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University of the Nations

INSTEAD OF COACHING sportsmen to score goals, strong man Kevin Stark now trains them how to save souls. 

        The former Olympic coach runs a special sports camp for 
Christian athletes and coaches who want to use their skills as a 
passport for taking the gospel to parts of the world closed to 
traditional missionary activity. 

        Sports camps, clinics, demonstrations and tours by visiting 
teams provide great opportunities for witnessing about Christianity through how athletes compete as much as what they say, believes the founder of Youth With A Mission's School of Sports Ministry. 

        "You can go into almost any country and, if you have say a 
basketball or a soccer ball, within an hour be involved in ministry with young people," he says. "It's been estimated that 80 per cent of the world watches or participates in sport - over two billion people watched the last soccer world championship. 

        "Sport opens a door, it crosses all political, religious and 
social boundaries, so that on the court or the field you can develop a relationship through which it's possible to share the gospel." 

        During their three months study at YWAM's training center in 
Lakeside, Montana - where the next sports school begins in September - participants learn about how to keep spiritually fit,  as well as all the practical details of organizing and running evangelistic sports programs in local churches and as missionary outreaches. 

        After the classroom phase, students have the opportunity to 
apply what they have learned through a nine-month internship at 
one of several YWAM ministry centers around the world. 

                Previous courses have included basketball, soccer, volleyball and rugby players, as well as rowers and weight lifters. While women are welcome, most applicants tend to be male. "It seems to be a key way to mobilize guys for missions," says Stark, a strength training and fitness specialist. 

        Coach at the University of New Mexico for six years, he then worked at a top gym in Hong Kong for two years, where he helped prepare athletes for Olympic and Asian Games competition. He joined YWAM five years ago to pass on what he had learned to 
others. 

        The training school is part of Stark's Sports Excellence program, which also features an outreach project that takes Christian athletes and players on overseas tours. "We play hard, but with integrity. We try to model Christ through our lives, so people see that we play differently from others. That can be hard sometimes when you have to keep turning the other cheek." 

        Stark also features as part of Team Extreme, a group which 
presents the gospel through feats of strength - such as ripping 
telephone directories in half and breaking piles of bricks with bare hands. 

        While individual sports and skills can draw a crowd, team 
sports can be more effective because they involve greater numbers, he says. 

        "One time a Christian soccer team went to Java to work with a tribal group that had been really resistant to any outside religion. Through playing in a tournament they got to befriend some of the group, and one of the players came to Christ - followed then by almost the whole tribe." 

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