7 Ways to Pray for Sports and Recreation Ministries [June Prayer Focus]

TEAM – The Evangelical Alliance Mission • May 31, 2017

There’s a reason your VBS program has a game time: Fun things attract people, even if you make them listen to a lesson first. But sports and recreation ministry is much more than getting people to sit down for a devotional.

When you coach a team, you get to teach discipline from a biblical perspective. When you counsel a camper, you get to pray with them about their struggles. When you organize kayaking trips, you get to spend hours talking about God. Recreation lets people bond in a non-threatening way, which opens incredible doors for the Gospel!

This month, will you pray with us for sports and recreation ministries around the world?

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Pray for safety and health.

Even careful planning and procedures can’t eliminate all risk from sports ministries. Please ask God to prevent injuries and sickness among ministry participants. Photo by TEAM

Some safety and health concerns are expected. If you coach a basketball team or lead campers on a riverside bike ride, you should probably make sure people have appropriate equipment, get proper rest and don’t goof off in a dangerous manner. But as summer weather picks up, missionaries in places like Taiwan are also praying against typhoons that could hit their camp.

Please pray for all of these concerns. Ask God to prevent injuries, even when people are careless. Ask Him to ward off sicknesses. And please pray that all bad weather will pass by recreational ministries without incident.

Pray for deep relationships to form.

The close bond between player and coach allows missionaries like Zach Harrod to create meaningful relationships that point to Christ. Please pray for these friendships to flourish. Photo courtesy of Lukas Machala

A lot of bonding can happen during a week of camp or regular sports practices. When a young player came to football practice with tears in his eyes, his coach , a TEAM missionary, was there to listen to him. The Czech boy shared about his father’s drunken rampage from the night before, and the missionary got to point him to Jesus.

Ask God to help missionaries build deep relationships so their players and campers feel comfortable opening up to them. Pray that this trust will extend to family members, too.

Pray for logistics to run smoothly.

The reason kayaking is such a good ministry for sharing Christ is it creates blocks of time. So I have just hours to talk to people.” – Steve Dresselhaus, TEAM missionary

TEAM missionary Steve Dresselhaus recently had everything perfectly planned for a three-day, Christ-centered, kayaking trip. But he didn’t plan for rain! Sometimes weeks or months of planning can be thrown off by just one detail — bad weather, a lack of staff or visas that don’t come through.

Please ask God to guide missionaries as they plan, so they’ll schedule events at good times and be able to take care of every detail. And pray that when things don’t go as planned, God will still open doors of ministry. Steve didn’t get his full kayaking trip, but his group still spent time together and got to talk about God!

Pray for high morale among staff and participants.

Workers in sports and recreation ministries ask us to pray for positive attitudes and good morale among volunteers and participants. Photo by TEAM

Staying peppy during hot, busy days of summer can be hard as it is. But what if you feel like the devotionals you share are hitting a wall instead of penetrating hearts? What if you’re a homesick camper who just wants to hug his mom? What if you’ve lost so many games this season that you wonder if it’s worth playing?

One of the most common prayer requests among sports and recreation ministries is for morale. Please ask God to give missionaries and those they serve the stamina, patience, joy and wisdom they need to make it through the summer with high spirits. And pray that they will know how to encourage each other when times get tough.

Pray for spiritual growth.

Please pray for the spiritual growth and development of young believers as they interact with recreation ministries this summer. Photo by TEAM

Years ago, TEAM missionary Ron Heinsman asked his Taiwanese camp interns what they would do if a friend asked how to be saved. Several raised their hands, but they all had the same answer: “I’d take them to talk to my pastor.”

Since then, Ron has made a point of teaching his volunteers how to use their personal testimonies to share the Gospel. And now, they’re leading campers to Christ! “Often, these young co-workers are completely surprised that it happened,” Ron says. “They didn’t believe it would.”

Please pray that young believers will grow in their faith as they attend recreational outreaches. Pray that missionaries will see where these believers need guidance and will know how to give it effectively.

Pray for the right staff members for each team.

The right short- and long-term workers can greatly affect a recreation ministry’s success. Please pray for God to call and send more missionaries to help in these ministries. Photo by TEAM

TEAM missionary AJ Westendorp is excited to see how God is working in his football players’ lives, but he doesn’t have time to disciple all of them and do the rest of his work. He prays God will provide a chaplain for this Guatemalan team so that each young man can come to know Christ.

Please ask God to send the right people to each ministry. Pray that short-term volunteers will bond quickly and understand their roles. Pray that long-term roles will be filled by people who are persistent and eager to build deep relationships.

Pray for people to be saved!

Ultimately, the point of any sports and recreation ministry is for people to come to know Jesus. Please pray that many will be saved through these ministries. Photo by TEAM

There’s no doubt that each missionary’s greatest hope is to see people come to know Jesus! Some missionaries have shared the Gospel with the same people many times, and they’re just waiting for a breakthrough. Others hope that after they’ve shared the Gospel with campers, they’ll get to share it with the kids’ parents.

Please pray for missionaries around the world as they share the Good News of Jesus. Pray that God’s Spirit will soften hearts and open eyes. Pray that this summer — and this year — many people will come to know Jesus as Lord!

