focus is to see this ministry develop into a Filipino-led church so that eventually the people involved in the program can be a part of a “culturally relevant church.”
Basketball is a means of getting this started, and churches in the association like Government Street Baptist, Mobile, are helping the cause along, too, he said.
Government Street Baptist has sought to build relationships with the Filipinos, said Minister of Education Brooks Alexander.
“We have a Christian life center gym and invited them to come play basketball against our church team. The game was followed by fellowship time afterwards,” Alexander said. The church also provides food and holds a devotion at the IMC the first Tuesday of the month.
Such fellowship allows Mobile Baptists to find “men and women of peace that will provide credibility and contacts in the community,” said Thomas Wright, executive director of missions for Mobile Association.
“It has been exciting to watch the Lord answer our prayers and honor the work being done to begin a Filipino congregation in Mobile,” Wright said. “Working through our churches and with our state partners, we intend to provide contextual ministries or congregations to all 42 language/culture groups we have identified so far.”
He and other Mobile Baptists are praying for God to raise up bivocational language pastors to lead the Filipino church and other language groups in need of their own community of faith.
“We are seeking the Lord for … culturally sensitive leadership for each of these congregations,” Wright said.
For more information, contact Beck at 251-433-7953 or imc@mobilebaptists.org.
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