Written by Bob Schindler
What does it mean to be gospel centered?
At CEDE SPORTS & REACH, we talk about gospel centered sports, rec, and fitness ministry. This phrase "gospel centered" is used a lot these days and means different things for different people.
To some it means to preach the gospel to the participants in that ministry. To others, it means to be focused on the propositional truths of the gospel and stands in contrast to "Christ-centered." When we use gospel centered, we don't mean either of those ideas. Simply put, from our perspective, to be gospel centered is to:
1. See the gospel as THE STORY God has been telling since the beginning of time, rooted in history with Jesus Christ as the Redeeming Hero of that STORY.
2. To move to integrate all of life - every bit of it - into that STORY.
This means that gospel centered sports rec, and fitness ministry involves - whether is it recruiting coaches, drafting teams, finding instructors, keeping score, spectating games, coaching players, playing the sport, participating in classes, selecting music or in other words whatever is involved in sports, rec, and fitness ministry - and integrating that into the gospel.
Another way of looking at this concept is to ask the following:
1. What is the gospel?
2. What of life does the gospel impact?
If you have a question on this idea, please reach out to our staff team.