By: Aubrey Coleman
As a freshman in college, I had little interest in anything spiritual. College felt like an opportunity to break away from my churched upbringing and live a different way. I avoided church on Sundays and ignored campus signs pointing to the current ministry events. Instead, I spent my time focused on studying for school, going out to the bars with my roommates, and playing intramural flag football with some girls from my dorm. While I was purposely positioning myself away from God and anything related to Him… He came and found me, instead.
I got to know the girls on my flag football team pretty well over the semester and after our games and practices ended, we would usually grab a meal together. As the season neared an end, I remember some of the girls on my team beginning to ask deeper questions like, "So, what are your religious beliefs?", "Have you ever been to church?", or sometimes even bluntly, "What do you believe about God?" I would typically answer generally and vaguely to not offend anyone, but also to avoid committing to beliefs I still was not sure about. Though the questions felt intense at times, I genuinely enjoyed my friendships with the girls and even continued to hang out with them after the season ended.
One day, a girl named Lindsey who I'd become close with from the team invited me to breakfast and asked if she could share what she had been reading in the Bible with me. I reluctantly agreed and joined her. She opened up and shared about her upbringing and how she became a Christian. She then opened up her Bible and read Romans 6:23 which says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Next, she pulled out a napkin and began to interpret the passage by drawing out a diagram showing how our sin separates us from God, but because of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, we are offered the gift of salvation, for our sin to be paid for in order to bring us near to God forever. I remember thinking I was hearing something brand new. I was in Sunday school and church every morning growing up and yet, this news struck me differently this time. "This is the gospel," she said as she smiled, "what do you think about it?" I didn't really know what to say, but I knew I wanted to learn more so, I asked if we could keep reading the Bible together.
Weeks passed and every time I opened up God's Word it hit me like a fresh breeze. I was seeing and savoring God in a way I had never known. I was realizing that life with God is all about knowing Him and not simply just claiming to be associated with Him. The greatest thing that held me back was the question of my past. I believed I had run too far from God or fallen too far from His grace. How could He receive me as His own after all I'd done? My friend texted me a verse to look up. There in my dorm room, I read aloud 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!" I cried with relief and joy and I knew I wanted to follow Jesus.
Little did I know the girls who started the flag football team were part of a Campus Ministry called Campus Outreach. They started the team with the hope and prayers of meeting someone just like me to share the gospel with. God used an ordinary flag football team as a vessel for ushering the truth of the gospel into my heart through the relationships I'd formed with my teammates. As a response, I grew hungry for God's Word and discipleship and I invested my college years in the local church and college ministry. I graduated and went on to study Biblical Counseling for two years to deepen my understanding of God. As years have passed, I have grown a deep love for the local church, discipleship, and the mission of the gospel. Though I am flawed and still learning, my life is hidden in the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is my purpose and my prize. I never knew joining that flag football team would change my life forever.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news to a world of broken and searching people. Sometimes it seems challenging to meet people where they are and build trusting relationships to create evangelistic opportunities. But the beauty of sports is that it provides common ground and a universal language. It can break down barriers of ethnic, social, and economic lines to unite people on a team. It provides a unique opportunity to level the playing field and share the truth of the gospel. Through those very means, God changed my life, and He is changing lives all over the world through sports, recreation, and fitness ministry.