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Bridging Dissonance: Finding Connection in Music and the Gospel

By Emily Sheddan • 18 Jul, 2024

TEAM worker Luke Standridge and his fellow musicians use music to build connections to faith in Japan. In music terms, dissonance creates movement or even suspense in a song. It invites tension. That tension is what helps grab our ear’s attention and the interchanging of these notes with pleasant melodious parts is what makes music such a delight. In a similar way, God is using music to grab people’s attention and catalyze Gospel impact in the largely unreached nation of Japan. TEAM Global Worker, Luke Standridge moved to Japan in 2019 with no clear direction on how he was going to use his passion for composing music while doing ministry. However, after Luke got involved with a local church and began developing deep friendships, the Lord opened unimaginable doors for Luke that in time, coordinating his creative skills with sharing the Word. “People Need to Come to Japan!” Growing up as one of ten kids in a family that was heavily involved in ministry and missions, Luke never considered that it would one day be a part of his own journey. In 2016, via a Japanese language learning class in Indiana, Luke and his brother had the opportunity to travel to Japan. Hearing, learning, and using the language in the context of Japanese culture was the goal. While it was Luke’s first international trip – even his first trip on a plane - it was also his first time hearing about the spiritual condition of the Japanese people. “And just through that, God did a huge 180 change on my heart,” says Luke. “More people should come here as global workers. People need to come to Japan!” The call God was laying on Luke’s heart is echoed when looking at the spiritual landscape of Japan. The nation is home to the second largest unreached people group in the world. It is one of the most difficult places for the Gospel to take hold and grow. Japan is also home to a deep and rich culture that prizes creative arts from pottery to ink to music to anime – a fact that would help Luke find his niche in life and ministry. God’s Guiding Hand In the short three-month timespan of that first trip, Luke found that opportunities came naturally to share about life, and people’s curiosity for Christianity grew. “I left Japan knowing I just had to come back,” Luke shares. “Even if I didn’t get back to the same area, I knew Japan was where God wanted me to be.” The Lord is good all the time and all the time the Lord is good. His plans do not fail. Luke returned to Japan in 2019, and less than a week after arriving, he was put in touch with a renowned composer in Japan. The composer saw some of Luke’s music and invited him to help write the music for a beloved in-country animated show. But God wasn’t finished yet! Fast forward a year, and more connections and opportunities allowed Luke to help with music for Pokémon - a franchise that has brand recognition around the world and was being developed into a TV series in Japan. Luke recalls how the Lord began using these connections in the production world to open doors for Gospel conversations. One night while having dinner in downtown Tokyo with famous artists and composers from all around the country, Luke was asked about his ministry-focused visa. This was a rare opportunity in a setting with people otherwise uninterested in Christianity. Luke shares, “The whole time I could see God’s hand in guiding the entire thing.”

Connecting in a New Kind of “Neighborhood”

By Lorena de la Rosa and Suzanne Pearson • 13 Jun, 2024

Through creative arts and other forms of innovative outreach, “The Neighborhood” is creating connections to the Gospel and the love of Jesus. CONNECTION. It’s a common word with powerful implications. Dictionary.com defines connection as a joining or linking together; a relationship between people or objects that unites or binds them together. God has created each of us with a deep need for connection with Him as well as connection with others. Hebrews 10:24-25 speaks to this, as the writer exhorts, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” This God-given need for connection lies at the heart of a creative and innovative ministry in Japan known as “The Neighborhood.” TEAM Japan global worker, Kelly and her family created The Neighborhood as a place where connections are formed through creative arts, educational opportunities, and simply just providing a space for people to be together. A Family Calling The journey to the creation of The Neighborhood began over 5,000 miles away from Tokyo, in California where Kelly, her husband Jeff, and their five children were living. The kids were the first to sense God’s calling to missions, and asked why their family wasn’t serving in this way. How Kelly and her family came to TEAM is a God-story in and of itself. “God placed a TEAM Japan worker at our lunch table the same week that the kids posed that question to us,” Kelly recalls. “We had never heard of TEAM and so we thought, ‘let’s check this out.’ After that, God just kept confirming that we were supposed to be here.” After a period of fundraising and with much excitement, the family of seven moved to Japan in 2014. For the first five years, Kelly and Jeff served as a part of other TEAM ministry initiatives, but they began to sense a stirring for something new. Creating The Neighborhood Kelly and her family truly have a deep gift for hospitality, and regularly opened up their home to others they met in Tokyo. They saw a great need for people to have a place to gather and connect, and they wondered what doors the Lord might be opening for them to meet that need. “About a year before we were to return the States on home assignment, we were just really thinking about our future in Japan,” Kelly says. “We saw a need for people to have a ‘third place’ – a place that’s not home and it’s not work. They didn’t have a church community or any other place where they could meet people and just connect.” Kelly goes on to explain that in Japan, the culture is such that people don’t generally invite each other into their homes, but as her family did so, people embraced that opportunity. “This idea formed in all of our hearts of a student ministry center – a place where we can create community and learning,” says Kelly. “It was born out of what we were already doing in our home, but seeing how we could expand it and have better space.” God’s Provision What happened next is a true testament to God’s provision. Kelly, Jeff, and the kids returned to the States and began sharing their vision for The Neighborhood with their supporters and churches who responded generously. Upon returning to Japan, the search was on for the right space. “We had a Christian realtor that we told our dream to, and he just went looking for it,” Kelly recalls. When the realtor found a 5-story apartment building, he said, “It’s kind of out of your budget but it has what you need and want.” The Lord provided the funds and the family moved into the space in November 2019. They now occupy all but the ground floor, with living space for their family as well as classrooms, areas to study or hang out, and guest rooms for exchange students or others who need a place to stay overnight. The first floor is occupied by a pizza shop – a welcome amenity for the many groups and students who visit The Neighborhood. “It’s very convenient!” Kelly says with a laugh. The Neighborhood began to see lots of activity right away until the pandemic hit in early 2020. During the height of the quarantine, Kelly and Jeff used the time to redecorate the space and plant gardens outside the building. Then as the restrictions eased, they invited individual students or families over for meals and fellowship. It wasn’t until March 2023 that The Neighborhood was able to fully open again as intended. Kelly shares that despite the setbacks of COVID, the Lord continued to provide the funds to pay the rent.