Sport and Recreation ministries help Christians stay fit

The Holy Bible lands rock solid in favor of disciplines that promote and encourage Christians to keep their bodies healthy and strong. Many analogies for Christian faith are drawn throughout Scripture from sports, like running the good race of faith and enduring to the finish. 
   
Like first-century Christians, the way 21st-century Christians can use sports to keep themselves fit, is prolific, say recreational ministers.
   
“Fitness is something that we just need to do; we need to be good stewards with our bodies,” said Bobby Butler, minister of recreation/activities at Spring Hill Baptist Church, Mobile. “God has given us wonderful, remarkable bodies. Psalm 139:14 says that we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made.’”
   
According to John Garner, director of recreation and sports ministries for LifeWay Christian Resources, sports and recreation must be an important part of 21st-century church life, not only for its obvious benefit to the health of people, but because it captures the attention of society at large.
   
“Churches are finding [recreation] as a way to touch people who ignore the church because [church] does not mean anything to them.”
   
He said many people view going to church as a “leisure activity,” rather than obedience to the Word of God, so offering sports and recreation is a way to capture their attention.
   
“I believe that we live in a leisure-oriented culture. No longer do people work for food, shelter and clothing. Everybody lives and works for the weekend and the toys they can buy, so their work supports their leisure and for many, that’s the most important part of their life,” Garner said.
   
“Recreation opens doors for evangelizing, discipling and impacting the culture where it really is,” Garner noted.      
   
However, as worthwhile as recreation’s physical benefits are, done poorly, sports and recreation can be sadly lacking.
   
“The church recreation programs that just throw the ball out and say, have fun, have problems, fights; church members are disillusioned and mad at the preacher for doing this,” Garner said.
   
But done with “intentional evangelism,” as Spring Hill Baptist and many other church sports and recreation ministries throughout the state are, the results can have positive results now and eternal effects in heaven.
   
The goals of the recreation ministry need to dovetail the mission statement of the church, Garner said. “The church must have “the Christ distinctive” in everything (including recreation) it does, otherwise, go somewhere else.”
   
Garner, who has worked in sports and recreation at LifeWay for 11 years, said God reached him through sports and recreation ministry.
   
“I became involved because they had something I was interested in that I could do as a teenager,” Garner explained.
   
“If I had just gone up there and played basketball for basketball’s sake, I may have never been saved and called into ministry.
   
But somebody took the time to incorporate [Christianity] intentionally into my life (through sports). The church sports programs that have a plan and work the plan are by and large successful,” he said.
   
Team sports, buildings and equipment are valuable tools, Garner said, emphasizing the word tool. There’s nothing religious about a basketball, its what you do with it that makes the difference,” he said.
   
Putting evidence to the impact of sports evangelism, Garner said that the average number of professions of faith in a Southern Baptist church in a year is five, but that number jumps to 22 among churches that use Upward Basketball.
   
The program is an intentionally evangelistic tool, founded by Upward Unlimited of Spartanburg, S.C., and used in many Baptist churches throughout the convention.
   
The foundation was laid for sports and recreation ministry in Baptist churches in 1937, when T.B. Maston wrote the book, “A Handbook for Church Recreation Leaders.”
   
“The 1920s and 1930s were a rough time financially, so churches began providing more than socials, they began using play and began talking about athletics and swimming,” Garner said.
   
“In the 1920s and 1930s, churches used these as ways to enrich people. The center of the community was church and school.”
   
Then in 1947 Chester Swor spoke to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) about starting a program of recreation.
   
It was 1953 when the Recreation Service began at the SBC, and Agnes Pylant was the first secretary.
Through the years, recreation ministries have changed to include new ways of encouraging fellowship and sports.